
^=^2^n^<^n. : ^A.t/riJtJ /c-V ^.^'Mau^rna^. a/n^y/ne efAel t^yrcAUet7*'ui,M''22. 



\ 



0% 



y 





ELEGANT EFISTLES 



/ 



A COPIOUS COLLECTION 



OF 

FAMILIAR AND AMUSING LETTERS, 

SELECTED FOR THE 

IMPROVEMENT OF YOUNG PERSONS, 

AND FOR 

GENERAL ENTERTAINMENT, 



CICERO, 


POPE, 


LUXBOROUGH, 


RICHARDSON, 


PLINY, 


SWIFT, 


WEST, 


YOUNG, 


SYDNEY, 


ADDISON, 


STERNE, 


LADY M. W. MONTAGUE 


BACON, 


STEELE, 


CHATHAiM, 


ELIZABETH MONTAGU, 


RALEIGH, 


ARBUTHNOT, 


JOHNSON, 


SEWARD, 


HOWEL, 


GAY, 


LYTTLETON, 


WARBURTON, 


RUSSELL, 


ATTERBURY, 


CHESTERFIELD, 


HURD, 


CLARENDON, 


TILLOTSON, 


GIBBON. 


FOX, 


TEMPLE, 


SHENSTONE, 


COWPER, 


WALPOLE,. 


LOCKE, 


SOMERSET, 


BEATTIE, 


FRANKLIN, 


SHAFTESBURY, 


GRAY, 


JONES, 


AND OTHERS. 



Absentes adsunt. — Cic. 
A NEW EDITION, CORRECTED AND IMPROVED. 



LONDON: 

Printed for F. C. and J, Rivington ; J. Nunn ; J. Cuthell ; J. and W. T. Clarke ; T. Cadell ; J. Scatcherd ; Longman 
and Co.; Lackington and Co. ; Boosey and Sons ; J. and A. Arch; John Richardson ; J.M.Richardson; E. Coy; 
Newman and Co.; Lloyd and Son; J. Booker; S. Bagster; Harvey and Darton; Black, Kingsbury, and Co.; 
W. Baynes and Son; E.Williams; W. Stewart; J. Mawman ; H.T.Hodgson; J. Booth; Hatchard and Son; 
W. GiLger; R. Scholey; T. Tegg; Baldwin and Co.; Sherwood and Co.; Taylor and Hessey; J. Bohn ; 
R. Saunders; C. Brown; W.Mason; Ogle and Co.; T.Hamilton; J.Robinson; G. and W. B. WTiittaker; 
Edwards and Knibb; J. Collingwood; Cowie and Co.; Simpkin and Marshall; G. Mackie; T. Hughes; 
R. Hill ; J. Arnould; J. Hearne ; C. Taylor ; Wilson and Sons, York; and Stirling and Slade, Edinburgh. 

Frinted hy Charles Wood, Poppins Court, Fleet Street. 
1822. 



rR 






Mc 



Library of Congross 
By tranefor from 
State Department. 
MAY 3 1 1327 



P R E F A C E, 



The following Collection of Letters is a part of a design, which the Editor had 
formed, to select and publish, in large volumes, such compositions, both in 
verse and prose, as he judged might be useful to young persons, by conducing 
to their improvement in their own language, while they were cultivating an 
acquaintance with the ancients, and pursuing all other accomplishments of a 
liberal education. 

The first two parts of his plan, Elegant Extracts in Prose and Poetry, already 
published, and repeatedly printed, have been received with a degree of favour, 
which evinces that the preconceived idea of their utility has been amply con- 
firmed by the decisions of experience. 

Animated by their good reception, the Editor determined to proceed in his 
design, and to add, in a similar volume, a copious Collection of Letters. It 
occurred to him, that no literary exercise is in such constant request as Letter- 
writing. All are not to be Poets, Orators, or Historians ; but all, at least above 
the lowest rank, are to be sometimes Letter-writers. The daily intercourse of 
common life cannot be duly preserved without this mode of communication. 
That much pleasure, and much advantage, of various kinds, is derived from it, 
is obvious and incontestable. Every emergence furnishes occasion for it. It 
is necessary to friendship, and to love ; to interest, and to ambition. In every 
pureuit, and in every department of polished life, to write Letters is an indis- 
pensable requisite; and to write them well, a powerful recommendation. By 
epistolary correspondence the most important business, commercial, political, 
and private, is usually transacted. Who is there, who at some period of his 
life, finds it not of consequence to him to draw up an address with propriety, 
to narrate an event, to describe a character faithfully, or to write letters of 
compliment, condolence, or congratulation ? Many natives of this country 
spend their youth in foreign climes. How greatly does it contribute to raise 
their characters at home, when they are able to write correct and judicious 
letters to their relations, their friends, their patrons, and their employers ? A 
clear, a discreet, and an elegant letter, establishes their character in their native 
country, while perhaps their persons are at the distance of the antipodes, raises 
esteem among all who read it, and often lays a foundation for future emi- 
nence. It goes before them, like a pioneer, and smooths the road, and levels 
the hill that leads up to honour and to fortune. 

Add to these considerations, that, as an easy exercise to improve the style, 
and prepare for that composition, which several of the professions require, no- 

a 2 



IV 



PREFACE. 



thing is more advantageous than the practice of Letter-writing at an 
early age. 

In every view of the subject, Letter-writing appeared to the Editor so useful 
and important, that he thought he could not render a more acceptable service 
to young students than to present them with a great variety of epistolary 
MODELS, comprised^ for their more convenient use, in one capacious volume. 
Models in art are certainly more instructive than rules; as examples in life are 
more efficacious than precepts. Rules, indeed, for Letter-writing, of which 
there is a great abundance, appear to be little more than the idle effusions of 
pedantry ; the superfluous inventions of ingenuity misemployed. The Letters, 
which the writers of rules have given as examples for imitation, are often no- 
thing more than mere centos in the expression, and servile copies in the senti- 
ments. They have nothing in them of the healthy hue and lively vigour of 
nature. They resemble puny plants raised in a clime ungenial, by the 
gardener's incessant labour, yet possessing, after all, neither beauty, flavour, 
noT stamina for duration. 

The few rules necessary in the art, as it is called, of Letter-writing, are 
such as will always be prescribed to itself by a competent share of common 
sense, duly informed by a common education. A regard must always be 
shewn to time, place, and person. He, who has good sense, will of course 
observe these things; and he who has it not will not learn to observe them by 
the rules of rhetoricians. But to assist invention and to promote order, it 
may be sometimes expedient to make, in the mind, a division of a Letter into 
three parts, the Aristotelian beginning, middle, and end : or, in other words, 
into the exordium or introduction, the statement, proposition, or narrative, 
and the conclusion. 

The exordium or introduction should be employed, not indeed with the for- 
mality of rhetoric, but with the ease of natural politeness and benevolence, in 
conciliating esteem, favour, and attention; the proposition or narrative, in 
stating the business with clearness and precision; the conclusion, in confirming 
what has been premised, in making apologies, in extenuating offence, and in 
cordial expressions of respect and affection ; but is there any thing in these 
precepts not already obvious to common sense ? 

As to the epistolary style, of which so much has been said, those who wish 
to confine it to the easy and familiar have formed too narrow ideas of epistolary 
composition. The Epistle admits every subject: and every subject has its 
appropriate style. Ease is not to be confounded with negligence. In the 
most familiar Letter on the commonest subject an Attic neatness is required. 
Ease in writing, like ease in dress, notwithstanding all its charms, is but too 
apt to degenerate to the carelessness of the sloven. In the daily attire of a 
gentleman, gold lace may not be requisite ; but rags or filth are not to be 
borne. In the face, paint is not to be approved ; but cleanliness cannot be 
neglected, without occasioning still greater disgust than rouge and ceruse. 
That epistolary style is clearly the best, whether easy or elaborate, simple or 



PREFACE. V 

adorned, which is best adapted to the subject, to time, to place, and to person . 
which upon grave and momentous topics is solemn and dignified; on common 
themes, terse, easy, and only not careless ; on little and trifling niatters, gay, 
airy, lively, and facetious; on jocular subjects, sparkling and humorous; in 
formal and complimentary addresses, embellished with rhetorical figures, and 
finished with polished periods; in persuasion, bland, insinuating, and ardent; 
in exhortation, serious and sententious; on prosperous affairs, open and joyous; 
on adverse, pensive and tender. A different style is often necessary on the 
same topics, to old people and to young; to men and to women; to rich and 
to poor; to the great and to the little; to scholars and to the illiterate; to 
strangers and to familiar companions. And thus indeed might one proceed to 
great extent, with all the parade ©f precept; but though this, and much more 
that might be repeated, may be certainly true, yet it is all sufficiently obvious 
to that COMMON SENSE, whose claims ought at all times to be asserted against 
the encroachments of pedantic tyranny*. 

A good understanding, as it has been already observed^ improved by reading 
the best writers, by accurate observation of men and manners, and, above all, 
by use and practice^ will be sufficient to form an accomplished Letter-writer, 
without restraining the vigour of his genius, and the flights of his fancy, by a 
rigid observance of the line and rule. The best Letters, and indeed the best 
compositions of every kind, were produced before the boasted rules to teach 
how to write them were written or invented. The rules prescribed by critics 
for writing Letters are so minute and particular as to remind one of the recipes 
in Hannah Glasse's Cookery. They pretend to teach how to express thoughts 
on paper with a mechanical process, similar to that in which the culinary 
authoress instructs her disciples in the composition of a minced-pie. 

It is indeed a remark confirmed by long experience, that merchants, men 
of business, and particularly the ladies, who have never read, or even heard of 
the rules of an Erasmus, a Vives, a Melchior Junius, or a Lipsius, write 
Letters with admirable ease, perspicuity, propriety, and elegance ; far better, 

* The writers on the Epistolary Art divide Episdes into various kinds : 

EPISTOLJE SUNT, 

Commendatitia — Communicatoria — Cohortatoria, — quo pertinent Suasorits, DissuasoricE — Peti- 
toria — Consolatoria — Officios^ — Conciliatoria — MandatoricB — Gratulatoria — Laudator ia — 
JReprehensoria — Gratiarum actiones — Nuncupatoria sen Dedicatorie — Accusatoria seu Expos- 
tulat&riiB — Querula et Indignatoria — ComminatoricE — Nunciatorice — DenunciatoricB — Jocosce. 

But these distinctions display more of ostentation than they furnish of utility. Every man 
of sense must know the tendency of his Letter, from which it takes its technical name, 
though he may not have heard the rhetorician's appellation of it. To persons, however, wha 
read with a critical eye, it may not be unpleasant to class letters under some of the titles in 
the above table, which it would be easy to enlarge. 

I refer the reader, who is curious to learn what critics have written on the art of writing 
letters, to Erasmus's very ingenious treatise, " De conscribendis EplstoUs" where he will 
find much to entertain him. The genius of Erasmus diffuses a sunshine over the dreary 
fields of didactic information. 



vi PREFACE. 

in every respect, than some of the most celebrated dictators of rules to teach 
that epistolary correspondence, which themselves could never successfully 
practise. The learned Manutius, who had studied every rule, used to employ 
a month in writing a Letter of moderate length, which many an English lady 
could surpass in an hour. 

It may not be improper in this place to mention, for the honour of the 
ladies, that, according to learned authors, the very first Letter ever written 
was written by a lady. Clemens Alexandrinus^ and Tatian also, who copies 
from Hellanicus the historian*, expressly affirm, that the first epistle ever 
composed was the production of Atossa, a Persian empress. The learned 
Dodwell, as well as others, controverts the fact ; and many suppose, that the 
Letter which Homer's Prsetus gave to Bellerophon, as well as that which 
David sent to accomplish the death of Uriah, preceded the Letter of Atossa. 
Without entering into a chronological discussion, one may assert the proba- 
bility, that a lady was the first writer of Letters ; as ladies have, in modern 
times, displayed peculiar grace and spirit in epistolary correspondence. Dod- 
well's opinion required not the learning of Dodwell to support it, when he 
supposes that epistles were written, in some form or other, as soon as the art of 
marking thoughts by written signs was discovered and divulged. 

But instead of dwelling any longer on topics, either obvious of themselves, 
or rather curious than useful, it is more expedient to inform the Reader what 
he is to expect in the subsequent volume. 

The First Book in the Collection is formed from the Letters of Cicero and 
Pliny. To attempt to raise their characters by praises at this period, after 
the world has agreed in the admiration of them near two thousand years, 
would be no less superfluous than to pronounce an eulogium on the sun, or to 
describe the beauties of the rainbow. From them a few of their most enter- 
taining Letters, and such as have a reference to familiar life, have been prin- 
cipally selected ; and there is little doubt, but that an attentive student, not 
deficient in ability, may catch, from the perusal of what is here inserted, much 
of their politeness, both of sentiment and expression. If he possesses taste, 
he must be entertained by them. It is but justice to add, that great praise is 
due to the translator, whose polished understanding seems to have assimilated 
the grace of his celebrated originals. 

The next Book consists of Letters from many great and distinguished per- 
sons of our own nation, written at an early period of English literature. 

The correspondence of the Sydney family forms one part of it. To the 
generality of readers this will be new and curious, as it was never published but 
in expensive folios. The Sydney family appear to have been, in their time, 
the most enlightened, polished, and virtuous, which the nation could boast. 
Many of their Letters are written in a strong, a nervous, and, in many respects, 
an excellent style for the age ; and all that are here selected may be considered 

* E7ri<7ToAaf crmruffauv sfeu^Ei; y, Utgau), wore r,yriaa[xm) yui/7,, Ka^Knt^ <pn(nv 'EKKccviHog, AT05-<r« 

h 'jvo/j.u Kuiyj )ji/. Tatian. Oiat. contra Graecos. 



PREFACE. vii 

as curiosities, furnishing noatter for speculation on the language and customs of 
persons in high rank, at the period in which they were composed. It is a 
recommendation of them, that they are genuine Family Letters, not studiously 
laboured, like those of professed Wits and Letter- writers, but written in perfect 
confidence, and without the least idea of their future publication. But as old 
language is certainly not a model for young students in the present day, it 
must be remembered, that this compilation professes, in its title page, to be 
designed for general entertainment, as well as for the perusal and im- 
provement of those who are in the course of their education. 

The Letters of the celebrated Howel*, which form another considerable 
portion of the Second Book, cannot fail of affording, in addition to the in- 
struction of the student, much amusement to the more advanced reader, who 
inspects the volume merely to pass away his vacant hours, Howers Letters 
were, at one time, extremely popular. They have passed through many 
editions. Their wit, vivacity, and frankness, render them more pleasing than 
many more modern and more exact compositions. Several celebrated Collec- 
tions of Letters, more correct and finished, have in them less wit, less fire, 
less spirit, fewer ideas, and scantier information. 

Lady Rachel Russell's Letters are inserted in the Second Book, and must 
be allowed to constitute a very useful and ornamental part of it. They have 
been much admired by persons of taste and sensibility, both for their thoughts 
and their diction. Piety and conjugal affection, expressed in language, con- 
sidering the time of its composition, so pure and proper, cannot but afford 
a fine example to the female aspirants after delicacy, virtue, taste, and what- 
ever is excellent and laudable in the wife, the widow, and the mother. Such 
patterns in high life cannot fail of becoming beneficial in proportion as they 
are more known and better observed. 

The very names indeed of those, whose Letters furnish this and the remain- 
ing Books, are of themselves a sufficient recommendation of them. To dwell 
on the character and excellencies of each would be to abuse the Reader's 
patience. Most of them are of that exalted and established rank, which 
praise cannot now elevate, nor censure degrade. It is proper to remark, that 
a very considerable number of Letters recently published have now been added 

* The following is the opinion of Morhof, a learned critic, concerning the Letters of Howel, 
which were first published in 1645 : — 

'* Non debent hie quoque omitti Jacobi Howel, Equitis Angli, et Secretarii Regii, Epis- 
tola familiares . . . Mixta hie sunt negotiis civilibus literaria, magnaque ilia rarissimarum rerum 
varietas mirifice legentem delecfat. Agitur hie de rebus Anglicis, Gallicis, Italicis, Germanicis, 
Hispanicis, Belgicis, Danicis, Suecicis, undfe multa ad historiam eorum temporum observari 
possunt. Insperguntur nonnunquam poetici sales et facetiae. Physica et medica non omit- 
tuntur. De rebus literariis disquiritur. Historiae rariores narrantur. Characteres et linea- 
menta virorum illustrium et doctorum, tam in Anglia, quam in aliis locis, ab illo proponuntur. 
Elucet denique ex stylo varia et elegans eruditio. . . Infinita propemodum hie occurrunt ob- 
servatione dignissima. Quare opera pretium faceret, qui has Epistolas in linguam vel Lati- 
nam vel Germanicam converteret.— Polyhist. Lit., lib. ii, cap, 24. 



viii PREFACE. 

from authors of great celebrity; and to keep the volume within a convenient 
size, many have been omitted of less interest, that appeared in the last 
edition. 

Since, then, the writers of these Letters are able to speak so powerfully for 
themselves, why should the Reader be detained by a longer Preface from 
better entertainment ? Things intrinsically good will be duly appreciated by 
a discerning Public, and require not the ostentatious display of a florid enco- 
mium. If the Letters here selected were the Letters of obscure men and 
women, a recommendatory introduction might be necessary to their ready 
admission ; but they are the Letters of persons high in rank, high in fame, 
high in every quality which can excite and reward the attention of a nation, 
of which most of them have been at once the ornaments and the luminaries. 
Here indeed, like the setting sun, they shine with a softer radiance than in 
their more studied works; retaining, however, their beauty and magnitude 
undiminished, though their meridian fervour is abated. Associated in this 
Compilation, they unite their orbs, and form a galaxy : they charm with a 
mild, diffusive light; though they may not dazzle, as in their greater works, 
with a noon-day splendour. 

But it is time to conclude, since to proceed in recommending those, who 
recommend themselves, is but an officious ceremony : yet the Editor, before 
he withdraws himself, begs leave to ask the Reader one question : Would 
he not think it a pleasure and a happiness, beyond the power of adequate 
estimation, to be able to sit down, whenever he pleases, and enjoy, at his fire- 
side, the conversation of Cicero and Pliny, of the noble Sydneys, of the lively 
Howel, of Pope, of Johnson, of Franklin, of Fox, of Cowper, and of all 
the other illustrious and excellent persons, whose familiar and unstudied 
Letters fill the volume before him ? That pleasure, and that happiness, how- 
ever great, he may here actually obtain, in as great perfection as is now pos- 
sible, since death has silenced their eloquent tongues. By a very slight effort 
of imagination he may suppose himself, while he revolves these pages, in the 
midst of the intelligent, cheerful, social circle; and when satisfied with the 
familiar conversation of one, turn to another, equally excellent and enter- 
taining in his way, though on a different subject, and in a diversified style. 
Happy intercourse, exempt from care, from strife, from envy ! and happy 
they, who have leisure, sense, and taste, to relish it ! 

That a satisfaction so pure and so exalted may be enjoyed from this attempt, 
is the sincere wish of the Editor ; who ventures to express a hope, that if 
much is done for the Reader's entertainment, he willnot complain that more 
has not been accomplished, but view excellence with due approbation, and 
defect with good-natured indulgence. 



CONTENTS, 



BOOK I. 



ANCIENT LETTERS. 



SECTION I. 

From the Letters of Marcus Tullius 
Cicero, to several of his Friends, as 
translated by William Melmoth, Esq. 

Letter Page 

1 To Terentia, to ray dearest Tullia, 

and to my Son 1 

2 From the same to the same 2 

3 From the same to the same 3 

4 To Terentia 5 

5 To Marcus Marius 6 

6 To Marcus Licinius Crassus 8 

7 To Julius Caesar 9 

8 ToTrebatius 10 

9 To the same ibid. 

10 To the same 11 

n To the same ibid. 

12 To the same 12 

13 To the same ibid, 

14 To Quintus Philippus, Proconsul .... 13 

15 To Lucius Valerius, the Lawyer 14 

IG ToTrebatius ibid. 

17 To Caius Curio 15 

18 ToTrebatius ibid. 

19 To Caius Curio ibid. 

20 ToTrebatius 16 

21 To Caius Curio 17 

22 ToTrebatius ibid. 

23 To Titus Fadius 18 

24 To Marcus Ccelius ibid. 

25 To Terentia and Tullia 19 

26 To Tiro ibid. 

27 To the same 20 

28 To Terentia and to Tullia 21 

29 To the same ibid. 

30 To Terentia 22 

31 To the same ibid. 

32 To the same ; 23 

33 To the same ibid. 

34 To the same ibid. 

35 To the same ibid. 

36 To the same ibid. 

37 Tothesame ibid. 

38 ToTitius 24 

39 To Terentia 25 

40 To the same ibid. 



Letter pgg^ 

41 To Terentia ,..,, 25 

42 To the same ibid. 

43 To the same 26 

44 To Lucius Papirius Paetus ibid. 

45 To Lucius Mescinius ibid. 

46 ToVarro 27 

47 To Papirius Paetus 28 

48 Tothesame 30 

49 To Gallus 31 

50 ToCffisar .'?2 

51 ToDolabella ibid. 

52 Servius Sulpicius to Cicero 33 

53 To Servius Sulpicius 34 

54 To Lucius Lucceius 36 

55 Lucceius to Cicero , ibid. 

56 To Lucius Lucceius 37 

57 To Tiro 38 

58 To the same ibid. 



SECTION II, 

From the Letters of Pliny the Consul, to 
several of his Friends, as translated by 
William Melmoth, Esq. 

1 To Caninius Rufus 39 

2 To Pompeia Celerina 40 

3 To Cornelius Tacitus ibid. 

4 To Minutius Fundanus ibid. 

5 To Atrius Clemens 41 

6 To Calestrius Tito 42 

7 To Junius Mauricus 43 

8 To Septitius Clarus 44 

9 To Erucius ibid. 

10 To Cornelius Tacitus 45 

11 To Catilius Severus 47 

12 ToBebius 49 

13 To Voconius Romanus ibid. 

14 ToPaulinus 50 

15 ToNepos 51 

16 To Caninius 52 

17 To Octavius ibid. 

18 To Priscus ibid. 

19 To Valerianus 53 

20 To Mauricus 54 



CONTENTS. 



Letter Page 

21 ToCerealis 54 

22 ToCalvisius ; 55 

23 ToHispulla 56 

24 To Tranquillus ibid. 

25 ToCatilius 57 

26 To Procwlus ibid. 

27 ToNepos ibid. 

28 To Servianus 59 

29 To Maximus ibid. 

30 To Fabatus 60 

31 To Clemens ibid. 

32 To Antoninus 61 

33 ToNaso ibid. 

34 ToLepidus 62 

35 To Cornelius Tacitus ibid. 

36 To Valerius Paulinas \ 63 

37 ToGallus 64 

38 ToHispulla ibid. 

39 To Maximus 65 

40 To Velius Cerealis ibid. 

41 ToValens 66 

42 To Maximus ibid. 

43 ToNepos ibid. 

44 To Licinius 67 

45 To Maximus ibid. 



Letter Page 

46 To Capito 68 

47 ToSaturninus , 69 

48 To Marcellinus ibid. 

49 To Spurinna 70 

50 To Servianus 71 

51 To Quintilian r ibid. 

52 To Restitutus ibid. 

53 To Praesens 72 

54 To Calphurnia ibid. 

55 ToTuscus ibid. 

56 To Priscus 74 

57 To Rufus 75 

58 To Maximus ibid. 

59 ToGenitor 76 

60 To Geminius ibid. 

61 To Romanus ibid. 

62 To Ursus ,. 77 

63 To Fabatus ibid. 

64 To Hispulla 78 

65 To Minutianus ibid. 

66 To Sabinianus 79 

67 To the same ibid. 

68 To Fuscus ibid. 

69 To the same 80 



BOOK II. 



MODERN LETTERS : OF EARLY DATE. 



SECTION I. 

Modern, and of early Date. 

1 Queen Anne BuUen to King Henry... 81 

2 A Letter from Lady More to Mr. Se- 

cretary Cromwell 82 

3 Lady Stafford to Mr. Secretary 

Cromwell ibid. 

4 Earl of Essex to Queen Elizabeth ... 83 

5 Lord Chancellor Egerton to the Earl 

of Essex ibid. 

6 The Earl's answer 85 

7 Sir Henry Sidney to his son Philip 

Sidney, at school at Shrewsbury, 
.an. 1566, 9 Eliz. then being of the 
age of twelve years 86 

8 Sir Henry Sidney to Robert Dudley, 

Earl of Leicester...... 87 

9 The Right Honourable Thomas Sack- 

vil, Lord Buckhurst, to Sir Henry 
Sidney 88 

10 Sir Henry Sidney to Robert Dudley, 

Earl of Leicester ibid. 

1 1 Sir Henry Sidney to Queen Elizabeth 90 

12 Sir Henry Sidney to Mr. Secretary 

Walsingham, concerning the re- 
ports of the Earl of Essex's death ibid. 

13 Sir Henry Sidney to the Lords of the 

Council 92 

14 Sir Henry Sidney to his son, Robert 

Sidney, afterwards Earl of Leicester ibid. 



15 Sir Philip Sidney to his father. Sir 

Henry Sidney 94 

16 Sir Phi li Sidney to Edward Water- 

house, Esq. Secretary of Ireland ibid. 

17 Sir Philip Sidney to Edward Moli- 

neux, Esq. Secretary to his father, 

as Lord Deputy 95 

18 Edward Molineux, Esq. to Philip Sid- 

ney, in answer to the abovesaid 
letter ibid. 

19 Sir Henry Sidney to his son. Sir Phi- 

lip Sidney ibid. 

20 Lady Mary Sidney to Edmund Moli- 

neux, Esq ibid. 

21 Sir Henry Sidney to his son, Robert 

Sidney, afterwards Earl of Leicester 96 

22 Thomas, Lord Buckhurst, to Robert 

Dudley, Earl of Leicester, on the 
death of Sir Philip Sidney ibid. 

23 Robert, Earl of Leicester, to his 

daughter Dorothy, Countess of Sun- 
derland, on the death of the Earl 
her husband, who lost his life va- 
liantly fighting for King Charlesthe 
First, at the battle of Newberry, 
20th Sept. 1643 97 

24 Robert, Earl of Liecester, to the 

Queen, at Oxford, desiring to know 
why he was dismissed from the office 
of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland 98 

25 Algernon Sidney to his father, Robert 

Earl of Leicester 99 



CONTENTS. 



XI 



Letter Page 

26 Dr.SharptotheDukeof Buckingham^ 

with Queen Elizabeth's speech to 

her army at Tilbury Fort 99 

27 Lord Bacon to James 1 100 

28 Sir Walter Raleigh to James 1 101 

29 Sir Walter Raleigh to Sir Robert Car ibid. 

30 Sir Walter Raleigh to Prince Henry, 

son of James I 102 

31 Lord Bacon to James L after his dis- 

grace 103 

32 Lord Baltimore to Lord Wentworth, 

afterwards Earl of Strafford 1 05 

33 Lord Wentworth to Archbishop Laud ibid. 

34 Charles L to Lord Wentworth 106 

35 Charles L to the Earl of Strafford ... ibid. 

36 Earl of Strafford to his son ibid. 

37 James, Earl of Derby, to Commissary 

General Ireton, in answer to the 
summons sent the Earl to deliver 
up the Isle ofMan 107 

38 Charles IL to the Duke of York 108 

39 Oliver Cromwell to his son, H. Crom- 

well ibid. 

40 Lady Mary Cromwell to H. Cromwell ibid. 

41 Henry Cromwell to Lord Faulconberg 109 

42 Lord Broghill to Secretary Thurloe 110 

43 Henry Cromwell to Richard Crom- 

well, Protector ibid. 

44 The Hon. Algernon Sidney to his 

frietid Ill 

45 Mr.BoyletotheCountessofRanelagh 112 

46 From the same to the same , " 113 

47 From the same to the same 114 

48 Mr. Boyle to Lord Broghill 115 

49 Mr. Boyle to Dame Augustine Cary 116 

SECTION II. 

Miscellaneous, of early Date, continued. 

1 From James Howel, Esq. to Sir J. S. 

at Leed's Castle 118 

2 From the same to his father, upon his 

first going beyond sea 119 

3 From the same to Dr. Francis Man- 

sell, since Principal of Jesus Col- 
lege in Oxford ibid. 

4 From the same to Dan. Caldwell, Esq. 

from Amsterdam ,... 120 

5 From the same to Mr. Richard Al- 

tham, at his chambers in Gray's 

Inn ibid. 

6 From the same to Captain Francis 

Bacon, from Paris 121 

7 From the same to Richard Altham, 

Esq. from Paris 122 

8 From the same to Sir James Crofts, 

from Paris 123 

9 From the same to Mr. Thomas Por- 

ter, after Captain Porter, from 
Barcelona 125 

1 From the same to Robert Brown,Esq. 

at the Middle Temple, from Venice ibid. 

1 1 From the same to Christopher Jones, 

Esq. at Gray's Inn, from Naples 126 

1 2 From the same to Sir Eubule Thewall, 

Knight, and Principal of Jesus Col- 
lege in Oxford 127 

13 From the same to Dan. Caldwell, Esq. 

from the Lord Savage's house in 
Long Melford ibid. 



Letter - Page 

14 From James Howel, Esq. to his bro- 

ther, Mr. Hugh Penry, upon his 
marriage 128 

15 From the same to Dr. Thos. Prichard 

at Worcester House ibid. 

16 From the same to the Hon. Mr. John 

Savage (now Earl of Rivers) at 
Florence 129 

17 From the same to Dr. Prichard ibid. 

18 From the same to his well-beloved 

cousin, Mr. T. V 130 

19 From the same to the Lady Jane Sa- 

vage, Marchioness of Winchester 131 

20 From the same to Mr. R. Sc. at York ibid. 

21 From the same to the Right Hon. 

Lady Scroop, Countess of Sunder- 
land, from Stamford ibid. 

22 From the same to his cousin, Mr. St. 

John, at Christ Church College in 
Oxford 152 

23 From the same to Sir J. S. Knight ... 133 

24 From the same to R. S. Esq ibid. 

25 From the same to his father 134 

26 From the same to the Right Rev. Dr. 

Field, Lord Bishop of St, David's... ibid. 

27 From the same to Sir Ed. B. Knight 135 

28 From the same to Master Tho. Adams 136 

29 From the same to his nephew, J. P. at 

St. John's in Oxford 137 

30 From the same to the Right Honour- 

able the Lady Elizabeth Digby ... ibid. 

31 From the same to Mr. Thomas H 138 

32 From the same to Dr. D. Featley. ... ibid. 

33 From the same to his honoured friend. 

Sirs. C ibid. 

34 From the same to Mr. R. Howard ... 140 

35 From the same to Sir K. D. at Rome ibid. 

36 From the same to Mr. En. P. at Paris 141 

37 From the same to Mr. William Blois 142 

38 From the same to H. Hopkins, Esq. ibid. 

39 From the same to Mr. T. Morgan ... 143 

40 From the same to the Right Honour- 

able the Lady E. D 144 

41 From the same to the Lord Marquis 

of Hartford ibid. 

42 From the same to J. Sutton, Esq 146 

43 From the same to the Lord Marquis 

of Dorchester 147 

44 From the same to Sir E. S 149 

45 From the same to R. Davies, Esq. ... ibid. 

46 From the same to Mr. W. Price, at 

Oxon 150 

47 From the same to Mr. R. Lee, in Ant- 

werp ibid. 

48 From the same to Mr. T. C. at his 

house upon Tower Hill 151 

49 Lady Russell's Letter to the King 

CharlesII 152 

50 From the same to Dr. Fitzwilliam ... ibid. 

51 From the same to the same 153 

52 From the same to the same 154 

53 Dr.Tillotson to Lady Russell 155 

54 Lady Russell to Dr. Fitzwilliam ibid. 

55 From the same to the same 156 

56 Dean Tillotson to Lady Russell 157 

57 Lady Russell to the Dean of St. Paul's 159 

58 Dean Tillotson to Lady Russell 160 

59 Lady Russell to Lady Sunderland ... 161 

60 Thesame to Dr. Fitzwilliam 162 

61 Dean Tillotson to Lady Russell 163 

62 Lady Russell to the Dean of St. Paul's ibid. 



xu 



CONTENTS. 



Letter Page 

63 Ladj^ Russell to (supposed the 

Bishop of Salisbury) 164 

64 The same to Lord Cavendish 165 

65 Archbishop Tillotson to Lady Russell ibid. 

66 Lady Russell to (supposed 

Archbishop Tillotson) 166 

67 From the same to Lady (sup- 

posed Arlington) 167 

68 From the same to ibid. 

69 From the same to Dr. Fitzwilliam ... ibid. 

70 From the same to Lady Russell 168 

71 Archbishop Tillotson to Lady Russell ibid. 

72 From the same to the same 169 

73 The Bishop of Salisbury to Lady Rus- 

sell ibid 

74 Lady Russell to King William 170 

75 From the same to Rouvigny, Earl of 

Galway ibid. 

76 From Lord Shaftesbury to ... 171 

77 From the same to the same, 172 



Letter Page 

78 From Lord Shaftesbury to ... 173 

79 From the same to the same 174 

80 From the same to the same 175 

81 From the same to the same 179 

82 From the same to the same ibid. 

83 From the same to the same 180 

84 From the same to the same 181 

85 From the same to R. Molesworth, Esq. 182 

86 From the same to the same 183 

87 From the same to the same 184 

88 From the same to the same 186 

89 From the same to the same 187 

90 From the same to the same 189 

91 From the same to the same 190 

92 From the same to the same ibid. 

93 From the same to the same 191 

94 From the same to Lord *** 192 

95 From Ihe same to the Earl of Oxford 196 

96 From the same to Lord Godolphin... 197 



BOOK III. 



LEITERS OF THE LAST CENTURY, AND OF LATE DATE. 



SECTION L 

From Mr. Pope and his Friends. 

Mr. Pope to Mr. Wycherley 198 

From the same to the same 199 

From the same to the same ibid. 

From the same to the same 200 

From the same to the same ibid. 

From the same to the same 201 

From the same to the same 202 

From the same to the same ibid. 

From the same to the same 203 

From the same to the same 204 

From the same to Mr. Walsh ibid. 

From the same to the same 205 

From the same to H. Cromwell, Esq. 207 

From the same to the same ibid. 

From the same to the same ibid. 

From the same to the same 208 

From the same to the same ibid. 

From the same to the same 210 

From the same to the same 211 

From the same to the same ibid. 

From the same to the same 213 

From the same to the same ibid. 

From the same to the same 215 

From the same to the same 216 

From the same to the same ibid. 

From the same to the same 217 

From the same to the same 218 

From the same to the same jbid. 

From the same to the same 219 

From the same to the same 220 

From the same to the same 221 

From the same to the same 222 

From the same to the same ibid. 



'34 From the same to H. Cromwell, Esq. 223 

35 From the same to the same 224 

36 From the same to the same 225 

37 From the same to Sir V/. Trumbull ibid. 

38 From the same to the same 226 

39 From the same to the same 227 

40 From the same to the Hon. J. C. 

Esq ibid. 

41 From the same to the same 229 

42 From the same to the same «ibid. 

43 From the same to the same 231 

44 From the same to General Anthony 

Hamilton 232 

45 From the same to Mr. Steele ibid. 

46 From the same to the same 233 

47 From the same to the same ibid. 

48 Mr. Steele to Mr. Pope 234 

49 Mr. Pope to Mr. Steele.... ibid. 

50 From the same to the same... 235 

51 Mr. Steele to Mr. Pope ibid. 

52 Mr. Pope to Mr. Steele * ibid. 

53 From the same to Mr. Addison ibid. 

54 Mr.Addison to Mr. Pope 236 

55 Mr. Pope to Mr. Addison ibid. 

5€i From the same to the Honourable 

****** 237 

57 From the same to Mr. Jervas ......... 238 

58 Mr. Jervas to Mr. Pope ibid. 

59 Mr. Pope to Mr. Jervas 239 

60 From the same to the Earl of Hallifax ibid. 
6\ Dr. Parnelle to Mr. Pope 240 

62 Mr. Pope to the Hon. James Craggs. 241 

63 From the same to Mr. Congreve ibid. 

64 From the same to the same 242 

65 From the same to the same ibid. 

66 Mr. Congreve to Mr. Pope 243 

67 The Rev. Dean Berkley to Mr. Pope 244 



CONTENTS. 



Xlll 



Letter Page 

68 Mr. Pope to Mr, Jcrvas, in Ireland.. 244 

69 From the same to the same 245 

70 From the same to the same 246 

71 From the same to Mr. Feuton ibid. 

72 Rev. Dean Berkley to Mr. Pope 247 

73 Mr. Pope to **** 248 

74 From the same to **** 239 

75 From the same to the Earl of Bur- 

lington ibid. 

76 From the same to the Duke of Buck- 

ingham 251 

77 The Duke of Buckingham to Mr. 

Pope 254 

78 Mr. Pope to the Duke of Bucking- 

ham 255 

79 Dr. Arbuthnotto Mr. Pope 256 

80 Mr. Pope to Dr.Arbuthnot 257 

81 From the same to the Earl of Oxford ibid. 

82 The Earl of Oxford to Mr. Pope 258 

83 Mr. Pope to Edward Blount, Esq ... ibid. 

84 Edward Blount, Esq. to Mr. Pope... 259 

85 From the same to the same 260 

86 Mr. Pope to Edward Blount, Esq... ibid. 

87 From the same to the same 261 

88 From the same to the same 262 

89 Edward Blount, Esq. to Mr. Pope... 263 

90 Mr. Pope to Edward Blount, Esq.... 264 

91 From the same to the same ibid. 

92 From the same to the same 265 

93 From the same to the same ibid. 

94 From the same to the same 266 

95 From the same to the same ibid. 

96 From the same to the same 267 

97 From the same to the Hon. Robert 

Digby 268 

98 From the same to the same ibid. 

99 Mr. Digby to Mr. Pope 269 

100 Mr. Pope to Mr. Digby 270 

101 Mr. Digby to Mr. Pope ibid. 

102 From the same to the same 271 

103 Mr. Pope to Mr. Digby ibid. 

104 Mr. Digby to Mr. Pope 272 

105 From the same to the same ibid. 

106 Mr. Pope to Mr. Digby 273 

107 From the same to the same ibid. 

108 From the same to the same 274 

109 From the same to the same ibid. 

110 Mr. Digby to Mr. Pope 275 

111 Mr. Pope to Mr. Digby 276 

112 From the same to the same 277 

113 From the same to the same ibid. 

114 From the same to the same 278 

115 The Bishop of Rochester (Dr. At- 

terbury) to Mr. Pope ibid. 

116 Mr. Pope to the Bishop of Rochester 279 

117 The Bishop ofRochester to Mr. Pope 280 

118 From the same to the same 281 

119 Lord Chancellor Harcourt to Mr. 

Pope ibid. 

120 The Bishop of Rochester to Mr.Pope 282 

121 From the same to the same 283 

122 Mr. Pope to the Bishop of Rochester ibid. 

123 TheBishop of Rochester to Mr.Pope 284 

124 Mr. Pope to the Bishop of Rochester ibid. 

125 The Bishop of Rochester to Mr. Pope 28a 

126 Mr. Pope to the Bishop of Rochester ibid. 

127 The Bishop ofRochester to Mr.Pope 286 

128 From the same to the same ibid. 

129 From the same to the same 287 

130 From the same to the same ibid. 

1 31 Mr. Pope to the Bishop of Rochester 288 



Letter Page 

132 Mr. Pope to the Bishop of Rochester 289 

133 The Bishop of Rochester to Mr.Pope 290 

134 From the same to the same 291 

135 Mr. Pope to Mr. Gay 292 

136 From the same to the same 293 

137 From the same to the same ,. ibid. 

138 From the same to the same 294 

139 Mr. Gay to Mr. F- 295 

140 Mr. Pope to Mr. Gay 296 

141 Prom the same to the same ibid. 

142 From the same to the same 297 

143 From the same to the same ibid. 

144 From the same to Mrs. B 298 

145 From the same to Hugh Bethel, 

Esq ibid. 

146 From the same to the same 299 

147 From the same to the same 300 

148 The Earl of Peterborow to Mr. 

Pope ibid. 

149 Dr. Swift to the Earl of Peterborow 301 

150 Mr. Pope to Mr. C ibid. 

151 From the same to Mr. Richardson 302 

152 From the same to Mr. Bethel ibid. 

153 From the same to Dr. Arbuthnot ... 303 

154 From the same to Dr. Swift 304 

155 Anthony Henley, Esq. to Dr. Swift 305 

156 Lord Bolingbroke to Dr. Swift ibid. 

157 Dr. Swift to Mr. Pope 307 

158 Mr. Gay to Dr. Swift 308 

159 Mr. Pope to Dr. Swift 309 

160 Dr Swift to Mr. Pope ibid. 

161 Mr. Pope to Dr. Swift 310 

162 Dr. Swift to Mr. Pope 311 

163 From the same to the same 312 

ir)4 Mr. Pope to Dr. Swift ibid. 

165 Dr. Swift to Mr. Pope 313 

166 Lord Bolingbroke to Dr. Swift 314 

167 Lord B. to Dr. Swift 315 

168 Dr. Swift to Mr. Gay 316 

169 From the same to the same 317 

170 Mr. Pope to Dr. Swift 518 

171 Dr. Swift to Mr. Pope... 319 

172 Lady B G toDr.Swift ibid. 

173 From the same to the same 320 

174 From the same to the same ibid. 

175 From the same to the same 321 

176 From the same to the same ..... .. 322 

177 From the same to the same ibid. 

178 From the same to the same 323 

179 The Duchess of to Dr. Swift... 324 

180 Lady B G to Dr. Swift 325 

181 From the same to the same ibid. 

182 Dr. Swift to the Duke of Dorset 326 



SECTION II. 



Miscellaneous Letters, 



1 Dr. Swift to Miss Jane Waryng 328 

2 Dr.Tillotson to the Earl of Mulgrave 330 

3 Earl of Mulgrave to Dr.Tillotson... 331 

4 Dr. Lewis Atterbury to Bishop At- 

terbury 332 

5 Bishop Atterbury to his brother .... 333 

6 From the same to the same ibid. 

7 From the same to the same ibid 

8 From the same to his son at Oxford ibid. 

9 From the same to Lord Townshend 334 



XIV 



Letter 

10 The Bishop of Rochester to Mrs, 



CONTENTS. 

Page Letter 



Page 



14 Dr. King to Bishop Atterbury 336 



Morice ibid, i 15 Duchess of Somerset to Lady Lux- 

11 Mr. J. Evans to his brother in Lon- i borough 357 

don * 335 I If) Countess of Hertford to Dr. Burnet, 

12 The Bishop of Rochester to Mr. i occasioned by some meditations 

Pope ibid. I the Doctor sent her, upon the 

13 From the same to ♦*** 336 I death of her son, Lord Beauchamp 338 



BOOK IV. 



RECENT LETTERS. 



SECTION I. 

From the Letters of Wii.j.iam Shenstone, 
Esq. and Mr. Gray, to and from their 
Friends. 

1 Mr. Shenstone to a friend 340 

2 From the same to Mr. Jago, on the 

death of his father 341 

3 From the same to Mr. Reynolds 342 

4 From the same to Mr. -, on his 

taking orders in the church ibid* 

5 From the same to a friend, expressing 

his dissatisfaction at the manner of 

life in which he is engaged 343 

6 From the same to Mr. , with an 

invitation to accompany him to 
town 344 

7 From the same to the same ibid. 

8 From the same to Mr. Graves, on be- 

nevolence and friendship 345 

9 From the same to the same 346 

10 From the same to the same, written 

in the hay harvest ibid. 

1 1 From the same to the same, after the 

disappointment of a visit 347 

12 From the same to the same, with 

Thoughts on Advice 348 

13 From the same to the same 349 

14 From the same to the same 350 

15 From the same to Mr. Jago ibid. 

16 From the same to Mr. , on his 

marriage 351 

17 From the same to Mr. Jago, with an 

invitationto the Leasowes 352 

18 From the same to a friend, disap- 

pointing him of a visit 353 

19 From the same to Mr. Jago 354 

20 From the same to C W , 

Esq 355 

21 From the same to Mr. Graves, on the 

death of Mr. Shenstone's brother ibid. 

22 From the same to C W , Esq. 357 

23 From the same to Mr. G , on the 

receipt of his picture ibid. 

24 From the same to Mr. Jago 358 

25 From the same to the same 360 

526 From the same to Mr. Graves, on the 

death of Mr. Whistler 361 



27 Mr. Shenstone to Mr. Graves, on hear- 

ing that his letters to Mr. Whistler 

were destroyed 361 

28 Mr. West to Mr. Gray 362 

29 Mr. Gray to Mr. West ibid. 

30 Mr. West to Mr. Gray 363 

31 Mr. Gray to Mr. West 364 

32 Mr. V/est to Mr. Gray ibid. 

33 Mr. Gray to Mr. Walpole 365 

54 Mr. West to Mr. Gray ibid. 

35 Mr. Gray to Mr. West ibid. 

36 From the same to Mr. Walpole 366 

37 From the same to the same ibid. 

38 xMr. West to Mr. Gray 367 

39 From the same to the same ibid. 

40 Mr. Gray to Mr. Walpole 368 

41 From the same to Mr. West ibid. 

42 Mr. West to Mr. Gray ibid. 

43 From the same to the same 369 

44 From the same to the same ,... ibid. 

45 Mr. Gray to Mr. West ibid. 

46 From the same to the same 370 

47 Mr. West to Mr. Gray 371 

48 Mr. Gray to Mr. West 372 

49 Mr. West to Mr. Gray 373 

50 Mr. Gray to Mr. West ibid. 

51 Mr. West to Mr. Gray ibid. 

52 Mr. Gray to Mr. West ibid. 

53 From the same to Dr. Wharton 374 

54 From the same to the same,,.. ibid. 

55 From the same to the same 375 

56 From the same to Mr. Walpole 376 

57 From the same to the same 377 

58 From the same to Dr. Wharton ibid. 

59 From the same to the same 578 

60 From the same to the same ibid. 

61 From the same to the same 379 

62 From the same to Dr. Warburton ... ibid. 

63 From the same to his mother 380 

64 From the same to Dr. Wharton ibid. 

65 From the same to Mr. Walpole 381 

66 From the same to Dr. Wharton 382 

67 From the same to Mr. Walpole ibid. 

68 From the same to Mr. Mason 583 

69 From the same to Dr. Wharton ibid. 

70 From the same to the same 384 

71 From the same to the same ibid. 

72 From the same to the same 385 

73 From the same to Mr. Mason ibid. 

74 From the same to the same 386 



CONTENTS. 



XV 



Letter Page 

15 Mr. Gray to Mr. Kurd 387 

16 From the same to Mr. Mason ibid, 

77 From the same to Dr. Wharton 388 

78 From the same to the same 389 

79 From the same to Mr. Stonehewer ibid. 

80 From the same to Dr. Wharton 390 

81 From the same to Mr.Palgrave 391 

82 From the same to the same ibid. 

83 From the same to Dr. Wharton 392 

84 From the same to Mr. Stonehewer .. 393 
S5 From the same to Dr. Clarke 394 

86 From the same to Mr. Mason ibid. 

87 From the same to Dr. Wharton ibid. 

88 From the same to Mr. Mason 395 

89 From the same to Dr. Wharton ibid. 

90 From the same to the same 396 

91 From the same to Mr. Mason 397 

92 From the same to Mr.Beattie ibid. 

93 From the same to the Duke of Graf- 

ton 398 

94 From the same to Mr. NichoUs ibid. 

95 From the same to Mr. Beattie ibid. 

96 From the same to Mr.Nicholls 399 

97 From the same to the same ibid. 

98 From the same to the same 400 

99 From the same to Mr. Beattie 401 

!00 From the same to Mr. Nicholls 402 

101 From the same to Dr. Wharton ibid. 

SECTION II. 

From ike Letters of Laurence Sterne 
and others. 



1 Mr. Sterne to Miss L 404 

2 From the same to Mrs. F 405 \ 

3 From the same to J — H — S , j 

Esq ibid. 

4 From the same to the same ibid. 

5 From the same to Lady D 406 

6 From the same to David Gar rick, 

Esq 407 

7 From the same to Lady D 408 

8 From the same to Mrs. Sterne ibid. 

9 From the same to the same ibid. 

10 From the same to Lady D 409 

11 From the same to Mr. E— >— ibid. 

12 From the same to Mr. Foley, at 

Paris 410 

13 From the same to J — H — S , 

Esq 411 

14 From the same to Mr. Foley 412 

15 From the same to the same ibid. 

16 From the same to the same 413 

17 From the same to the same. ibid, 

18 From the same to the same ibid. 

19 From the same to the same 414 

20 From the same to the same ibid. 

21 From the same to the same 415 

22 From the same to Mrs. F ibid. 

23 From the same to Miss Sterne 416 

24 From the same to J — H — S , 

Esq ibid. 

25 From the same to Mr. Foley 417 

26 From the same to David Garrick, 

Esq , ibid. 

97 From the same to Mr. W 418 

28 From the same to Miss Sterne ibid. 

29 David Hume, Esq. to 419 

30 From the same to Dr. Campbell .... 420 



Letter Page 

31 Dr. Smollett to Daniel Mackercher, 

Esq 421 

32 Dr. Isaac Sohomberg to a Lady, on 

the Method of Reading for Female 
Improvement 424 

33 To Colonel R s, in Spain 425 

34 John Garden to Archbishop Seeker .. 426 

35 Archbishop Seeker to John Garden... ibid. 

36 John Garden to Archbishop Seeker... ibid. 

37 Archbishop Seeker to a Clergyman... 428 

SECTION III. 

From the Letters of the late Earl of 
Chatham^ Mrs. Elizabeth Monta- 
gu, Lady Mary Wortley Monta- 
gue, Lord Chesterfield, Dr. John- 
son, and others. 



1 From the late Earl of Chatham to his 

Nephew, Thomas Pitt, Esq. (after- 
wards Lord Camelford) 429 

2 From the same to the same ibid. 

3 From the same to the same , 430 

4 From the same to the same 431 

5 From the same to the same 433 

6 From the same to the same 434 

7 From the same to the same 435 

8 From the same to the same 436 

9 From the same to the same ibid. 

10 From the same to the same 437 

11 From the same to the same .. ibid. 

12 From the same to the same 438 

13 From the same to the same ibid. 

14 From the same to the same 439 

15 From the same to the same ibid. 

16 From the same to the same ibid. 

17 From the same to the same 440 

18 From the same to the same ibid. 

19 From the same to the same ibid. 

20 From the same to the same 441 

21 From the same to the same ibid. 

22 From the same to the same ibid. 

23 From the same to the same 442 

24 From Mrs, Elizabeth Montagu to the 

Duchess of Portland ibid. 

25 From the same to the same 443 

26 From the same to the same 444 

27 From the same to the same ibid. 

28 From the same to the same 445 

29 From the same to the same 446 

30 From the same to the same 447 

31 From the same to the same .. ibid. 

32 From the same to Miss S. Robinson 448 

33 From the same to the same 449 

34 From the same to the same 450 

35 From the same to the Rev.W. Friend ibid. 

36 From the same to the Duchess of 

Portland 451 

37 From the same to the same 452 

38 From the same to the same 453 

39 From the same to the same.. 454 

40 From the same to the same 456 

41 From the same to the same 457 

42 From the same to the Rev. Mr. and 

Mrs.Friend 458 

43 From the same to Miss S. Robinson 459 

44 From the same to Mrs. Donnellan... 460 

45 From tlie same to Miss S.Robinson 461 



XVI 



CONTENTS. 



462 



64 



Letter Page 

46 From Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu to the 

Duchess of Portland 

47 From the same to the Rev. Dr. Shaw, 

F.R. S., &c. &c 

48 From the same to the Duchess of 

Portland 466 

49 From the same to the same ?. 467 

50 From the same to the same 468 

51 From the same to the same 469 

52 From the same to the same 470 

53 From the same to the same ibid. 



Letter 



54 From the same to Mrs. Donnellan .. 

55 Lady M. W. Montague to the Coun- 

tess of 



56 From the same to Mrs. S 

57 From the same to Mrs. S. C 

58 From the same to the Lady 

59 From the same to the Countess of 

B 

CO From the same to Mrs. P 

61 From the same to the Countess of 



62 From the same to Mr. P 

63 From the same to the Countess of 



471 

472 
473 
ibid. 

474 

475 
476 

477 
478 

479 

481 

ibid. 

482 
483 

484 

69 From the same to the same 485 

70 From the same to the same 486 

71 From the same to the Countess of 

B ibid. 

72 From the same to the Lady R ... 487 

73 From the same^ to the Countess of 

, 488 

489 
490 



100 
101 

102 
103 
104 
105 



Dr. Johnson to Mr. Boswell 

From the same to Mr. James Mac- 

pherson 

From the same to Mrs. Boswell 

From the same to Mr. Elphinstone. 
From the same to 



106 



64 From the same to the Lady R- 

65 From the same to Mrs. J*** ., 



66 From the same to the Lady X 

67 From the same to Mr. 

68 From the same to the Countess of 



492 



49^ 



74 From the same to the Lady .... 

75 From the same to Mr. Pope 

76 Lord Chesterfield to Dr. R. Chenevix, 

Lord Bishop of Waterford ibid. 

77 From the same to the same ibid. 

78 From the same to the same 491 

79 From the same to the same ibid. 

80 Dr. Swift to the Earl of Chesterfield ibid. 

81 The Earl of Chesterfield to Dr. Swift 

82 Dean Swift to the Earl of Chester- 

field 

83 Lord Chesterfield to Sir Thomas Ro- 

binson, Bart ibid. 

84 The same to Dr. Cheyne of Bath 494 

85 John Dunning, Esq. to a Gentleman 

of the Inner Temple ibid. 

86 Dr. Johnson to Mr. Elphinstone 495 

87 From the same to the same 496 

88 From the same to the Rev. Dr. 

Taylor ibid. 

89 From the same to Miss Boothby 497 

90 From the same to the same ibid, 

91 From the same to the Earl of Ches- 

terfield ibid. 

92 From the same to Miss »•»*»* 498 

93 From the same to Miss Boothby ibid. 

94 From the same to the same 499 

95 From the same to Joseph Baretti ibid. 

96 From the same to the same 501 

97 From the same to the same 502 

98 Mrs. Thrale to Mr. , on his 

Marriage 503 

99 Dr. Johnson to Mr. Boswell 505 



.22 



12: 



From the same to Mrs. Thrale, on 

the Death of Mr. Thrale 

From the same to the same 

107 From the same to Mr. Hector 

108 From the same to James Boswell, 

Esq 

109 From the same to the same 

110 From the same to the same 

111 From the same to Mrs. Thrale 

112 From the same to the same 

113 From the same to Miss Susanna 

Thrale 

114 From the same to Mrs. Thrale 

115 From the same to the same 

116 From the same to the same 

117 From the same to Mrs. Chapone.... 

118 From the same to Mrs. Thrale 

119 From the same to the same 

120 From the same to the same. 

121 From the same to the same 

From the same to the Rev. Dr. 

Taylor 

From the same to Lord Chancellor 
Thurlow 

124 Miss to the Rev. Dr. Home.... 

125 Dr. Home to Miss 

126 Lord Lyttleton to Sir Thomas Lyt- 

tleton, at Hagley 

127 From the same to the same 

128 From the same to the same 

129 From the same to the same 

130 From the same to the same 

151 From the same to the same 

132 S. Poyntz, Esq. to Sir Thomas Lyt- 

tleton 

133 Lord Lyttleton to Sir Thomas Lyt- 

tleton 

134 From the same to the same. 

135 From the same to the same 

136 From the same to the same 

137 From the same to the same 

138 S. Poyntz, Esq. to Sir Thomas Lyt- 

tleton 

139 Lord Lyttleton to Sir Thomas Lyt- 

tleton 

140 The late Bishop Home to a young 

Clergyman 

141 William Cowper, Esq. to Joseph 

Hill, Esq 

142 From the same to Lady Hesketh. ... 

143 From the same to the same 

144 From the same to the same 

145 From the same to the same 

146 From the same to Major Cowper .. 

147 From the same to Mrs. t'owper 

148 From the same to the same 

149 From the same to the Rev. William 

Unwin 

150 From the same to the same 

151 From the same to the same 

152 From the same to the Rev. John 

Newton 

153 From the same to the Rev. William 

Unwin 

154 From the same to Mrs. Cowper 



Page 
506 

507 
508 

ibid. 

ibid. 

509 

510 

ibid. 

ibid. 
511 
512 

ibid. 

513 

514 
ibid. 

515 
ibid. 

516 
ibid. 

517 
ibid. 

518 

ibid. 

519 
ibid. 

520 

521 

522 
ibid. 

523 
ibid. 

526 

ibid. 

527 

ibid. 

528 

529 

ibid. 

ibid. 

530 

531 

532 
ibid. 

533 

535 
ibid. 

536 
ibid. 

537 

538 
ibid. 
539 

540 

ibid. 
541 



CONTENTS. 



XT 



Letter 

J 5.5 Wiliiaai Cowper, Esq. to the Rev. 

William Unwin 

]5(i From the same to the same 

157 From the same to Mrs Cowper 

158 From the same to the Rev. William 

Unn-jn 

139 From the same to the same 

1 60 From the same to Joseph Hill, Esq. 

161 From the same to the Rev. William 

Unv/in 

162 From the same to the same 

163 From the same to the same 

I(j4 From the same to the same 

165 From the same to the same 

1{)6 From the same to the same 

167 From the same to the same 

16S From the same to the same 

169 From the same to the same 

170 From the same to the same 

171 From the same to the same 

17'2 From the same to the same 

173 From the same to the Rev. John 

Newton 

174 From the same to the Rev. William 

Unwin 

175 From the same to the Rev. John 

Newton 

176 From the same to the Rev. William 

Unwin 

177 From the same to the same 

178 From the same to the Rev. John 

Newton 

1 79 From the same to the Rev. William 

Unwin 

180 From the same to the same 

181 From the same to the same 

1 8'2 From the same to the same 

183 From the same to the same 

184 From the same to the Rev. John 

Newton 

1 85 From the same to the same 

1 86 From the same to the same 

187 From the same to the Rev. William 

Unwin 

188 P'rom the same to the same 

189 From the same to the same 

190 From the same to the Rev. John 

Newton 

From the same to the same 

From the same to the Rev. William 

Unwin 

From the same to the Rev. John 

Newton 

194 From the same to the same 

1 95 From the same to the Rev. William 

Unwin 

From the same to the Rev. John 

Newton 

From the same to Joseph Hill, Esq. 
From the same to the Rev. William 

Unwin 

199 From the same to the same 

200 From the same to Joseph Hill, Esq. 

201 From the same to the Rev. William 

Unwin 

202 rrom the same to Lady Hesketh ... 

203 From the same to the same 

204 From the same to the same 

205 From the same to the same. 

20t From the same to the same 

307 From the same to the same 



191 
192 



19 



196 



197 
195 



Page 

542 

ibid. 

543 

544 

ibid. 

545 

546 
547 
548 
549 

ibid. 
550 
551 
552 

ibid. 
-553 
554 
556 

557 

ibid. 

558 

559 

560 

561 

562 
563 
564 
565 
566 

567 
568 
569 

ibid. 

570 
571 

572 
573 

574 

575 

576 

577 

578 
579 

ibid. 

580 
581 

582 
583 
584 
ibid. 
585 
586 
587 1 



Letter Page 

208 William Cowper, Esq. to Lady Hes- 

keth 588 

209 From the same to the Rev. Walter 

Bagot 589 

210 From the same to Lady Hesketh ... ibid. 

211 From the same to the same 591 

212 From the same to the same 592 

213 From the same to the same 593 

214 From the same to the same 594 

215 From the same to the Rev. William 

Unwin 595 

216 From the same to the same 596 

217 From the same to Lady Hesketh ... 597 

218 From the same to the same 598 

219 From the same to Sam. Rose, Esq. ibid. 

220 From the same to Lady Hesketh ... 599 

221 From the same to the same ibid. 

222 From the same to the same. 600 

223 From the same to the same 601 

SECTION IV. 

From the Letters of Dr. Beattie.. Sir 
William Jones, and others. 

1 Dr. Beattie to Robert Arbuthnot, 

Esq 603 

2 From the same to Sir Wm. Forbes ibid. 

3 From the same to the same 604 

4 From the same to Dr. Blacklock .... 606 

5 From the same to the Hon. Charles 

Boyd 607 

6 From the same to Sir Wm. Forbes 608 

7 From the same to the same ibid. 

8 From the same to Dr. Blacklock ... 610 

9 From the same to Mrs. Inglis 611 

10 From the same to the Right Hon. 

the Dowager Lady Forbes 613 

11 From the same to Sir W. Forbes .... 614 

12 From the same to Mrs. Montagu.... ibid. 

13 From the same to the same 615 

14 From the same to the same 616 

15 The Rev. Dr. Porteus to Dr. Beattie 617 

16 Dr. Beattie to the Rev. Dr. Porteus ibid. 

17 From the same to the same 619 

18 Mrs. Montagu to Dr. Beattie 620 

19 Dr. Beattie to Mrs. Montagu 621 

20 From the same to the Hon. Mr. Ba- 

ron Gordon 622 

21 From the same to the Duchess of 

Gordon 625 

22 From the same to the same 624 

23 From the same to the same 626 

24 From the same to Sir W. Forbes ... ibid. 

25 Mr. Jones, at the age of fourteen, to 

his Sister 627 

26 From the same to Lady Spencer. .. 628 

27 From the same to N. B. Halhed 629 

28 From the same to Lady Spencer ... 630 

29 From the same to the same ibid. 

SO From the same to C Reviczki 631 

31 From the same to J. Wilmot, Esq... 632 

32 From the same to Mr. Hawkins 633 

33 Dr. Hunt to Mr. Jones ibid. 

34 Mr. Jones to F. P. Bayer 634 

S5 From the same to Lord Althorpe ... 635 

36 Edmund Burke to Mr. Jones 636 

37 Mr. Jones to Lord Althorpe ibid. 

38 From the same to the same 637 

b 



xvm 



CONTENTS. 



Letter Page 

3^ Mr. Jones to the Rev. E. Cartwright 038 

40 From the same to Dr. Wheeler ibid. 

41 From the same to the Bishop of St. 

Asaph , 639 

42 The Bishop of bt Asaph to Mr. 

Jones ibitl. 

43 Mr. Jones to Lord Althorpe 640 

44 From the same to Mr. Thomas 

Yeates 641 

45 From the same to the Bishop of St. 

Asaph ibid. 

46 From the same to Lady Spencer.... 642 

47 Sir William Jones to Lord Ashbur- 

ton 643 

48 From the same to Dr. Patrick Rus- 

sell ibid. 

49 From the same to — 644 

50 From the same to Charles Chap- 

man, Esq ibid. 

51 From the same to Miss E. Shipley.. 645 

52 From the same to J. Shore, Esq. ... ibid. 

53 From the same to the same 646 

54 From the same to Thomas Caldicot, 

Esq ibid. 

55 From the same to Mr. Justice Hyde 647 

56 From the same to Sir Joseph Banks., ibid. 

57 From the sametoSir J. Macpherson, 

Bart 648 

58 From the same toAVarren Hastings, 

Esq 649 

59 From the same to Lord Teignmouth ibid. 

60 From Dr. Young to Mr. Richardson 650 

61 Mr. Richardson to Dr. Young ibid. 

62 Miss Collier to Mr. Kichardson 651 

63 Mr. Richardson to Miss Collier 652 

64 From the same to the same ... 653 

65 Miss Collier to Mr. Richardson 654 

66 Mr. Richardson to Miss Highmore.. 655 

67 From the same to the same 656 

68 From the same to the same 658 

69 From the same to the same 659 

70 Lady Kchlin to Mr. Richardson 660 

71 Mr.Richardson to Lady Echlin...... 661 

72 Lady Echlin to Mr. Richardson 662 

73 Mr Richardson to Lady Echlin 663 

74 Lady Echlin to Mr.Richardson ibid. 

75 Mr. Richardson to Lady Echlin 664 

76 Lady Bradshaigh to Mr. Richardson ibid. 

77 Mr. Richardson to Lady Bradshaigh 666 

78 From the same to the same 667 

79 From the same to the same 668 

80 Lady Bradshaigh to Mr. Pvichardson 670 

81 Mr. Richardson to Lady Bradshaigh 672 

82 From the same to the same 674 

83 From the same to the same 677 

84 Lady Bradshaigh to Mr. Richardson 678 

85 Edward Gibbon, Esq. to his Father.. 680 

86 FromthesametoJ. B. Holroyd,Esq. 681 

87 From the same to the same 682 

88 From the same to the same, at 

Edinburgh 685 

89 From the same to the same 684 

90 From the same to the same 685 

91 From the same to the Right Hon. 

Lord Sheffield ibid. 

92 From the same to the Right Hon. 

Lady Sheffield 686 

93 From the same to the Right Hon. 

Lord Sheffield 687 

94 From the same to the same 688 

95 From the same to Mrs. Porten 689 



Letter Page 

96 Edward Gibbon, to the Right Hon. 

Lord Sheffield 691 

97 From the same to the same 692 

98 From the same to the same 693 

99 Anna Seward to George Hardinge, 

Esq 694 

100 From the same to Captain Seward . 695 

101 From the same to Miss Weston 697 

102 From the same to Thomas Swift, 

Esq , 69^* 

103 From the same to, Thomas Christie, 

Esq 700 

104 From the same to Lady Gresley ... 701 

105 From the same to Mrs. Stokes 704 

106 From the same to Thomas Park, 

Esq 705 

1 07 From the same to Walter Scott, Esq. 708 

108 From the same to Miss Fern 710 

109 Mr. Warburton to Mr. Hurd 7l2 

110 Mr. Hurd to Dr. Warburton ibid. 

111 From the same to the same 713 

1J2 Dr. Warburton to Mr. Hurd ibid. 

113 From the same to the same 714 

114 Mr. Hurd to Dr. Warburton ibid. 

115 From the same to the Bishop of 

Gloucester 716 

116 The Bishop of Gloucester to Mr. 

Hurd ibid. 

117 Mr. Hurd to the Bishop of Glouces- 

ter ibid. 

118 The Bishop of Gloucester to Mr. 

Hurd 717 

119 From the same to the same ibid. 

120 Mr. Hurd to the Bp. of Gloucester... 718 

121 The Bishop of Gloucester to Mr, 

Hurd 719 

122 From the same to the same 720 

123 Mr. Hurd to the Bp. of Gloucester... 721 

124 The Bp. of Gloucester to Mr. Hurd 722 

125 From the same to the same ibid. 

126 From the same to the same 723 

127 Dr. Hurd to the Bp. of Gloucester... ibid. 

128 The Bp. of Gloucester to Mr. Hurd 724 

129 The RiL-ht Hon. C. J. Fox to Mr. 

WakeQeld 725 

130 From the same to the same ibid. 

131 From the same to the same ibid. 

132 From the same to the same ibid. 

133 From the same to the same 726 

134 From the same to the same ibid. 

135 From the same to the same 727 

136 From the same to the same ibid. 

137 From the same to the same ibid. 

138 From the same lo the same 728 

139 From the same to the same ibid. 

140 From the same to the same ibid. 

141 From the same to the same 729 

142 From the same to the same ibid. 

143 From the same to the same .. ibid. 

144 From the same to the same 750 

145 From the same to the same ibid. 

146 From the same to the same 731 

SECTION V. 

From the Letters of Horace Walpole, 
Earl of Orford, and Dr. Frank- 
lin. 

1 The Hon. Horace Walpole to Richard 

West, Esq 735 



CONTENTS. 



XIX 



Letter Page 

2 The Hon. Horace Walpole to Richard 

West, Esq 734 

3 From the same to the same 735 

4 From the same to the same 736 

5 The Hou. Horace Walpole and Mr. 

Gray to Richard West, Esq 737 

6 The Hon. Horace Walpole to Richard 

West, Esq 739 

7 From the same to John Chute, Esq... 740 

8 From the same to Richard Bentlev, 

Esq , ;.. 742 

9 From the same to the same 743 

10 From the same to George Montague, 

Esq 746 

11 From the same to the same 747 

12 From the same to the same,. 748 

13 From the same to the same 749 

I'l From the same to the same 751 

15 From the same to the same 752 

16 From the same to the same 753 

17 From the same to the Hon. H. S. Con- 

way 754 

18 From the same to the same 755 

19 From the same to George Montague, 

Esq ibid. 

20 From the same to the same 757 

21 From the same to the Hon. H. S. 

Conway ibid. 

22 From the same to the same 758 

23 From the same to the same 759 

24 From the same to George Montague, 

Esq. ibid. 

25 From the same to the Rev. Mr. 

Cole 760 

26 From the same to George Montague, 

Esq 761 

27 From the same to the same 762 

68 From the same to the same 763 

29 From the same to Mr. Gray 764 

30 From the same to the same 768 

31 From the same to George Montague, 

Esq 769 

32 From the same to M. de Voltaire 770 

33 From the same to the same 771 

34 From the same to the Hon. H. S. 

Conway 772 

35 From the same to the same 773 

36 From the same to Dr. Gem 775 

37 From the same to the Rev. Mr. Cole 776 

38 From the same to the same 777 

39 From the same to the Earl of Straf- 

ford ibid. 

40 From the same to the Rev. Mr. Cole 778 

41 From the same to the Earl of Straf- 

ford 779 

42 From the same to the same 780 

43 From the same to Mr. Pinkerton...... 781 



Letter Page 

44 The Hon. Horace Wapole to the Earl 

of Strafford 783 

45 From the same to Lady Craven 784 

46 The Earl of Orford to Mrs. H. More.. 785 

47 From the same to the Hon. H. S. 

Conway 786 

48 From the same to William Roscoe, 

Esq 787 

49 From the same to the Countess of 

**** 788 

50 From Dr. Franklin to Mr. George 

Whitfield ibid. 

51 From the same to Miss Stevenson at 

Wanstead , 789 

52 From the same to John Alleyne, 

Esq 790 

53 From the same to Governor Franklin, 

New Jersey , 791 

54 From the same to Dr. Priestley ibid; 

55 From the same to Mrs. Thomas, at 

Lisle.; 792 

56 From the same to Dr. Cowper, Bos- 

ton , 793 

57 From the same to Dr. Price, London ibid. 

58 From the same to General Washing- 

ton 794< 

59 From the same to Mr. Small, Paris., ibid. 

60 From the same to Miss Georgiana 

Shipley 795 

61 From the same to the Rev. William 

Nixon 796 

69 From the same to Edmund Burke, 

Esq. M. P ibid. 

63 From the same to the Rev. Dr. Priest- 

ley ibid. 

64 From the same to Dr. Shipley, Bishop 

of St. Asaph 797 

65 From the same to Miss Alexander.... 798 

66 From the same to Mrs. Hewson ibid. 

67 From the same to the Bishop of St. 

Asaph (Dr. Shipley) 799 

68 From the same to Sir Joseph Banks... 800 

69 From the same to Mrs. Bache ibid. 

70 From the same to B. Vaughan, Esq. 803 

71 From the same to David Hartley, 

Esq. M. P 806 

72 From the same to Dr. Shipley, Bishop 

of St. Asaph ibid. 

73 From the same to Mrs. Hewson, 

London 808 

74 From the same to M. le Marquis do 

la Fayette 809 

75 From the same to Count de Buffon, 

Paris 810 

76 From the same to Dr. Rush ibid. 

77 From the same to David Hartley, Esq. 81 1 

78 From the same to ***** ibid. 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



BOOK THE FIRST. 
ANCIENT AND CLASSICAL. 



SECTION I. 



FROM THE LETTERS OF MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO, TO SEVERAL OF HIS 
FRIENDS, AS TRANSLATED BY WILLIAM MELMOTH, ESQ. 



LETTER I. 

To Terentia, to my dearest Tullia, and to 
my Son, 

Brundisium, April the 30th. [A. U. 695.] 

If you do not hear from me so fre- 
quently as you might, it Is because I 
can neither write to you nor read your 
letters, without falling into greater grief 
than I am able to support ; for though I 
am at all times indeed completely miser- 
able, yet I feel my misfortunes with a 
particular sensibility upon those tender 
occasions. 

Oh that I had been more indiflFerent 
to life ! Our days would then have been, 
if not wholly unacquainted with sorrow, 
yet by no means thus wretched. How- 
ever, if any hopes are still reserved to us 
of recovering some part at least of what 
we have lost, I shall not think that I have 
made altogether so imprudent a choice. 
But if our present fate is unalterably 
fixed— Ah! my dearest Terentia, if we 
are utterly and for ever abandoned by 
those gods whom you have so religi- 
ously adored, and by those men whom I 
have so faithfully served, let me see you 
as soon as possible, that I may have the 
satisfaction of breathing out my last de- 
parting sigh in your arms. 

I have spent about a fortnight in this 



place*, with my friend Marcus Flaccus. 
This worthy man did not scruple to ex- 
ercise the rights of friendship and hospi- 
tality towards me, notwithstanding the 
severe penalties of that iniquitous law 
against those who should venture to give 
me reception f. May I one day have it 
in my power to make him a return to 
those generous services, which I shall 
ever most gratefully remember ! 

I am just going to embark, and pirt*- 
pose to pass through Macedonia in my 
way to CyzicumJ. And now, my Te- 
rentia, thus wretched and ruined as I am, 
can I intreat you under all that weight of 
pain and sorrow with which, 1 too well 
know, you are oppressed, can I intreat 
you to be the partner and companion of 
my exile ? — But must I then live without 
you ? I know not how to reconcile my- 
self to that hard condition ; unless your 

* Brundisium j a maritime town in the king- 
dom of Naples, now called Brindisi. Cicero, 
when he first withdrew from Rome, intended 
to have retired into Sicily ; but being denied 
entrance by the governor of that island, he 
changed his direction, and came to Brundi- 
sium in his way to Greece. 

f As soon as Cicero had withdrawn from 
Rome Clodius procured a law, Avhich among 
other things enacted, " that no person should 
presume to harbour or receive him on pain of 
death." 

X A considerable town in an island of the 
Propontis, which lay so close to the continent 
of Asia as to be joined with it by a bridge. 

B 



2 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book I. 



presence at Rome may be a mean of for- 
warding my return : if any hopes of that 
kind should indeed subsist. But should 
there, as I sadly suspect, be absolutely 
none ; come to me, I conjure you, if it 
be possible : for never can I think myself 
completely ruined, whilst I shall enjoy 
my Terentia's company. But how will 
my dearest daughter dispose of herself? 
A question which you yourselves must 
consider : for, as to my own part, I am 
utterly at a loss what to advise. At all 
events, however, that dear unhappy girl 
must not take any measures that may in- 
jure her conjugal repose*, or affect her 
in the good opinion of the world. As 
for my son — let me not at least be de- 
prived of the consolation of folding him 
for ever in my arms. But I must lay 
down my pen a few moments : my tears 
flow too fast to suffer me to proceed. 

I am under the utmost solicitude, as I 
know not whether you have been able to 
preserve any part of your estate, or (what 
I sadly fear) are cruelly robbed of your 
whole fortune. I hope Pisof will always 
continue what you represent him to be, 
entirely ours. — As to the manumission of 
the slaves, I think you have no occasion 
to be uneasy. For with regard to your 
own, you only promised them their li- 
berty as they should deserve it : but ex- 
cepting Orpheus, there are none of them 
that have any great claim to this favour. 
As to mine, I told them, if my estate 
should be forfeited, I would give them 
their freedom, provided I could obtain 
the confirmation of that grant ; but if I 
preserved my estate, that they should all 
of them, excepting only a few whom I 
particularly named, remain in their pre- 
sent condition. But this is a matter of 
little consequence. 

With regard to the advice you give me, 
of keeping up my spirits, in the belief 
that I shall again be restored to my coun- 
try ; I only wish that I may have reason 
to encourage so desirable an expectation. 
In the mean time, I am greatly miserable, 
in the uncertainty when I shall hear 
from you, or what hand you will find to 
convey your letters. I would have waited 
for them at this place ; but the master of 
the ship on which I am going to embark 

* Tullia was at this time married to Caius 
Piso Frugi, a young nobleman of one of the 
best families in Rome. 

f Cicero's son-in-law. 



could not be prevailed upon to lose the 
present opportunity of sailing. 

For the rest, let me conjure you in my 
turn, to bear up under the pressure of our 
afilictions with as much resolution as pos- 
sible. Remember that my days have all 
been honourable ; and that I now suffer, 
not for my crimes, but my virtues. No, 
my Terentia, nothing can justly be im- 
puted to me, but that I survived the loss 
of my dignities. However, if it was 
more agreeable to our children that I 
should thus live, let that reflection teach 
us to submit to our misfortunes with 
cheerfulness ; insupportable as upon all 
other considerations they would undoubt- 
edly be. But, alas ! whilst I am endea- 
vouring to keep up your spirits, I am 
utterly unable to preserve my own. 

I have sent back the faithful Philetae- 
rus ; as the v/eakness of his eyes made 
him incapable of rendering me any ser- 
vice. Nothing can equal the good offices 
I receive from Sallustius. Pescennius 
likewise has given me strong marks of 
his affection : and I hope he will not fail 
in his respect also to you. Sicca pro- 
mised to attend me in my exile ; but he 
changed his mind, and has left me at 
this place. 

I intreat you to take all possible care 
of your health : and be assured, your 
misfortunes more sensibly affect me than 
my own. Adieu, my Terentia, thou most 
faithful and best of wives ! Adieu. And 
thou, my dearest daughter, together with 
that other consolation of my life, my 
dear son, I bid you both most tenderly 
farewell. 

LETTER 11. 

To Terentia, to my dearest Tullia, and to 
my Son. 

Thessalonicat, Oct. the 5th. [A. U. fi95.] 
Imagine not, my Terentia, that I write 
longer^ letters to others than to your- 
self: be assured at least, if ever I do, 
it is merely because those 1 receive from 
them require a more particular answer. 
The truth of it is, I am always at a loss 
what to write : and as there is nothing in 
the present dejection of my mind, that I 
perform with greater reluctance in ge- 
neral ; so I never attempt it with regard 
to you and my dearest daughter, that it 

I A city in Macedonia, now called Salonichi. 



Sect. I. 



CICERO. 



does not cost me a flood of tears. For 
how can 1 think of you without being 
pierced with grief in the reflection, that 
I have made those completely miserable, 
whom I ought, and ^vished, to have ren- 
dered perfectly happy? And I should 
have rendered them so, if I had acted 
with less timidity. 

Piso's behaviour towards us, in this 
season of our afflictions, has greatly en- 
deared him to my heart : and I have, as 
well as I was able in the present discom- 
posure of my mind, exhorted him to 
continue them. 

I perceive you much depend upon the 
new tribunes : and if Pompey perseveres 
in his present disposition, I am inclined to 
think that your hopes will not be disap- 
pointed ; though I must confess, I have 
some fears with respect to Crassus. In 
the mean while I have the satisfaction to 
And, what indeed I had reason to expect, 
that you act with great spirit and tender- 
ness in all my concerns. But I lament it 
should be my cruel fate to expose you to 
so many calamities, whilst you are thus 
generously endeavouring to ease the 
weight of mine. Be assured it was with 
the utmost grief I read the account which 
Publius sent me, of the opprobrious man- 
ner in which you were dragged from the 
temple of Vesta to the office of Valerius*. 
Sad reverse indeed ! that thou, the dear- 
est object of my fondest desires, that 
my Terentia, to whom such numbers 
were wont to look up for relief, should 
he herself a spectacle of the most affect- 
ing distress ! and that I, who have saved 
so many others from ruin, should have 
ruined both myself and my family by my 
own indiscretion ! 

As to what you mention with regard 
to the area belonging to my house ; I 
shall never look upon myself as restored 
to my country, till that spot of ground 
is again in my possessionf. But this is a 
point that does not depend upon our- 
selves. Let me rather express my con- 
cern for what does : and lament that dis- 



* Terentia had taken sanctuary in the temple 
of Vesta; but was foicibly dragged out from 
thence by the directions of Clodius, in order to 
be examined at a public office, concerning her 
husband's effects. 

f After Clodius had procured the law against 
Cicero already taken notice of, he consecrated 
the area where his house in Rome stood, to the 
perpetual service of religioo, and erected a 
temple upon it to the Goddess of Liberty. 



tressed as your circumstances already 
are, you should engage yourself in a share 
of those expenses which are incurred 
upon my account. Be assured, if ever I 
should return to Rome, I shall easily re- 
cover my estate : but should fortune con- 
tinue to prosecute me, will you, thou dear 
unhappy woman, will you fondly throw 
away in gaining friends to a desperate 
cause, the last scanty remains of your 
broken fortunes ? I conjure you then , my 
dearest Terentia, not to involve yourself 
in any charges of that kind : let them be 
borne by those who are able, if they are 
willing, to support the weight. In a 
word, if you have any affection for me, 
let not your anxiety upon my account in- 
jui-e your health ; which, alas ! is already 
but too much impaired. Believe me, you 
are the perpetual subject of my waking 
and sleeping thoughts : and as I know 
the assiduity you exert on my behalf, I 
have a thousand fears lest your strength 
should not be equal to so continued a fa- 
tigue. I am sensible at the same time, 
that my affairs depend entirely upon your 
assistance ; and therefore that they may 
be attended with the success you hope 
and so zealously endeavour to obtain, 
let me earnestly intreat you to take care 
of yoiu* health. 

I know iiot whom to write to, unless 
to those who first write to me, or whom 
you particularly mention in your letters. 
As you and Tullia are of opinion that 1 
should not retreat farther from Italy, I 
have laid aside that design. Let me hear 
from you both as soon as possible, par- 
ticularly if there should be any fairer 
prospect of my return. Farewell, ye 
dearest objects of my most tender affec- 



LETTER III. 

To the same. 

Dyrrachiumt, Nov. 26. [A. U. G95.] 
I LEARN hy the letters of several of my 
friends, as well as from general report, 
that you discover the greatest fortitude of 
mind, and that you solicit my affairs with 
unwearied application. Oh, my Teren- 
tia, how truly wretched am I, to be the 

-+ A city in Macedonia, now called Durazzo, 
in the Turkish dominions. This letter, though 
dated from Dyrrachium, appears to have been 
wholly written, except the postscript, at Thes- 
salonica. 

B 2 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book I. 



occasion of such severe misfortunes to 
so faithful, so generous, and so excellent 
a woman ! And my dearest Tullia too ! 
that she, who was once so happy in her 
father, should now derive from him such 
bitter sorrows ! But how shall I express 
the anguish I feel for my little boy ! who 
became acquainted with grief as soon as 
he was capable of any reflection*. Had 
these afflictions happened, as you ten- 
derly represent them, by an unavoidable 
fate, they would have sat less heavy on 
my heart. But they are altogether 
owing to my own folly, in imagining I 
was loved where I was secretly envied, 
and in not joining with those who were 
sincerely desirous of my friendshipf. Had 
I been governed, indeed, by my own 
sentiments, without relying so much on 
those of my weak or wicked advisers, we 
might still, my Terentia, have been happy. 
However, since my friends encourage 
me to hope, I will end-eavour to restrain 
my grief, lest the effect it may have 
upon my health should disappoint your 
tender efforts for my restoration. I am 
sensible at the same time of the many 
difficulties that must be conquered ere 
that point can be affected ; and that it 
would have been much easier to have 
maintained my post, than it is to recover 
It. Nevertheless, if all the tribunes are 
in my interest ; if Lentulus is really as 
zealous in my cause as he appears ; and 
if Pompey and Caesar likewise concur 
with him in the same views, I ought not, 
most certainly, to despair. 

With regard to our slaves ; I am will- 
ing to act as our friends, you tell me, ad- 
vise. As to your concern in respect to 
the plague Avhich broke out here ; it is 
entirely cesaed : and I had the good for- 
tune to escape all infection. However, it 
was my desire to have changed my pre- 
sent situation for some more retired place 
in Epirus, where I might be secure from 
Piso and his soldiers]:. But the obliging 

* Cicero's son was at this time about eight 
years of age, 

f Csesar and Crassus frequently solicited Ci- 
cero to unite himself to their party, promising to 
protect him from the outrages of Clodius, pro- 
vided he would fall in with their measures. 

+ Lucius Calphurnius Piso, who was consul 
this year with Gabinius: they were both the 
professed enemies of Cicero, and supported 
Clodius in his violent measures. The province 
of Macedonia had fallen to the former, and he 
was now preparing to set out for his govern- 
ment, where his troops were daily arriving. 



Plancius was unwilling to part with me, 
and still indeed detains me here, in the 
hope that we may return together to 
Rome§. If ever I should live to see that 
happy day ; if ever I should be restored 
to my Terentia, to my children, and to 
myself, I shall think all the tender solici- 
tudes we have suffered during this sad 
separation abundantly repaid. 

Nothing can exceed the affection and 
humanity of Piso's|| behaviour towards 
every one of us : and 1 wish he may re- 
ceive from it as much satisfaction as I 
am persuaded he will honour. — I was far 
from intending to blame you with respect 
to my brother ; but it is much my desire, 
especially as there are so few of you, that 
you should live together in the most per- 
fect harmony. I have made my acknow- 
ledgments where you desired, and ac- 
quainted the persons you mention that 
you had informed me of their services. 

As to the estate you propose to sell ; 
alas ! my dear Terentia, think well of 
the consequence : think what would be- 
come of our unhappy boy, should for- 
tune still continue to persecute us. But 
my eyes stream too fast to suffer me to 
add more : nor would I draw the same 
tender flood from yours. I will only say, 
that if my friends should not desert me, I 
shall be in no distress for money : and if 
they should, the money you can raise by 
the sale of this estate will little avail. I 
conjure you then by all our misfortunes, 
let us not absolutely ruin our poor boy, 
who is well nigh totally undone already. 
If we can but raise him above indigence, 
a moderate share of good fortune and 
merit will be sufficient to open his way 
to whatever else we can wish him to ob- 
tain. Take care of your health, and let me 
know by an express how your negocia- 
tions proceed, and how affairs in general 
stand. — My fate must now be soon deter- 
mined. — I tenderly salute my son and 
daughter, and bid you all farewell. 

P. S. I came hither not only as it is 
a free city^, and much in my interest, 
but as it is situated likewise near Italy. 
But if I should find any inconvenience 
from its being a town of such great re- 

§ Plancius was at this time quagstor in Ma- 
cedonia, and distinguished himself by many 
generous offices to Cicero in his exile. 

II Cicero's son-in-law. 

^ That is, a city which had the privilege, 
though in the dominions of the Roman repub- 
lic, to be governed by its own laws. 



Sect. I. 



CICERO. 



sort, I sliail remove elsewhere, and give 
you due notice. 



LETTER IV. 

To Terentia. 
Dyrrachiiun, Nov. the 30th. [A. U. C95 ] 

1 RECEIVED three letters from you by 
the hands of Aristocritus, and have 
wept over them till they are almost de- 
faced with my tears. Ah ! my Terentia, 
I am worn out with grief : nor do my 
own personal misfortunes more severely 
torture my mind, than those with which 
you and my children are oppressed. Un- 
happy indeed as you are, I am stili infi- 
nitely more so ; as our common afflic- 
tions are attended with this ag'gravating 
circumstance to myself, that they are 
justly to be imputed to my imprudence 
alone . I ought, most undoubtedly, either 
to have avoided the danger, by accepting 
the commission which was offered me ; 
or to have repelled force by force, or 
bravely to have perished in the attempt. 
Wliereas nothing could have been more 
unworthy of my character, or more preg- 
nant with misery, than the scheme I have 
pursued. I am overwhelmed, therefore, 
not only with sorrow, but with shame : 
yes, my Terentia, I blush to reflect that 
I did not exert that spirit I ought for the 
sake of so excellent a wife and such ami- 
able children. The distress in which you 
are all equally involved, and your own 
ill state of health in particular, are ever 
in my thoughts : as I have the mortifi- 
cation at the same time to observe, that 
there appear but slender hopes of my be- 
ing recalled. My enemies, in truth, are 
many ; while those who are jealous of me 
are almost innumerable ; and though they 
found great difficulty in driving me from 
my country, it will be extremely easy 
for them to prevent my return. How- 
ever, as long as you have any hopes that 
my restoration may be effected, I will not 
cease to co-operate with your endeavours 
for that purpose, lest my weakness should 
seem upon all occasions to frustrate every 
measure in my favour. In the mean 
while, my person (for which you are so 
tenderly concerned) is secure from all 
danger : as in truth I am so completely 
wretched, that even my enemies them- 
selves must wish, in mere malice, to pre- 
serve my life. Nevertheless, I shall not 



fail to observe the caution you kindly 
give me. 

I have sent my acknowledgments by 
Dexippus to the persons you desired me, 
and mentioned at the same time, that you 
had informed me of their good offices. I 
am perfectly sensible of those which Piso 
exerts towards us with so uncommon a 
zeal : and indeed it is a circumstance 
which all the world speaks of to his ho- 
nour. Heaven grant I may live to enjoy 
with you and our children the common 
happiness of so valuable a relation^. 

The only hope I have now left, arises 
from the new tribunes ; and that too de- 
pends upon the steps they shall take in 
the com.mencement of their office : for if 
they should postpone my affair, I shall 
give up all expectations of its ever being 
effected. Accordingly I have dispatched 
Aristocritus, that you may send me im- 
mediate notice of the first measures they 
shall pursue, together with the general 
plan upon which they purpose to conduct 
themselves. I have likewise ordered 
Dexippus to return to me with all expe- 
dition, and have written to my brother to 
request he v/ould give me frequent in- 
formation in what manner affairs pro- 
ceed. It is with a view of receiving the 
earliest intelligence from Rome, that I 
continue at Dyrrachium ; a place v/liere I 
can remain in perfect security, as I have 
upon all occasions distinguished this city 
by my particular patronage. However, 
as soon as I shall receive intimation that 
my enemies t are approaching, it is my 
resolution to retire into Epirus. 

In answer to your tender proposal of 
accompanying me in my exile : I rather 
choose you should continue in Rome ; as 
I am sensible it is upon you that the 
principal burthen of my affairs must rest. 
If your generous negociations should 
succeed, my return will prevent the neces- 
sity of that joui'ney ; if otherwise 

But I need not add the rest. The next 
letter I shall receive from you, or at 

* He had the gieat misfortune to be disap- 
pointed of his wish; for Piso died soon after this 
letter was written. Cicero represents him as a 
young nobleman of the greatest talents and 
application, who devoted his whole time to the 
improveinents of his mind, and the exercise of 
eloquence: as one whose moral qualifications 
were no less extraordinary thaiihis intellectual, 
and in short as possessed of every accomplish- 
ment and virtue that could endear him to his 
friends, to his family, and to the public. 

f The troops of Piso. 



ELEGANT EPISTLES, 



Book I. 



most the subsequent one, will determine 
me in what manner to act. In the mean 
time I desire you will give me a full and 
faithful information how things go on : 
though indeed I have now more reason 
to expect the final result of this ajffair, 
than an account of its progress. 

Take care of your health I conjure 
you ; assuring yourself that you are, as 
you ever have been, the object of my 
fondest wishes. Farewell, my dear Te- 
rentia ! I see you so strongly before me 
whilst I am writing, that I am utterly 
spent with the tears I have shed. Once 
more, farewell. 

LETTER V. 

To Marcus Marius*. 

[A. U. 698 ] 
If your general valetudinary disposi- 
tion prevented you from being a specta- 
tor of our late public entertainments f, 
it is more to fortune than to philosophy 
that I am to impute your absence. But 
if you declined our party for no other 
reason than as holding in just contempt 
what the generality of the world so ab- 
surdly admire, I must at once congratu- 
late you both on your health and your 
judgment. I say this upon a supposition, 
however, that you were enjoying the phi- 
losophical advantages of that delightful 
scene, in which, I imagine, you were al- 
most v/holly deserted. At the same time 
that your neighbours, probably, were 
nodding over the dull humour of our 
trite farces, my friend, I dare say, was 
indulging his morning meditations in 
that elegant apartment from whence you 
have opened a prospect to Sejanum, 
through the Stabian hills |. And whilst 

* The person to whom this letter is addressed 
seems to have been of a temper and constitu- 
tion that placed him far below the ambition of 
being known to posterity. But a private letter 
from Cicero's hand has been sufficient to dis- 
pel the obscurity he appears to have loved, and 
to render his retirement conspicuous. 

f They were exhibited by Pompey at the 
opening of his theatre ; one of the most magnifi- 
cent structures of ancient Rome; and so exten- 
sive as to contain no less than 30,000 specta- 
tors. It was built after the model of one which 
he saw at Mitylene, in his return from the 
Mithridatic war ; and adorned with the noblest 
ornaments of statuary and painting. Some re- 
mains of this immense building still subsist. 

X Sejanum is found in no other ancient author. 
Stabiae was a maritime town in Campania, situ- 
ated upon the bay of Naples, from whence the 
adjoining hills here mentioned took their name. 



you were employing the rest of the day 
in those various polite amusements which 
you have the happy privilege to plan out 
for yourself ; we, alas! had the mortifi- 
cation of tamely enduring those drama- 
tical representations, to which Msetius, 
it seems, our professed critic, had given 
his infallible sanction : but as you will 
have the curiosity, perhaps, to require a 
more particular account, I must tell you, 
that though our entertainments were 
extremely magnificent indeed, yet they 
were by no means such as you would 
have relished ; at least if I may judge of 
your taste by my own. Some of those 
actors who had formerly distinguished 
themselves with great applause, but had 
long since retired, I imagined, in order 
to preserve the reputation they had raised, 
were now again introduced upon the 
stage ; as in honour, it seems, of the fes- 
tival. Among these was my old friend 
iEsopus : but so difi^erent from what we 
once knew him, that the whole audience 
agreed he ought to be excused from act- 
ing any more. For when he was pro- 
nouncing the celebrated oath, 



If I deceive, be Jove's dread vengeance hurl'd, 
&c. 



the poor old man's voice failed him ; and 
he had not strength to go through with 
the speech. As to the other parts of 
our theatrical entertainments, you know 
the nature of them so well, that it is 
scarce necessary to mention them. They 
had less indeed to plead in their favour 
than even the most ordinary represen- 
tations of this kind can usually claim. 
The enormous parade with which they 
were attended, and which, I dare say, 
you would very willingly have spared, 
destroyed all the grace of the perform- 
ance. What pleasure could it afford to 
a judicious spectator, to see a thousand 
mules prancing about the stage, in the 
tragedy of Clytsemnestra ; or whole re- 
giments accoutred in foreign armour, in 
that of the Trojan Horse F In a word, 
what man of sense could be entertained 
with viewing a mock army drawn up on 
the stage in battle array ? These, I con- 
fess, are spectacles extremely well adapt- 
ed to captivate vulgar eyes ; but un- 
doubtedly would have had no charm in 
your's. In plain truth, my friend, you 
would have received more amusement 
from the dullest piece that Protogenes 



Sect. I. 



CICERO. 



could possibly have read to you* (my own 
orations, however, let me always except), 
than we meet with at these ridiculous 
shows. 1 am well persuaded, at least, 
you could not regret the loss of our Os- 
cian and Grecian farces f. Your own 
noble senate will always furnish you 
with drollery sufficient of the former 
kind 'I ; and as to the latter, I know you 
have such an utter aversion to every 
thing- that bears the name of Greek, that 
you will not even travel the Grecian 
road to your ^dlla. As 1 remember 
you once despised our formidable gla- 
diators, I cannot suppose you would 
have looked with less contempt on our 
athletic performers : and, indeed, Pom- 
pey himself acknowledges, that they did 
not answer the pains and expense they 
had cost him. The remainder of our 
diversions consisted in combats of wild 
beasts §, which were exhibited every 
morning and afternoon during five days 
successively ; and it must be owned, 
they were magnificent. Yet, after all, 
what entertainment can possibly arise to 
an elegant and humanised mind, from 
seeing a noble beast struck to the heart 
by its merciless hunter, or one of our 
own weak species cruelly mangled by an 
animal of much superior strength ? But 
were there any thing really v/orth ob- 
serving in spectacles of this savage kind, 
they are spectacles extremely familiar to 
you ; and those I am speaking of had 
not any peculiar novelty to recom- 
mend them. The last day's sport was 
^composed entirely of elephants, which, 
though they made the common people 

* It was usual with persons of distinction 
amongst the Romans to keep a slave in their 
family, whose sole business it was to read to 
thera. Protogenes seems to have attended 
Marius in that capacity. 

f The Oscian farces were so called from 
the Osci, an ancient people of Campania, 
from whom the Romans received them. They 
seem to have been of the same kind with our 
Bartholomew drolls, and to have consisted of 
low and obscene humour. 

X The municipal or corporate towns in 
Italy were governed by magistrates of their 
own, who probably made much the same sort 
of figure in their rural senate, as our burgesses 
in their town hall. 

§ Beasts of the wildest and most uncommon 
kinds were sent for, upon these occasions, from 
every corner of the known world : and Dion 
Cassius relates, that no less than 500 lions 
were killed at these hunting matches with 
which Pompey entertained the people. 



stare indeed, did not seem, however, to 
afford them any great satisfaction. On 
the contrary, the terrible slaughter of 
these poor animals created a general 
commiseration ; as it is a prevailing no- 
tion, that these creatures in some degree 
participate of our rational faculties. 

That you may not imagine I had the 
happiness of being perfectly at my ease 
during the whole of this pompous festi- 
val, I must acquaint you, that while the 
people v»^ere amusing themselves at the 
plays, I was almost killed with the fa- 
tigue of pleading for your friend Gallus 
Caninus. Were the world as much in- 
clined to favour my retreat, as they 
shewed themselves in the case of ^sopus, 
believe me, I would for ever renounce my 
art, and spend the remainder of my days 
with you and some others of the same 
philosophical turn. The truth of it is, I 
began to grow weary of this employ- 
ment, even at a time when youth and 
ambition prompted my perseverance ; 
and I will add too, when I was at full 
liberty to exercise it in defence of those 
only whom I was inclined to assist. But 
in my present circumstances, it is abso- 
lute slavery : for, on the one side, I 
never expect to reap any advantage from 
my labours of this kind ; and, on the 
other, in compliance with solicitations 
which I cannot refuse, I am sometimes 
under the disagreeable necessity of ap- 
pearing as an advocate in behalf of those 
who ill deserve that favour at my hands. 
For these reasons, I am framing every 
possible pretence for living hereafter ac- 
cording to my own taste and sentiments ; 
as I highly both approve and applaud 
that retired scene of life which you have 
so judiciously chosen. I am sensible at 
the same time, that this is the reason 
you so seldom visit Rome. However, I 
the less regret that you do not see it 
oftener, as the numberless unpleasing 
occupations in which I am engaged 
would prevent me from enjoying the en- 
tertainment of your conversation, or 
giving you that of mine ; if mine, in- 
deed, can afford you any. But if ever I 
should be so fortunate as to disentangle 
myself, in some degree fit least (for I am 
contented not to be wholly released), 
from these perplexing embarrassments, 
I will undertake to shew even my 
elegant friend, wherein the truest re- 
finements of life consist. In the mean 
while, continue to take care of yriir 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book f. 



health, that you may be able, when that 
happy time shall arrive, to accompany 
mjd in my litter to my several villas. 

You must impute it to the excess of 
my friendship, and not to the abundance 
of my leisure, that I have leng-thened 
this letter beyond my usual extent. It 
was merely in compliance with a request 
in one of yours, where you intimate a 
desire that I would compensate in this 
manner what you lost by not being pre- 
sent at our public diversions. I shall 
be extremely glad, if I have succeeded ; 
if not, I shall have the satisfaction how- 
ever to think, that you will for the future 
be more inclined to give us your com- 
pany on these occasions, than to rely on 
my letters for your amusement. Fare- 
well. 

LETTER VI. 
To Marcus Licinius Crassus. 

[A. U. 699.] 

I AM persuaded that all your friends 
have informed you of the zeal with which 
I lately both defended and promoted 
your dignities ; as indeed it was too 
warm and too conspicuous to have been 
passed over in silence. The opposition 
I met with from the consuls*, as well as 
from several others of consular rank, 
was the strongest I ever encountered : 
and you must now look upon me as your 
declared advocate upon all occasions 
where your glory is concerned. Thus 
have I abundantly compensated for the 
intermission of those good offices, which 
the friendship between us had long given 
you a right to claim, but which, by a 
variety of accidents, have lately been 
somewhat interrupted. There never was 
a time, believe me, when I wanted an 
inclination to cultivate your esteem^ or 
promote your interest ; though, it must 
be owned, a certain set of men, who are 
the bane of all amicable intercourse, and 
who envied us the mutual honour that 
resulted from ours, have upon some occa- 
sions been so unhappily successful as to 
create a coolness between us. It has 
happened, however (what I rather wished 
than expected), that I have found an op- 
portunity, even when your affairs were 

* The consuls of this year were L. Domitius 
Ahenobarbus, and Appiug Claudius Pulcher. 



in the most prosperous train, of giving a 
public testimony by my services to you, 
that I always most sincerely preserved 
the remembrance of our former amity. 
The truth is, I have approved myself 
your friend, not only to the full convic- 
tion of your family in particular, but of 
all Rome in general. In consequence of 
which, that most valuable of women, 
your excellent wife f, together with those 
illustrious models of virtue and filial 
piety, your two amiable sons, have per- 
petual recourse to my assistance and 
advice : and the whole world is sensible 
that no one is more zealously disposed 
to serve you than myself. 

Your family correspondents have in- 
formed you, I imagine, of what has hi- 
therto passed in your affair, as well as of 
what is at present in agitation. As for 
myself, I intreat you to do me the jus- 
tice to believe, that it was not any sud- 
den start of inclination, which disposed 
me to embrace this opportunity of vin- 
dicating your honour ; on the contrary, 
it was my ambition, from the first mo- 
ment I entered the Forum, to be ranked 
in the number of your friends X- I have 
the satisfaction to reflect, that I have 
never, from that time to this hour, failed 
in the highest sentiments of esteem for 
you ; and I doubt not, you have always 
retained the same affectionate regard to- 
wards me. If the effects of this mutual 
disposition have been interrupted by any 
little suspicions (for suspicions only I 
am sure they were), be the remembrance 
of them for ever blotted out of our hearts, 
I am persuaded, indeed, fi'om those vir- 
tues which form your character, and 
from those which I am desirous should 
distinguish onine, that our friendly union 
in the present conjuncture cannot but 
be attended with equal honour to us 
both. Wliat instances you may be vei- 
ling to give me of your esteem, must be 
left to your own determination : but 
they will be such, I flatter myself, as may 
tend most to advance my dignities. For 
my own part, I faithfully promise the 
utmost exertion of my best services in 
every article wherein I can contribute to 
increase yours. Many, I know, will be 

f This lady's name was TertuUa. 

J Crassus was almost ten years older than 
Ciceroj so that when the latter first appeared 
at the bar, the former had already established 
a character by his oratorical abilities. 



Sect. I. 



CICERO. 



my rivals in these amicable offices : but 
it is a contention in which all the world, 
I question not, and particularly your two 
sons, will acknowledge my superiority. 
Be assured, I love them both in a very 
uncommon degree, though I will own 
that Publius is my favourite. From his 
infancy, indeed, he discovered a singular 
regard to me ; as he particularly distin- 
guishes me at this time with all the 
marks even of filial respect and affection. 

Let me desire you to consider this let- 
ter, not as a strain of unmeaning com- 
pliment, but as a sacred and solemn co- 
venant of friendship, which I shall most 
sincerely and religiously observe. I shall 
now persevere in being the advocate of 
your honours, not only from a motive 
of affection, but from a principle of con- 
stancy : and without any application on 
your part, you may depend on my em- 
bracing every opportunity, wherein I 
shall think my services may prove agree- 
able to your interest or your inclinations. 
Can you once doubt, then, that any re- 
quest to me for this purpose, either by 
yourself or your family, will meet with a 
most punctual observance ? I hope, there- 
fore, you will not scruple to employ me 
in all your concerns, of what nature or 
importance soever, as one who is most 
faithfully your friend : and that you will 
direct your family to apply to me in all 
their affairs of every kind, whether re- 
lating to you or to themselves, to their 
friends or their dependents. And be as- 
sured, I shall spare no pains to render 
your absence as little uneasy to them as 
j^ossible. Farewell. 

LETTER Vn. 

To Julius Ccesar*. 

[A. U. 699.-\ 
I AM going to give an instance how 
much I rely upon your affectionate ser- 
vices, not only towards myseK, but in 
favour also of my friends. It was my 
intention, if I had gone abroad in any 
foreign employment, that Trebatiusf 

* Caesar was at this time in Gaul, preparing 
for his first expedition into Britain. 

f This person seems to have been in the 
number of Cjesar's particular favourites. He 
appears in this earlier part of his life to have 
been of a more gay and indolent disposition 
than is consistent with making a figure in bu- 
siness; but he afterwards, however, became a 



should have accompanied me: and he 
would not have returned without receiv- 
ing the highest and most advantageous 
honours I should have been able to have 
conferred upon him. But as Pompey, I 
find, defers setting out upon his com- 
mission longer than I imagined, and I 
am apprehensive likewise that the doubts 
you know I entertain in regard to my at- 
tending him, may possibly prevent, as 
they will certainly at least delay, my 
journey ; I take the liberty to refer Tre- 
batius to vour good offices, for those be- 
nefits he expected to have received from 
mine. I have ventured indeed to pro- 
mise, that he will find you full as well 
disposed to advance his interest, as I 
have always assured him he would find 
me ; and a very extraordinary circum- 
stance occurred, which seemed to confirm 
this opinion I entertained of your gene- 
rosity. For, in the very instant I was 
talking with Balbus upon this subject, 
your letter was delivered to me : in the 
close of which you pleasantly tell me, 
that " in compliance with my request, 
you will make Orfius king of Gaul, or 
assign him over to Lepta, and advance 
any other person whom I should be in- 
clined to recommend.'" This had so re- 
markable a coincidence with our discourse 
that it struck both Balbus and myself 
as a sort of happy omen that had some- 
thing in it more than accidental. As it 
was my intention, therefore, before I 
received your letter, to have transmitted 
Trebatius to you ; so I now consign him 
to your patronage as upon your own in- 
vitation. Receive him, then, my dear 
Csesar, with your usual generosity, and 
distinguish him with every honour that 
my solicitations can induce you to con- 
fer. I do not recommend him in the 
manner you so justly rallied, when I 
wrote to you in favour of Orfius : but I 
will take upon me to assure you, in true 
Roman sincerity, that there lives not a 
man of greater modesty and merit. I 
must not forget to mention also (what 
indeed is his distinguishing qualifica- 
tion), that he is eminently skilled in the 
laws of his country, and happy in an un- 
common strength of memory. I will not 
point out any particular piece of prefer- 
ment, which I wish you to bestow upon 



very celebrated lawyer ; and one of the most 
agreeable satires of Horace is addressed to 
him under that honourable character. 



10 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book I. 



him : I will only in general intreat you 
to admit him into a share of your friend- 
ship. Nevertheless, if you should think 
proper to distinguish him with the tri- 
bunate or prsefecture*, or any other little 
honours of that nature, I shall have no 
manner of objection. In good earnest, I 
entirely resign him out of my hands into 
yours, which never were lifted up in 
battle, or pledged in friendship, without 
effect. But I fear I have pressed you 
farther upon this occasion than was ne- 
cessary : however, I know you will ex- 
cuse my warmth in the cause of a friend. 
Take care of your health, and continue 
to love me. Farewell. 



LETTER Vin. 

To Trehatius. 

[A. U. 699.] 
I NEVER write to Csesar or Balbus with- 
out taking occasion to mention you 
in the advantageous terms you deserve ; 
and this in a style that evidently distin- 
guishes me for your sincere well-wisher. 
I hope therefore you will check this idle 
passion for the elegancies of Rome, and 
resolutely persevere in the purpose of 
your journey, till your merit and assi- 
duity shall have obtained the desired 
effect. In the mean time, your friends 
here will excuse your absence, no less 
than the ladies of Corinth did that of 
Medea in the playf, when she artfully 
persuades them not to impute it to her 
as a crime, that she had forsaken her 
country : for, as she tells them. 

There are who distant from their native soil. 
Still for their own and country's glory toil : 
While some, fast rooted to their parent spot, 
In life are useless, and in death forgot. 

In this last inglorious class you would 

* The military tribunes were next in rank to 
the lieutenants or commanders in chief under 
the general ; as the prtefectus legionis was the 
most honourable post in the Roman armies 
after that of the military tribunes. The busi- 
ness of the former was, among other articles, 
to decide all controversies that arose among 
the soldiers; and that of the latter was to 
carry the chief standard of the legion. 

f Medea, being enamoured of Jason, assisted 
him in obtaining.the golden fleece, and then fled 
with him from her father's court. He afterwards 
however deserted her for Creusa, the daughter 
of Creon king of Corinth, whom Medea de- 
stroyed by certain magical arts. Ennius, a 
Roman poet, who flourished about a century 
before the date of this letter, formed a play 
upon this story. 



most certainly have been numbered, had 
not your friends all conspired in forcing 
you from Rome. — But more of this an- 
other time : in the mean while let me 
advise you, who know so well how to 
manage securities for others, to secure 
yourself from the British charioteers if. 
And since I have heen playing the Medea, 
let me make my exit with the following 
lines of the same tragedy, which are well 
worth your constant remembrance : — 
His wisdom, sure, on folly's confines lies, 
Who, wise for others, for himself's unwise. 

Farewell. 



LETTER IX. 

To the same. 

[A. U. 099.] 
I TAKE all opportunities of writing in 
your favour ; and I should be glad you 
would let me know with what success. 
My chief reliance is on Balbus : in my 
letters to whom I frequently and warmly 
recommend your interest. But why do 
you not let me hear from you every time 
my brother dispatches a courier ? 

I am informed there is neither gold 
nor silver in all Britain §. If that should 
be the case, I would advise you to seize 
one of the enemy's military cars, and 
drive back to us with all expedition. But 
if you think you shall be able to make 
your fortune without the assistance of 
British spoils, by all means establish 
yourself in Ceesar's friendship. To be 
serious, both my brother and Balbus 
will be of great service to you for that 
purpose ; but, believe me, your own merit 
and assiduity will prove your best recom- 
mendation. You have every favourable 
circumstance indeed for your advance- 
ment that can be wished. On the one 
hand, you are in the prime and vigour of 

X The armies of the ancient Britons were 
partly composed of troops who fought in open 
chariots, to the axletrees of which were fixed 
a kind of short scythe. 

§ A notion had prevailed among the Romans 
that Britain abounded in gold and silver mines, 
and this report, it is probable, first suggested 
to Caesar the design of conquering Britain. It 
was soon discovered, however, that these sources 
of wealth existed only in their own imagina- 
tion ; and all their hopes of plunder ended in 
the little advantage they could make by the 
sale of their prisoners. Cicero, taking notice of 
this circumstance to Atticus, ridicules the po- 
verty and ignorance of our British ancestors. 



Sect. I. 



CICERO. 



11 



your years ; as on the other, you are serv- 
ing under a commander distinguished for 
the generosity of his disposition, and to 
whom you have been recommended in 
the strongest terms. In a word, there is 
not the least fear of your success, if your 
own concurrence be not wanting. Fare- 
well. 

LETTER X. 

To Trehatius, 

[A. U. 699.] 
I HAVE received a very obliging letter 
from Csesar, wherein he tells me, that 
though his numberless occupations have 
hitherto prevented him from seeing you 
so often as he wishes, he will certainly 
find an opportunity of being better ac- 
quainted with you. 1 have assured him, 
in return, how extremely acceptable his 
generous services to you would prove to 
myself. But surely you are much too 
precipitate in your determinations ; and 
I could not but wonder that you should 
have refused the advantages of a tribune's 
commission, especially as you might have 
been excused, it seems, from the func- 
tions of that post. If you continue to 
act thus indiscreetly, I shall certainly 
exhibit an information against you to 
your friends Vacerra and Manilius. I 
dare not venture, however, to lay the case 
before Cornelius : for, as you profess to 
have learned all your wisdom from his 
instructions ; to arraign the pupil of im- 
prudence, would be a tacit reflection, 
you know, upon the tutor. But in good 
earnest, I conjure you not to lose the 
fairest opportunity of making your for- 
tune, that probably will ever fall again 
in your way. 

I frequently recommend your interests 
to Precianus, whom you mention ; and he 
writes me word that he has done you some 
good offices. Let me know of what kind 
they are. I expect a letter upon your 
arrival in Britain. Farewell. 



LETTER XL 

To the same. 

[A. U. 699.] 
I HAVE made your acknowledgments 
to my brother, in pursuance of your re- 
quest ; and am glad to have an occasion 



of applauding you for being fixed at last 
in some settled resolution. The style 
of your former letters, I will own, gave 
me a good deal of uneasiness. And al- 
low me to say, that in some of them you 
discovered an impatience to return to the 
polite refinements of Rome, which had 
the appearance of much levity ; that in 
some I regretted your indolence, and in 
others your timidity. They frequently 
likewise gave me occasion to think, that 
you were not altogether so reasonable in 
your expectations, as is agreeable to your 
usual modesty. One would have ima- 
gined, indeed, you had carried a bill of 
exchange upon Cffisar, instead of a letter 
of recommendation : for you seemed to 
think you had nothing more to do than 
to receive your money and hasten home 
again. But money, my friend, is not so 
easily acquired ; and I could name some 
of our acquaintance who have been 
obliged to travel as far as Alexandria in 
pursuit of it, without having yet been 
able to obtain even their just demands*. 
If my inclinations were governed solely 
by my interest, I should certainly choose 
to have you here ; as nothing affords me 
more pleasure than your company, or 
more advantage than your advice and 
assistance. But as you sought my friend- 
ship and patronage from your earliest 
youth, I always thought it incumbent 
upon me to act with a disinterested view 
to your welfare; and not only to give 
you my protection, but to advance, by 
every means in my power, both your 
fortunes and your dignities. In conse- 
quence of which, I dare say you have not 
forgotten those unsolicited offers I made 
you, when I had thoughts of being em- 
ployed abroad. I no sooner gave up my 
intentions of this kind, and perceived 
that Csesar treated me with great distinc- 
tion and friendship, than I recommended 
you in the strongest and warmest terms 
to his favour ; perfectly well knowing 
the singular probity and benevolence of 
his heart. Accordingly he shewed, not 
only by his letters to me, but by his 
conduct towards you, the great regard 
he paid to my recommendation. If you 
have any opinion, therefore, of my judg- 
ment, or imagine that I sincerely wish 
you well, let me persuade you to con- 



* Alluding to those who supplied Ptolemy 
with money when he was soliciting his affairs 
in Rome. 



12 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book I, 



tinue with him. And notwithstanding 
you should meet with some things to 
disgust you, as business, perhaps, or 
other obstructions, may render him less 
expeditious in gratifying your views than 
you had reason to expect, still, however, 
persevere ; and trust me, you will find it 
prove in the end both for your interest 
and your honour. To exhort you any 
farther might look like impertinence : 
let me only remind you, that if you lose 
this opportunity of improving your for- 
tune, you will never meet again with so 
generous a patron, so rich a province, or 
so convenient a season for this purpose. 
And (to express myself in the style of 
your lawyers) Cornelius has given his 
opinion to the same effect. 

I am glad for my sake, as well as 
yours, that you did not attend Csesar 
into Britain; as it has not only saved 
you the fatigue of a very disagreeable 
expedition, but me likewise that of be- 
ing the perpetual auditor of your won- 
derful exploits. Let me know in what 
part of the world you are likely to take 
up your winter quarters, and in what 
post you are, or expect to be, employed. 
Farewell. 

LETTER XIL 

To the same. 

[A. U. 699.] 
It is a considerable time since I have 
heard any thing from you. As for 
myself, if I have not written these three 
months, it was because, after you were 
separated from my brother, I neither 
knew where to address my letters, nor 
by what hand to convey them. I much 
wish to be informed how your affairs go 
on, and in what part of the world your 
winter quarters are likely to be fixed. I 
should be glad they might be with Cae- 
sar ; but, as I would not venture in his 
present affliction* to trouble him with a 

* Caesar about this time lost his daughter 
Julia, who died in childbed. She was married 
to Pompey, who was so passionately fond of 
her, that she seems, during the short time they 
lived together, to have taken entire possession 
of his whole heart, and to have turned all his 
ambition into the single desire of appearing 
amiable in her eye. The death of this young 
lady proved a public calamity, as it dissolved 
the only forcible bond of union between her 
father and her husband, and hastened that 
rupture, which ended in the destruction of the 
commonwealth. 



letter I have written upon that subject 
to Balbus. In the mean while, let me 
intreat you not to be wanting to yourself: 
and for my own part, I am contented to 
give up so much more of your company, 
provided the longer you stay abroad the 
richer you should return. There is no- 
thing, I think, particularly to hasten 
you home, now that Vacerra is dead. 
However, you are the best judge : and I 
should be glad to know what you have 
determined. 

There is a queer fellow of your ac- 
quaintance, one Octavius or Cornelius 
(I do not perfectly recollect his name), 
who is perpetually inviting me, as a 
friend of yours, to sup with him. He 
has not yet prevailed with me to accept 
his compliment : however, I am obliged 
to the man. Farewell. 



LETTER XIII. 



To the same. 

[A. U. 699.J 
I PERCEIVE by your letter, that my 
friend Csesar looks upon you as a most 
wonderful lawyer : and are you not hap- 
py in being thus placed in a country 
where you make so considerable a figure 
upon so small a stock? But with how 
much greater advantage would your no- 
ble talents have appeared had you gone 
into Britain ? Undoubtedly there would 
not have been so profound a sage in 
the law throughout all that extensive 
island. 

Since your epistle has provoked me to 
be thus jocose, I will proceed in the 
same strain, and tell you there was one 
part of it I could not read without some 
envy. And how indeed could it be 
otherwise, when I found, that, Avhilst 
much greater men were in vain at- 
tempting to get admittance to Csesar, 
you were singled out from the crowd, 
and even summoned to an audience t ? 
But after giving me an account of af- 
fairs which concern others, why were 
you silent as to your own ; assured as 
you are that I interest myself in them 

f Trebatius, it is probable, had informed 
Cicero, in the letter to which this is an answer, 
that he had been summoned by Csesar to attend 
him as his assessor upon some trial ^ which 
seems to have led this author into the rail- 
leries of this and the preceding passages. 



Sect. I. 



CICERO. 



1,1 



with as muck zeal as if they immediately 
related to myself? Accordingly, as I 
am extremely afraid you will have no 
employment to keep you warm in your 
winter quarters, I would by all means 
advise you to lay in a sufficient quan- 
tity of fuel. Botli Mucins and Ma- 
nilius * have given their opinions to the 
same purpose ; especially as your regi- 
mentals, they apprehend, will scarce be 
ready soon enough to secure you against 
the approaching cold. We hear, how- 
ever, that there has been hcd work in 
your part of the world ; which somewhat 
alarmed me for your safety. But I com- 
forted myself with considering, that you 
are not altogether so desperate a soldier 
as you are a lawyer. It is a wonderful 
consolation indeed to your friends, to be 
assured that your passions are not an 
overmatch for your prudence. Thus, as 
much as I know you love the water f, 
you would not venture, I find, to cross it 
with Ceesar : and though nothing could 
keep you from the combats X in Rome, 
you were much too wise, I perceive, to 
attend them in Britain. 

But pleasantry apart : you know with- 
out my telling you, with what zeal I 
have recommended you to Ceesar ; though 
perhaps you may not be apprised, that I 
have frequently, as well as warmly, writ- 
ten to him upon that subject. I had for 
some time indeed, intermitted my solici- 
tations, as I would not seem to distrust 
his friendship and generosity : however, 
I thought proper in my last to remind 
him once more of his promise. I desire 
you would let me know what effect my 
letter has produced : and at the same 
time give me a full account of every 
thing that concerns you. For I am ex- 
ceedingly anxious to be informed of the 



^^ Mucius and Manilius, i': must be sup- 
posed, were two lawyers and particular friends 
of Trebatius. 

f The art of swimming was among the num- 
ber of polite exercises in ancient Rome, and 
esteemed a necessary qualification for every 
gentleman. It was indeed one of the essential 
arts in military discipline, as both the soldiers 
and officers had frequently no other means of 
pursuing or retreating from the enemy. Ac- 
cordingly, the Campus Martins, a place where 
the Roman youth were taught the science of 
arms, was situated on the banks of the Tiber; 
and they constantly finished their exercises 
of this kind, by throwing themselves into the 
river. 

X Alluding to his fondness of the gladiato- 
rial games. 



prospect and situation of your affairs ; 
as well as how long you imagine your 
absence is likely to continue. Be per- 
suaded, that nothing could reconcile me 
to this separation, but the hopes of its 
proving to your advantage. In any 
other view I should not be so impolitic 
as not to insist on your return : as you 
would be too prudent, I dare say, to de- 
lay it. The truth is, one hour's gay or 
serious conversation together, is of more 
importance to us, than all the foes and 
all the friends that the whole nation of 
Gaul can produce. I intreat you, there- 
fore, to send me an immediate account 
in what posture your affairs stand : and 
be assured, as honest Chremes says to 
his neighbour in the play §, 

Whatever cares thy lab'ring bosom grieve, 
My tongue shall smooth them, or my hand 
relieve. 

Farewell. 

LETTER XIV. 

To ^liinfus Philippus, Proconsul. 

[A. U. 699.] 
I CONGRATULATE your safc return from 
your province in the fulness of your 
fame, and amidst the general tranquillity 
of the republic. If I were in Rome, I 
should have waited upon you for this 
purpose in person, and in order like- 
wise to make my acknowledgments to 
you for your favours to my friends Eg- 
natius and Oppius. 

I am extremely sorry to hear that you 
have taken great offence against my 
friend and host Antipater. I cannot pre- 
tend to judge of the merits of the case : 
but I know your character too well not 
to be persuaded, that you are incapable 
of indulging an unreasonable resent- 
ment. I conjure you, however, by our 
long friendship, to pardon for my sake 
his sons, who lie entirely at your mercy. 
If I imagined you could not grant this 
favour consistently with your honour, I 
should be far from making the request : 
as my regard for your reputation is 
much superior to all considerations of 
friendship which I owe to this family. 
But if I am not mistaken (and indeed I 
very possibly may), your clemency to- 
wards them will rather add to your 
character, than derogate from it. If it 
be not too much trouble, therefore, I 

In Terence's play called Thr Self-tormenlor. 



14 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book I. 



should be glad you would let me know 
how far a compliance with my request 
is in your power : for that it is in your 
inclination, I have not the least reason 
to doubt. Farewell. 

LETTER XV. 

To Lucius Valerius^, the Lawyer. 

[A. U. 699.} 
FoRf why should I not gratify your 
vanity with that honourable appellation ? 
Since, as the times go, my friend, con- 
fidence will readily pass upon the world 
for skill. 

I have executed the commission you 
sent me, and made your acknowledg- 
ments to Lentulus. But I wish you 
would render my offices of this kind un- 
necessary, by putting an end to your te- 
dious absence. Is it not more worthy of 
your mighty ambition to be blended with 
your learned brethren at Rome, than to 
stand the sole great wonder of wisdom 
amidst a parcel of paltry Provincials? 
But I long to rally you in person : for 
which merry purpose I desire you would 
hasten hither as expeditiously as possi- 
ble. I would by no means, however, ad- 
vise you to take Apulia in the way, lest 
some disastrous adventure in those un- 
lucky regions should prevent our wel- 
coming your safe arrival. And in truth, 
to what purpose should you visit this 
your native province^ ? For, like Ulysses 
when he first returned to his Ithaca, 
you will be much too prudent, un- 
doubtedly, to lay claim to your noble 
kindred. Farewell. 

LETTER XVI. 

To Trehatius. 

[A. U. 700.] 
I WAS wondering at the long intermission 

* Valerius is only known by this letter and 
another, wherein Cicero recommends him to 
Appius, as a person who lived in his family, and 
for whom he entertained a very singular affec- 
tion. He seems to have been one of that sort 
of lawyers who may more properly be said to 
be of the profession than the science. 

f The abrupt beginning of this letter has in- 
duced some of the commentators to suspect 
that it is not entire. But Manutius has very 
justly observed, that it evidently refers to the 
inscription : and he produces an instance of the 
same kind from one of the epistles to Atticus. 

X Manutius imagines that Cicero means to 
rally the obscurity of his friend's birth. 



of your letters, when my friend Pansa 
accounted for your indolence, by as- 
suring me that you were turned an 
Epicurean. Glorious effect indeed of 
camp conversation ! But if a meta- 
morphosis so extraordinary has been 
wrought in you amidst the martial air 
of Samarobriva, what would have been 
the consequence had I sent you to the 
softer regions of Tarentum§? I have 
been in some pain for your principles, 
I confess, ever since youf intimacy 
with my friend Seius. But how will 
you reconcile your tenets to your pro- 
fession, and act for the interest of your 
client, now that you have adopted the 
maxim of doing nothing but for your 
own ? With what grace can you insert 
the usual clause in your deeds of agree- 
ment : The parties to these presents, as 
becomes good men and true, 8cc. ? For 
neither truth nor trust can there be in 
those who professedly govern them- 
selves upon motives of absolute selfish- 
ness. I am in some pain, likewise, 
how you will settle the law concerning 
the partition of " rights in common;" 
as there can be nothing in commoji 
between those who make their own pri- 
vate gratification the sole criterion of 
right and wrong. Or can you think it 
proper to administer an oath, while 
you maintain that Jupiter is incapable 
of all resentment? In a word, what 
will become of the good people of 
Ulubrasjl, who have placed themselves 
under your protection, if you hold the 
maxim of your sect, that " a wise man 
ought not to engage himself in public 
affairs?" In good earnest, I shall be 
extremely sorry, if it is true, that you 
have really deserted us. But if your 
conversation is nothing more than a 
convenient compliment to the opinions 
of Pansa, I will forgive your dissimula- 
tion, provided you let me know soon 
how your affairs go on, and in what 
manner I can be of any service in them. 
Farewell. 



§ Tarentum was a city in Italy, distin- 
guished for the softness and luxury of its in- 
habitants. 

II Cicero jocosely speaks of this people, 
as if they belonged to the most considerable 
town in Italy; whereas it was so mean and 
contemptible a place, that Horace, in order 
to show the power of contentment, says, 
that a person possessed of that excellent 
temper of mind, may be happy even at 
UlubrEB. 



Sect. I. 



CICERO. 



15 



LETTER XVII. 

To Cuius Curio. 

[A. U. 700.] 
Our friendship, I trust, needs not any 
other evidence to confirm its sincerity, 
than what arises from the testimony of 
our own hearts. I cannot, however, but 
consider the death of your illustrious 
father as depriving me of a most vene- 
rable witness to that singular affection 
I bear you. I regret that he had not 
the satisfaction of taking a last farewell 
of you, before he closed his eyes : it was 
the only circumstance wanting to render 
him as much superior to the rest of the 
world in his domestic happiness, as in 
his public fame*. 

I sincerely wish you the happy enjoy- 
ment of your estate : and be assured, 
you will find in me a friend who loves 
and values you with the same tenderness 
as your father himself conceived for you. 
Farewell. 

LETTER XVIII. 

To Trebatius. 

March the 24th. [A. U. 700.] 
Can you seriously suppose me so un- 
reasonable as to be angry, because I 
thought you discovered too inconstant a 
disposition in your impatience to leave 
Gaul } And can you possibly believe it 
was for that reason I have thus long 
omitted writing? The truth is, I was 
only concerned at the uneasiness which 
seemed to have overcast your mind : and 
I forbore to write, upon no other account 
but as being entirely ignorant where to 
direct my letters, i suppose, however, 
that this, is a plea which your loftiness 
will scarce condescend to admit. But tell 
me then, is it the weight of your purse, 
or the honour of being the counsellor of 
Caesar, that most disposes you to be thus 
insufferably arrogant ? Let me perish if 
I do not believe that thy vanity is so im- 

* He was consul in the year of Rome 676, 
when he acted with great spirit in opposition 
to the attempts of Sicinius for restoring the 
tribunitial power, which had been much 
abridged by Sylia. In the following j-^ear he 
went governor into Macedonia, and by his 
military conduct in that province obtained 
the honour of a triumph. He distinguished 
himself among the friends of Cicero when he 
was attacked by Clodius. 



moderate as to choose rather to share in 
his council than his coffers. But should 
he admit you into a participation of both, 
you will undoubtedly swell into such in- 
tolerable airs, that no mortal will be able 
to endure you : or none at least except 
myself, who am philosopher enough, you 
knowj to endure any thing. But I was 
going to tell you, that as I regretted the 
uneasiness you formerly expressed; so 
I rejoice to hear, that you are better 
reconciled to your situation. My only 
fear is, that your wonderful skill in the 
law will little avail you in your present 
quarters : for I am told that the people 
you have to deal with, 

Rest the strength of their cause on the force 

of their might. 
And the sword is supreme arbitrator of rightf , 

As I know you do not choose to be con- 
cerned in forcible entries, and are much 
too peaceably disposed to be fond of 
making assaults, let me leave a piece of 
advice with my lawyer, and by all means 
recommend it to you to avoid the Tre- 
viri X ; for I hear they are most formi- 
dable fellows. I wish from my heart 
they were as harmless as their name- 
sakes round the edges of our coin§. 
But I must reserve the rest of my jokes 
to another opportunity : in the mean 
time, let me desire you would send me 
a full account of whatever is going for- 
ward in your province. Farewell. 

LETTER XIX. 

To Cuius Curio. 

[A. U. 700.] 
You must not impute it to any neglect 
in Rupa, that he has not executed your 
commission ; as he omitted it merely in 
compliance with the opinion of myself 
and the rest of your friends. We thought 
it most prudent that no steps should be 
taken during your absence, which might 
preclude you from a change of measures 
after your return : and therefore, that it 

f Ennius. 

X The Treviri were a most warlike people 
bordering on Germany. They were defeated 
about this time by Labienus, one of Caesar's 
lieutenants in Gaul. 

§ The public coin was under the inspection 
of three officers called Treviri monetales: and 
several pieces of money are still extant in the 
cabinets of the curious, inscribed with the 
names of these magistrates. 



16 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book I. 



would be best he should not signify your 
intentions of entertaining the people with 
public games. I may perhaps in some 
future letter give you my reasons at large 
against your executing that design : or 
rather, that you may not come prepared 
to answer my objections, I believe it wDl 
be the wisest way to reserve them till we 
meet. If I should not bring you over to 
my sentiments, I shall have the satisfac- 
tion, at least, of discharging the part of 
a friend : and should it happen (which 
I hope, however, it will not) that you 
should hereafter have occasion to repent 
of your scheme ; you may then remem- 
ber, that I endeavoured to dissuade you 
from it. But this much I will now say, 
that those advantages which fortune, in 
conjunction with your own industry and 
natural endowments, have put into your 
possession, supply a far surer method of 
opening your way to the highest dig- 
nities, than any ostentatious display of 
the most splendid spectacles. The truth 
of it is, exhibitions of ^-his kind, as they 
are instances of wealth only, not of 
merit, are by no means considered as 
reflecting any honour on the authors of 
them : not to mention, that the public 
is quite satiated with their frequent re- 
turns. But I am fallen unawares into 
what I designed to have avoided, and 
pointing out my particular reasons 
against your scheme. I will wave all 
farther discussion, therefore, of this 
matter till we meet; and in the mean 
time inform you, that the world en- 
tertains the highest opinion of your 
virtues. Whatever advantages may be 
hoped from the most exalted patriotism 
united with the greatest abilities, the 
public, believe me, expects from you. 
And should you come prepared (as I am 
sure you ought, and I trust you will) to 
act up to these its glorious expectations ; 
then, indeed, you will exhibit to your 
ifriends, and to the commonwealth in 
general, a spectacle of the noblest and 
most affecting kind*. In the mean 
while be assured, no man has a greater 



* Curio was not of a disposition to listen to 
this prudent counsel of his friend : but, in op- 
position to all the grave advice of Cicero, he 
persevered in his resolution, and executed it 
with great magnificence. The consequence 
was just what Cicero foresaw and dreaded : he 
contracted debts which he was incapable of 
discharging, and then sold himself to Caesar in 
order to satisfj' the clamours of his creditors. 



share of my affection and esteem than 
yourself. Farewell. 

LETTER XX. 

To Trebatius, 

April the 8th. [A. U. 700.] 
Two or three of your letters which 
lately came to my hands at the same 
time, though of different dates, have af- 
forded me great pleasure : as they were 
proofs that you have reconciled yourself, 
with much spirit and resolution, to the 
inconveniences of a military life. I had 
some little suspicion, I confess, of the 
contrary : not that I questioned your 
courage, but as imputing your uneasi- 
ness to the regret of our separation. 
Let me intreat you then to persevere in 
your present temper of mind : and be- 
lieve me, you will derive many and con- 
siderable advantages from the service in 
which you are engaged. In the mean 
while, I shall not fail to renew my so- 
licitations to Csesar in your favour upon 
all proper occasions ; and have herewith 
sent you a Greek letter to deliver to him 
for that purpose : for, in truth, you can- 
not be more anxious than I am that this 
expedition may prove to your benefit. 
In return, 1 desire you would send me a 
full relation of the Gallic war ; for you 
must know, 1 always depend most upon 
the accounts of those who are least en- 
gaged in the action. 

As I do not imagine you are altogether 
so considerable a person as to retain a 
secretary in your service, I could not but 
wonder you should trouble yourself with 
the precaution of sending me several co- 
pies of the same letter. Your parsimony, 
however, deserves to be applauded ; as 
one of them, I observed, was written 
upon a tablet that had been used before. 
I cannot conceive what unhappy com- 
position could be so very miserable as to 
deserve to give place upon this occasion : 
unless it were one of your own convey- 
ances. I flatter myself, at least, it was 
not any sprightly epistle of mine that you 
thus disgraced, in order to scribble over 
it a dull one of your own. Or was it 
your intention to intimate affairs go so 
ill with you, that you could not afford 
any better materials? If that should be 
your case, you must even thank yourself 
for hot leaving your modesty behind you. 



Sect. I. 



CICERO. 



I shall recommend you in very strong 
terms to Balbiis, when he returns into 
Oaul. But you must not be surprised if 
you should not hear from me again so 
soon as usual ; as I shall be absent from 
Rome during- all this month. I write 
this from Pomptinus, at the villa of Me- 
trilius Philemon, where I am placed 
within hearing- of those croaking- clients 
whom you recommended to my protec- 
tion : for a prodigious number, it seems, 
of your Ulubrean frogs * are assembled, 
in order to compliment my arrival among 
them. Farewell. 

P. S. I have destroyed the letter I re- 
ceived from you by the hands of Lucius 
Aruntius, though it was much too inno- 
cent to deserve so severe a treatment ; 
for it contained nothing that might not 
have been proclaimed before a general 
assembly of the people. However, it 
was your express desire I should destroy 
it ; and I have complied accordingly. I 
will only add, that I w onder much at not 
having heard from you since ; especially 
as so many extraordinary events have 
lately happened in vo-ar province. 

LETTER XXL 

To Cuius Curio. 

[A. U. 700.] 
Public affairs are so circumstanced, 
that I dare not communicate my senti- 
ments of them in a letter. This, how- 
ever, I will venture in general to say, 
that I have reason to congratulate you 
on your removal from the scene in which 
w^e are engaged. But I must add, that in 
whatever part of the world you might be 
placed, you would still (as I told you in 
my last) be embarked in the same com- 
mon bottom with your friends here. I 
have another reason likewise for rejoicing 
in your absence, as it has placed your 
merit in full view of so considerable a 
number of the most illustrious citizens, 
and allies of Rome : and indeed the re- 
putation you have acquired is universally, 
and without the least exception, con- 
firmed to us on all hands. But there is 
one circumstance attending you, upon 
which I know not whether I ought to 

* Cicero ludicrously gives the inhabitants 
of Ulubrae this appellation, in allusion to the 
low and marshy situation of their town. 



send you my congratulations or not : I 
mean with respect to those high and sin- 
gular advantages which the common- 
w^ealth promises itself from your return 
amongst us. Not that I suspect your 
proving unequal to the opinion which 
the world entertains of your virtues ; 
but as fearing that whatever is most 
worthy of your care will be irrecoverably 
lost ere your arrival to prevent it : such, 
alas ! is the v/eak and well-nigh expiring 
condition of your unhappy republic ! 
But prudence, perhaps, wall scarce jus- 
tify me in trusting even this to a letter : 
for the rest, therefore, I must refer you 
to others. In the mean w^hile, whatever 
your fears or your hopes of public affairs 
may be ; think, my friend, incessantly 
think on those virtues which that ge- 
nerous patriot must possess, who in these 
evil times, and amidst such a general 
depravation of manners, gloriously pro- 
poses to vindicate the ancient dignity 
and liberties of his oppressed country. 
Farewell. 



LETTER XXII. 

To Trehatius. 

[A. U. 700.] 
If it were not for the compliments you 
sent me by Chrysippus the freeman of 
Cyrus the architect, 1 should have ima- 
gined I no longer possessed a place in 
your thoughts. But surely you are be- 
come a most intolerable fine gentleman, 
that you could not bear the fatigue of 
writing to me ; when you had the op- 
portunity of doing so by a man Avhom, 
you know, I look upon as one almost of 
my owTi family. Perhaps, however, you 
may have forgotten the use of your pen, 
and so much the better, let me tell you, 
for your clients ; as they will lose no 
more causes by its blunders. But if it is 
myself only that has escaped your re- 
membrance ; I must endeavour to refresh 
it by a visit, before I am w^orn out of 
your mind beyond all power of recollec- 
tion. After all, is it not the apprehen- 
sions of the next summer's campaign, 
that has rendered your hand too unsteady 
to perform its ofiice ? If so you must e'en 
play over again the same gallant strata- 
gem you practised last year in relation to 
your Britisli expedition, and frame some 
heroic excuse for your absence, How^ 

*c 



(«^ 



18 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book I, 



ever, I was extremely glad to hear by 
Chrysippus, that you are much in Cse- 
sar's good graces. But it would be more 
like a man of equity, methinks, as well as 
more agreeable to my inclinations, if you 
were to give me frequent notice of what 
concerns you, by your own hand : a sa- 
tisfaction I should undoubtedly enjoy, if 
you had chosen to study the lazvs of good 
fellowship, rather than those of conten- 
tion. You see I rally you, as usual, in 
your own way, not to say a little in mine. 
But to end seriously ; be assured, as I 
greatly love you, I am no less confident 
than desirous of your affection in return. 
Farewell. 

LETTER XXin. 

To Titus Fadius. 

[A. U. TOO.] 

I KNOW not any event which has lately 
happened, that more sensibly affects me 
than your disgrace. Far therefore from 
being capable of giving you the con- 
solation I wish, I greatly stand in need 
of the same good office myself. Never- 
theless, I cannot forbear, not only to 
exhort, but to conjure you likewise by 
our friendship, to collect your whole 
strength of reason, in order to oppose 
your affliction with a firm and manly 
fortitude. Remember, my friend, that 
calamities are incident to all mankind, 
but particui'arly to us who live in these 
miserable and distracted times. Let it 
be your consolation, however, to reflect, 
that you have lost far less by fortune 
than you have acquired by merit : as 
there are few, under the circumstances 
of your birth, who ever raised themselves 
to the same dignities ; though there are 
numbers of the highest quality who have 
sunk into the same disgrace. To say 
truth ; so wretched is the fate which 
threatens our laws, our liberties, and our 
constitution in general, that well may he 
esteem himself happily dealt with, who 
is dismissed from such a distempered go- 
vernment upon the least injurious terms. 
As to your own case in particular, when 
you reflect that you are still undeprived 
of your estate ; that you are happy in 
the affections of your children, your fa- 
mily, and your friends ; and that in all 
probability you are only separated from 
them for a short interval : when you re- 



flect, that among the gTeat number of 
impeachments which have lately been 
carried on, yours is the only one that 
was considered as entirely groundless ; 
that you were condemned by a majority 
only of one single vote, and that too uni- 
versally supposed to have been given in 
compliance with some powerful influ- 
ence — these, undoubtedly, are con- 
siderations which ought greatly to alle- 
viate the weight of your misfortune. I 
will only add, that you may always de- 
pend upon finding in me that disposition 
both towards yourself and your family, 
which is agreeable to your wishes, as 
well as to what you have a right to ex- 
pect. Farewell. 

LETTER XXIV. 

To Marcus Calius. 

July the 6th. [A. U. 702.] 

Could you seriously then imagine, my 
friend, that I commissioned yon to send 
me the idle news of the town ; matches 
of gladiators, adjournments of causes, 
robberies, and the ^est of those unin- 
teresting occurrences, which no one 
ventures to mention to me, even when 1 
am in the midst of them at Rome ? Far 
other are the accounts which I expect 
from your hand : as I know not any man 
whose judgment in politics I have more 
reason to value. I should esteem it a 
misemployment of your talents, even 
were you to transmit to me those more 
important transactions that daily arise in 
the republic ; unless they should happen 
to relate immediately to myself. There 
are other less penetrating politicians, 
who will send me intelligence of this 
sort : and I shall be abundandtly supplied 
with it likewise by common fame. In 
short, it is not an account either of what 
has lately been transacted, or is in present 
agitation, that 1 require in your letters : 
I expect, as from one whose discernment 
is capable of looking far into futurity, 
your opinion of what is likely to happen. 
Thus, by seeing a plan, as it were, of the 
republic, I shall be enabled to judge what 
kind of structure will probably arise. 
Hitherto, however, I have no reason to 
charge you with having been negligent 
in communicating to me your prophetic 
conjectures. For the events which have 
lately happened in the commonwealth, 



Sect. I. 



CICERO. 



19 



were much beyond any man's penetra- 
tion : I am sure at least tliey were beyond 
mine. 

I passed several days with Pompey, in 
conversation upon public affairs : but it 
is neither prudent, nor possible, to give 
you the particulars in a letter. In gene- 
ral, however, I will assure you, that he 
is animated with the most patriotic sen- 
timents, and is prudently prepared, as 
well as resolutely determined, to act as 
the interest of the republic shall require. 
I would advise you therefore wnolly to 
attach yourself to him : and believe me, 
he will rejoice to embrace you as his 
friend. He now indeed entertains the 
same opinion both with you and myself, 
of the good and ill intendons of the dif- 
ferent parties in the republic. 

I have spent the last ten days at 
Athens ; from whence I am this moment 
setting out. During my continuance in 
this city, I have frequently enjoyed the 
company of our friend Gallus C animus. 

I recommend all my affairs to your 
care and protection, but particularly 
(what indeed is my principal concern) 
that my residence in the province may 
not be prolonged. I will not prescribe 
the methods you should employ for that 
purpose ; as you are the most competent 
judge by what means, and by whose 
intervention, it may be best effected. 
Farewell. 

LETTER XXV. 

To Terentia and Tullia. 
Athens, October the 18th. [A. U. 703.] 
The amiable young Cicero and myself 
are perfectly well, if you and my dearest 
Tully are so. We arrived here^ on the 
14th of this month, after a very tedious 
and disagreeable passage, occasioned 
by contrary winds. Acastusf met me 
upon my landing, with letters fi-om 
Rome ; having been so expeditious as to 
perform his journey in one-and-twenty 
days. In the packet which he delivered 
to me, I found yours, wherein you ex- 
press some uneasiness lest your former 
letters should not have reached my hands. 
They have, my Terentia : and I am ex- 
tremely obliged to you for the very full 
accounts you gave me of every thing I 
was concerned to know. 

* Athens. 

-f- A freed-man belonging to Cicero. 



I am by no means surprised at tlie 
shortness of your last, as you had reason 
to expect us so soon. It is with great 
impadence I wish for that meeting : 
though I am sensible, at the same time, 
of the unhappy situ a ion in which I shall 
find the republic. All the letters, in- 
deed, which I received by Acastus, agree 
in assuring me, that there is a general 
tendency »,o a civil war : so that when I 
come to Rome I shall be under a neces- 
sity of declaring myself on one side or 
the other. However, since there is no 
avoiding the scene which fortune has pre- 
pared for me, I shall be the more expe- 
ditious in my journey, that I may the 
better deliberate on the several circum- 
stances which must determine my choice. 
Let me intreat you to meet me as far on 
my way as your health wiU permit. 

The legacy, which Precius has left me, 
is an acquisition that I receive with great 
concern, as I tenderly loved him, and 
extremely lament his death. If his estate 
should be put up to auction before my 
arrival, I beg you would recommend my 
interest in it to the care of Atticus : or 
in case his affairs should not aUow him 
to undertake the office, that you would 
request the same favour of Camillus. 
And if this should not find you at Rome, 
I desire you would send proper direc- 
tions thither for that purpose. As for 
my other affairs, I hope I shall be able 
to settle them myself: for I purpose to 
be in Italy, if the gods favom* my voy- 
age, about the 13th of November. In 
the mean time I conjure you, my amiable 
and excellent Terentia, and thou my 
dearest Tullia, I conjure you both by all 
the tender regards you bear me, to take 
care of your healths. Farewell. 



LETTER XXVI. 

To Tirol. 

November the 3d. [A. U. 703.] 
I DID not imagine I should have been 
so little able to support your absence : 

X He was a favourite slave of Cicero, who 
trained him up in his family, and formed him 
under his own immediate tuition. The pro- 
bity of his manners, the elegance of his genius, 
and his uncommon erudition, recommended 
him to his master's peculiar esteem and affec- 
tion. 

C 2 



20 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book I. 



but, indeed, it is more than 1 can well 
bear. Accordingly, notwithstanding it is 
of the last importance to my interest* 
that I should hasten to Rome, yet I can- 
not but severely reproach myself for 
having thus deserted you. However, as 
you seemed altogether averse from pur- 
suing your voyage till you sliould re- 
establish your health, I approve of your 
scheme ; and I still approve of it, if you 
continue in the same sentiments. Ne- 
vertheless, if, after having taken some 
refreshment, you should think yourself 
in a condition to follow me ; you may 
do so, or not, as you shall judge proper. 
If you should determine in the affirma- 
tive, I have sent Mario to attend you : 
if not, I have ordered him to return 
immediately. Be well assured, there is 
nothing I more ardently desire than to 
have you with me, provided I may enjoy 
that pleasure without prejudice to your- 
self. But be assured too, that if your 
continuing somewhat longer at Patr8e| 
should be thought necessary, I prefer 
your health to all other considerations. 
If you should embark immediately, you 
may overtake me at LeucasJ. But if 
you are more inclined to defer your 
voyage till your recovery shall be better 
confirmed, let me intreat you to be very 
careful in choosing a safe ship ; and that 
you would neither sail at an improper 
season, nor without a convoy. I par- 
ticularly charge you also, my dear Tiro, 
by all the regard you bear me, not to 
suffer the arrival of Mario, or any thing 
that I have said in this letter, in the 
least to influence your resolution. Be- 
lieve me, whatever will be most agree- 
able to your health, will be most agree- 
able likewise to my inclinations : and, 
therefore, I desire you would be wholly 
governed by your own prudence. 'Tis 
true, I am extremely desirous of your 

* As Cicero was full of the hopes of obtain- 
ing a triumph, he was desirous of hastening 
to Rome before the dissensions between CjEsar 
and Pompey should be arrived at so great a 
height as to render it impossible for him to 
enjoy that honour. 

f A city in Peloponnesus, which still sub- 
sists under the name of Patras. Cicero had 
left Tiro indisposed in this place, the day be- 
fore the date of the present letter. 

X A little Grecian island in the Ionian sea, 
now called Saint Maure. It was on this island 
that the celebrated promontory stood, from 
whence the tender Sappho is said to have 
/thrown herself in a fit of amorous despair. 



company, and of enjoying it as early as 
possible : but the same affection, which 
makes me wish to see you soon, makes 
me wish to see you well. Let your 
health, therefore, be your first and prin- 
cipal care ; assuring yourself, that among 
all the numberless good offices I have re- 
ceived at your hands, I shall esteem this 
by far the most acceptable. 



LETTER XXVII. 

To the same. 

Lencas, Nov. the Tth. [A. U. 703 )■ 
Your letter produced very different ef- 
fects on my mind ; as the latter part 
somewhat alleviated the concern which 
the former had occasioned. I am now 
convinced tliat it will not be safe for 
you to proceed on your voyage, till your 
health shall be entirely re-established : 
and I shall see you soon enough, if I 
see you perfectly recovered. 

I find by your letter that you have a 
good opinion of your physician : and I 
am told he deserves it. However, I can 
by no means approve of the regimen he 
prescribed: for broths cannot certainly 
be suitable to so weak a stomach. I 
have written to him very fully concern- 
ing you ; as also to Lyso. I have done 
the same likewise to my very obliging 
friend Curius : and have particularly re- 
quested him, if it should be agreeable to 
yourself, that he would remove you into 
his house. I am apprehensive, indeed, 
that Lyso will not give you proper at- 
tendance : in the first place, because 
carelessness is the general characteristic 
of all his countrymen § ; and in the next, 
because he has returned no answer to my 
letter. Nevertheless, as you mention 
him with esteem, I leave it to you to 
continue with him, or not, just as you 
shall think proper. Let me only enjoin 
you, my dear Tiro, not to spare any 
expence that may be necessary towards 
your recovery. To this end, I have 
desired Curius to supply you with what- 
ever money you shall require : and I 
think it would be proper, in order to 
render your physician the more careftd 
in his attendance, to make him some 
present. 

Numberless are the services I have 

§ The Grecians. 



Sect. I. 



CICERO. 



21 



received from you, both at home and 
abroad ; in my public and my private 
transactions ; in the course of my studies 
and the concerns of my family. But 
woidd you crown them all, let it be by 
your care that I may see you (as I hope 
I soon shall) perfectly recovered. If 
your health should permit, I think you 
cannot do better than to take the oppor- 
tunity of embarking with my quaestor 
Mescinius ; for he is a good-natured man, 
and seems to have conceived a friendship 
for you. The care of your voyage in- 
deed is the next thing I would recom- 
mend to you, after that of your health. 
However, I would now by no means 
have you hurry yourself ; as my single 
concern is for your recovery. Be as- 
sured, my dear Tiro, that all my friends 
are yours ; and consequently, as your 
health is of the greatest importance to 
me as well as to yourself, there are num- 
bers who are solicitous for its preserva- 
tion. Your assiduous attendance upon 
me has hitherto prevented you from 
paying due regard to it. But nov/ that 
you are wholly at leisure, I conjure you 
to devote all your application to that 
single object : and I shall judge of the 
aflfection you bear me, by your com- 
pliance with this request. Adieu, my 
dear Tiro, adieu ! adieu ! may you soon 
be restored to the perfect enjoyment of 
your health ! 

Lepta, together with aU your other 
friends, salute you. Farewell, 



yourself so surrounded v/ith the army 
as to render it impossible to withdraw, 
though you should be ever so much in- 
clined. The next question is (and it is 
a question which you yourselves are best 
able to determine), whether any ladies of 
your rank venture to continue in the city : 
if not, will it be consistent with your 
character to appear singular in that point? 
But be that as it will, yon cannot, I think, 
as affairs are now situated, be more com- 
modiously placed, than either with me 
or at some of our farms in this district ; 
supposing, I mean, that I should be able 
to maintain my present post. I must add 
likewise, that a short time, 'tis to be 
feared, will produce a great scarcity in 
Rome. However, I shoidd be glad you 
would take the sentiments of Atticus, or 
Camillus, or any other friend whom you 
may choose to consult upon this subject. 
In the mean while, let me conjure you 
both to keep up your spirits. The 
coming over of Labienus to our party 
has given affairs a much better aspect. 
And Piso having withdrawn himself from 
the city, is likewise another very favour- 
able circumstance : as it is a plain indi- 
cation, that he disapproves the impious 
measures of his son-in-law. 

I intreat you, my dearest creatures, 
to write to me as frequently as possible, 
and let me know how it is with you, as 
well as what is going forward in Rome. 
My brother and nephew, together with 
Rufus, affectionately salute you. Fare- 
well 



LETTER XXYIII. 

To Terentia and to TuUia. 

MintunicE, Jan. the 25th. [A. U. 704.] 
In what manner it may be proper to 
dispose of yourselves, during the pre- 
sent conjuncture, is a question which 
must now be decided by your own judg- 
ments as much as by mine. Should Csesar 
advance to Rome without committing 
hostilities, you may certainly for the 
present at least remain there unmolested : 
but if this madman should give up tlie 
city to the rapine of his soldiers, I must 
doubt whether even Dolabella's credit 
and authority will be sufficient to protect 
you. I am under some apprehension 
likewise, lest whilst you are deliberating 
in what manner to act, you triiould find 



LETTER XXIX. 

To the same. 

Formias*, the 25th. [A, U. 704.] 
It well deserves consideration, whether 
it will be more prudent for you to con- 
tinue in Rome, or to remove to some se- 
cure place within my department ; and it 
is a consideration, my dearest creatures, 
in which your own judgments must as- 
sist mine. What occurs to my present 
thoughts is this ; on the one hand, as you 
will probably find a safe protection in 
Dolabella, your residing in Rome may 
prove a mean of secui'ing our house from 
being plundered, should the soldiers be 

* A maritime citj' in Cainj)ania, not far 
from Minturna?, the place fiom whence the 
preceding letter is dated. 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book I. 



suffered to commit any violences of that 
kind. But on the other, when I reflect 
that all the worthier part of the republic 
have withdrawn themselves and their 
families from the city ; I am inclined to 
advise you to foUow their example. I 
must add likewise, that there are several 
towns in this canton of Italy under my 
command, which are particularly in our 
interest : as also, that great part of our 
estate lies in the same district. If there- 
fore you should remove thither, you may 
not only very frequently he with me, 
but whenever we shall be obliged to se- 
parate, you may be safely lodged at one 
or other of my farms. However, I am 
utterly unable to determine, at present, 
which of these schemes is preferable ; 
only let me intreat you to observe whai, 
steps other ladies of your rank pursue in 
this conjuncture : and be caut'ous like- 
wise that you be not prevented from re- 
tiring, should it prove your choice. In 
the mean time, I hope you will maturely 
deliberate upon this point between your- 
selves ; and take the opinion also of our 
friends. At all events, I desire you 
would direct Philotimus to procure a 
strong guard to defend our house ; to 
which request I must add, that you would 
engage a proper number of regular cou- 
riers, in order to give me the satisfac- 
tion of hearing from you every day. But 
above aU, let me conjure you both, to 
take care of your healths as you wish to 
preserve mine. Farewell. 



LETTER XXX. 

To Terentia. 

June the 11th. [A. U. T04.] 
I AM entirely free from the disorder in 
my stomach ; which was the more pain- 
ful, as I saw it occasioned both you and 
that dear girl, whom I love better than 
my life, so much uneasiness. I dis- 
covered the cause of this complaint the 
night after I left you, having discharged 
a great quantity of phlegm. This gave 
me so immediate a relief, that I cannot 
but believe I owe my cure to some hea- 
venly interposition : to Apollo, no doubt, 
and iEsculapius. You will offer up your 
grateful tributes therefore to these re- 
storing powers, with all the ardency of 
your usual devotion. 



I am this moment embarked * ; and 
have procured a ship which I hope is 
well able to perform her voyage. As 
soon as I shaU have fiinshed this letter, I 
propose to write to several of my friends 
recommending you and our dearest Tullia 
in the strongest terms to their protection. 
In the mean time, I should exhort you to 
keep up your spirits, if I did not know 
that you are both animated with a more 
than manly fortitude. And indeed I 
hope there is a fair prospect of your re- 
maining in Italy without any inconve- 
nience, and of my returning to the de- 
fence of the republic, in conjunction with 
those who are no less faithfully devoted 
to its interest. 

After earnestly recommending to you 
the care of your health, let me make it 
my next request, that you would dispose 
of yourself in such of my villas as are at 
the greatest distance from the army. 
And if provisions should become scarce 
in Rome, I should think you will find it 
most convenient to remove with your 
servants to Arpinumf. 

The amiable young Cicero most ten- 
derly salutes you. Again and again I 
bid you farewell. 

LETTER XXXI. 

To the samei, 

[A. U. 704.3 
I AM informed by the letters of my 
friends as well as by other accounts, 
that you have had a sudden attack of a 
fever. I entreat you, therefore, to em- 
ploy the utmost care in re-establishing 
your health. 

The early notice you gave me of 
Caesar's letter was extremely agreeable 
to me : and let me desire you would 
send me the same expeditious intelli- 
gence, if any thing should hereafter oc- 
cur that concerns me to know. Once 
more I conjure you to take care of your 
health. Farewell. 



* In order to join Pompey in Greece; who 
had left Italy about three months before the 
date of this letter. 

f A city in the country of the Volsci : a 
district of Italy, which now comprehends part 
of the Campagna di Roma, and of the Terra di 
Lavoro. Cicero was born in this town, which 
still subsists under the name of Arpino. 

X This letter was written by Cicero in the 
camp at Dyrrachium. 



Sect. I. 



CICERO. 



23 



LETTER XXXII. 

To the same *. 

[A. U. 704..] 
I INTREAT you to take all proper mea- 
sures for the recovery of your health. 
Let me request, likewise, that you would 
provide whatever may be necessary in 
the present conjuncture : and that you 
would send me frequent accounts how 
every thing goes on. Farewell. 

LETTER XXXIII. 

To the same. 

July the 15th. [A. U. 704] 
I HAVE seldom an opportunity of writ- 
ing; and scarce any thing to say that 
I choose to trust in a letter. I find by 
your last, that you cannot meet with a 
purchaser for any of our farms. I beg 
therefore, you would consider of some 
other method of raising money, in or- 
der to satisfy that person, who you are 
sensible I am very desirous should be 
paid f. 

I am bjr no means surprised that you 
should have received the thanks of our 
friend, as I dare say she had great 
reason to acknowledge your kindness. 

If Pollux X is not yet set out, I desire 
you would exercise your authority, and 
force the loiterer to depart immediately. 
Farewell. 

LETTER XXXIV. 

To Tci^entia. 

Brundisium, Nov. the 5tb. [A. U. 704.] 
May the joy you express at my safe 
arrival in Italy § be never interrupted ! 

* This letter was probably written soon 
after the foregoing, and from the same place. 

•f- This letter, as well as the two former, was 
written while Cicero was with Pompey in 
Greece. The business at which he so obscurely 
hints has been thought to relate to the pay- 
ment of part of Tullia's portion to Dolabella. 

X It appears by a letter to Atticus, that this 
person acted as a sort of steward in Cicero's 
family. 

§ After the battle of Pharsalia Cicero would 
not engage himself any farther with the Pom- 
peian party ; but having endeavoured to make 
his peace with Caesar by the mediation of Do- 
labella, he seems to have received no other 
answer, than an order to return immediately 
into Italy. And this he accordingly did a few 
days before the date of the present letter. 



But my mind was so much discomposed 
by those atrocious injuries I had re- 
ceived, that I have taken a step, I fear, 
which may be attended with great dif- 
ficulties. Let me then intreat your ut- 
most assistance : though I must confess, 
at the same time, that I know not 
wherein it can avail me. 

I would by no means have you think 
of coming hither. For the journey is 
both long and dangerous : and I do not 
see in what manner you could be of any 
service. Farewell. 

LETTER XXXV. 

To the same. 

[A. U. 704.] 
The ill state of health into which TuUia 
is fallen, is a very severe addition to the 
many and great disquietudes that afflict 
my mind. But I need say nothing 
farther upon this subject, as I am sure 
her welfare is no less a part of your ten- 
der concern than it is of mine. 

I agree both with you and her in 
thinking it proper that I should ad- 
vance nearer to Rome : and I should 
have done so before now, if I had not 
been prevented by several difficulties, 
which I am not yet able to remove. But 
I am in expectation of a letter from 
Atticus, with his sentiments upon this 
subject : and I beg you would forward 
it to me by the earliest opportunity. 
Farewell* 

LETTER XXXVI. 

To the same. 

[A. U. 704.] 
In addition to my other misfortunes, I 
have now to lament the illness both of 
Dolabella and Tullia. The whole frame 
of my mind is indeed so utterly discom- 
posed, that I know not what to resolve, 
or how to act, in any of my affairs. I 
can only conjure you to take care of 
yourself and of Tullia. Farewell. 

LETTER XXXVII. 

To the same. 

[A. U. 70l.i 
If any thing occurred worth communi- 
cating to you, my letters would be more 



24 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book L 



frequent and much longer. But I need 
not tell you the situation of my affairs ; 
and as to the effect they have upon my 
mind, 1 leave it to Lepta and Trebatius 
to inform you. I have only to add my 
intreaties, that you would take care 
of your own and Tullia's health. Fare- 
well. 



LETTER XXXVUL 

To Titius. 

[A. U. 704.] 
There is none of your friends less ca- 
pable than I am, to offer consolation to 
you under your present affliction ; as 
the share I take in your loss renders me 
gpreatly in need of the same g-ood ofiice 
myself. However, as my grief does not 
rise to the same extreme degree as yours, 
I should not think I discharged the duty 
which my connection and friendship with 
you require, if I remained altogether silent 
at a time when you are thus overwhelmed 
with sorrow. 1 determined therefore to 
suggest a few reflections to you which 
may alleviate at least, if not entirely re- 
move, the anguish of your heart. 

There is no maxim of consolation 
more common, yet at the same time there 
is none which deserves to be more fre- 
quently in our thoughts, than that we 
ought to remember, " We are men;" 
that is, creatures who are born to be 
exposed to calamities of every kind : 
and therefore, " that it becomes us to 
submit to the conditions by which we 
hold our existence, without being too 
much dejected by accidents which no 
prudence can prevent." In a word, 
that we should learn by " reflecting on 
tlie misfortunes which have attended 
others, that there is nothing singular 
in those v/hicli befal ourselves." But 
neither these, nor other arguments to the 
same ])urpose, which are inculcated in 
the writings of the philosophers, seem to 
have so strong a claim to success, as those 
which may be drawn from the present 
unhapj)y situation of public affairs, and 
that endless scries of misfortunes which 
is rising upon our country. They are 
such, indeed, that one cannot but account 
those to he most fortunate, who never 
knev/ what it was to be a parent ; and 
as to those persons who are deprived of 
their chihlren, in these times of general 



anarchy and misrule," they have much 
less reason to regret their loss, than if 
it had happened in a more flourishing 
period of the commonwealth, or while 
yet the republic had any existence. If 
your tears flow, indeed, from this ac- 
cident merely as it affects your own per- 
sonal happiness, it may be difficult per- 
haps entirely to restrain them. But if 
your sorrow takes its rise from a more 
enlarged and benevolent principle ; if it 
be for the sake of the dead themselves 
that you lament, it may be an easier task 
to assuage your grief. I shall not here 
insist upon an argument, which I have 
frequently heard maintained in specula- 
tive conversations, as well as often read 
likewise, in treatises that have been writ- 
ten upon the subject. " Death," say 
those philosophers, " cannot be consi- 
dered as an evil; because if any con- 
sciousness remains after our dissolu- 
tion, it is rather an entrance into im- 
mortality, than an extinction of life : 
and if none remains, there can be no 
misery where there is no sensibility." 
Not to insist, I say, upon any reasonings 
of this nature ; let me remind you of an 
argument which I can urge with much 
more confidence. He who has made his 
exit from a scene where such dreadful 
confusion prevails, and where so many 
approaching calamities are in prospect, 
cannot possibly, it should seem, be a 
loser by the exchange. Let me ask, 
not only where honour, virtue, and 
probity, where true philosophy and the 
useful arts can nov/ fly for refuge ; 
but where even our liberties and our 
lives can be secure ? For my own part, 
I have never once heard of the death 
of any youth during all this last sad 
year whom I have not considered as 
kindly delivered by the immortal gods 
from the miseries of these wretched times. 
If, therefore, you can be persuaded to 
think that their condition is by no means 
unhappy, v^hose loss you so tenderly de- 
plore ; it must undoubtedly prove a very 
considerable abatement of your present 
affliction. For it will then entirely arise 
from what you feel upon your own ac- 
count ; and have no relation to the per- 
sons whose death you regret. Now it 
would ill agree with those wise and ge- 
nerous maxims which have ever inspired 
your breast, to be too sensible of misfor- 
tunes which terminate in your own per- 
son, and affect not the happiness of those 



Sect. I. 



CICERO. 



25 



you love. You have upon all occasions, 
both public and private, shewn your- 
self animated with the firmest fortitude : 
and it becomes you to act up to the 
character you have thus justly acquired. 
Time necessarily wears out the deepest 
impressions of sorrow : and the weakest 
mother, that ever lost a child, has found 
some period to her grief. But we should 
wisely anticipate that effect which a cer- 
tain revolution of days will undoubtedly 
produce : and not wait for a remedy 
from time, which we may much sooner 
receive from reason. 

If what I have said can any thing- 
avail in lessening the weight of your 
affliction, I shall have obtained my 
wish ; if not, I shall at least have dis- 
charged the duties of that friendship 
and affection which, believe me, 1 ever 
have preserved, and ever shall preserve, 
towards you. Farewell. 

LETTER XXXIX. 

To Tereniia. 

December the 31st. [A. U. 705.] 
My affairs are at present in such a situ- 
ation, that I have no reason to expect a 
letter on your part, and have nothing 
to communicate to you on mine. Yet 
I know not how it is, I can no more 
forbear flattering myself that I may hear 
from you, than I can refrain from writ- 
ing to you whenever I meet mth a con- 
veyance. 

Volumnia ought to have shewn her- 
self more zealous for your interest : and 
in the particular instance you mention 
she might have acted with greater care 
and caution. This, however, is but a 
slight grievance amongst others which I 
far more severely feel and lament. They 
have the effect upon me, indeed, which 
those persons undoubtedly wished, who 
compelled nie into measures utterly op- 
posite to my own sentiments. Farewell. 

LETTER XL. 

To the same. 

[A. U. 706.] 

TuLLiA arrived here* on the 12th of 
this month f. It extremely affected 

* Brundisium ; where Cicero was still wait- 
ing for Csesar's arrival from Egypt. 
f June. 



me to see a woman of her singular and 
amiable virtues reduced (and reduced too 
by my own negligence) to a situation far 
other than is agreeable to her rank and 
filial piety:}:. 

I have some thoughts of sending my 
son, accompanied by Sallustius, with a 
letter to Ccesar § ; and if I should execute 
this design, I will let you know when he 
sets out. In the mean time be careful of 
your health, I conjure you. Farewell. 



LETTER XLI. 

To the same. 

June the 20th. [A. U. 70(5.] 
I HAD determined, agreeably to what I 
mentioned in my former, to send my son 
to meet Caesar on his return to Italy. 
But I have since altered my resolution, 
as I hear no news of his arrival. For 
the rest I refer you to Sicca, who will 
inform you what measures I think ne- 
cessary to be taken, though I must add, 
that nothing new has occured since I 
wrote last. Tullia is still with me. — 
Adieu, and take all possible care of your 
health. 

LETTER XLII. 

To the same. 

July the 9th. [A. U. 706. J 
I WROTE to Atticus (somewhat later in- 
deed than I ought) concerning the af- 
fair you mention. \Ylien you talk with 
him upon that head, he will inform you 
of my inclinations ; and I need not be 
more explicit here, after having written 
so fully to him. Let me know as soon 
as possible what steps are taken in that 
business ; and acquaint me at the same 
time with every thing else which con- 
cerns me. I have only to add my re- 
quest, that you woidd be carefid of your 
health. Farewell. 

X Dolabella was greatly embarrassed in his 
affairs; and it seems by this passage as if he 
had not allowed Tullia a maintenance duiing 
his absence abroad, sufficient to support her 
rank and dignity. 

§ In order to supplicate Ciesar's pardon for 
having engaged against him on the side of 
Pompey. 



26 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book I. 



LETTER XLin. 

To the same, 

July the 10th. [A. U. 706.] 
In answer to what you object concern- 
ing- the divorce I mentioned in my 
last*, I can only say that I am perfectly 
ignorant what power Dolabella may at 
this time possess, or what ferments there 
may be among the populace. However, 
if you think there is any thing to be ap- 
prehended from his resentment, let the 
matter rest ; and perhaps the first pro- 
posal may come from himself. Never- 
theless I leave you to act as you shall 
judge proper ; not doubting that you 
will take such measures in this most un- 
fortunate affair as shall appear to be at- 
tended with the fewest unhappy conse- 
quences. Farewell. 

LETTER XLIV. 

To Lucius Papirius Pectus, 

[A. U. 706.] 
Is it true, my friend, that you look up- 
on yourself as having been guilty of a 
most ridiculous piece of folly in attempt- 
ing to imitate the thunder, as you call it, 
of my eloquence ? With reason, indeed, 
you might have thought so, had you failed 
in your attempt : but since you have ex- 
celled the model you had in view, the 
disgrace surely is on my side, not on yours. 
The verse, tlierefore, which you apply to 
yourself from one of Trabea's comedies, 
may with much more justice be turned 
upon me, as my own eloquence falls far 
short of that perfection at which I aim. 
But tell me, what sort of figure do my 
letters make ; are they not written, think 
you, in the true familiar ? They do not 
constantly, however, preserve one uni- 
form manner, as this species of compo- 
sition bears no resemblance to that of the 
oratorical kind ; though indeed in judicial 
matters we vary our style according to 
the nature of the causes in which we are 
engaged. Those, for example, in which 
private interests of little moment are con- 
cerned, we treat with a suitable simplicity 
of diction ; but where the reputation or 
the life of our client is in question, we 
rise into greater pomp and dignity of 
phrase. But whatever may be the sub- 

* Uctwccn Tullia and Dolabella. 



ject of my letters, they still speak the 
language of conversation. Farewell. 

LETTER XLV. 

To Lucius Mescinius. 

[A. U. 707.] 
Your letter afforded me great pleasure, as 
it gave me an assurance (though indeed 
I wanted none) that you earnestly wish 
for my company. Believe me, I am 
equally desirous of yours ; and in truth, 
when there was a much greater abund- 
dance of patriot citizens and agreeable 
companions who were in the number of 
my friends, there was no man with whom 
I rather chose to associate, and few whose 
company I liked so well. But now that 
death, absence, or change of disposition, 
has so greatly contracted this social cir- 
cle, I should prefer a single day with you, 
to a whole life with the generality of those 
with whom I am at present obliged to 
live f. Solitude itself indeed (if solitude, 
alas ! I were at liberty to enjoy) would be 
far more eligible than the conversation 
of those who frequent my house ; one or 
two of them at most excepted. I seek 
my relief therefore (where I would advise 
you to look for yours) in amusements of 
a literary kind, and in the consciousness 
of having always intended well to my 
country. I have the satisfaction to reflect 
(as I dare say you will readily believe), 
that I never sacrificed the public good to 
my own private views ; that if a certain 
person (whom for my sake, I am sure, 
you never loved) had not looked upon 
me with a jealous eye |, both himself and 
every friend to liberty had been happy : 
that I always endeavoured that it should 
not be in the power of any man to disturb 
the public tranquillity ; and in a word, 
that when I perceived those arms which I 
had ever dreaded would prove an over- 
match for that patriot-coalition I had my- 
self formed in the republic, I thought it 
better to accept of a safe peace upon any 
terms, than impotently to contend with 
a superior force. But I hope shortly to 

f The chiefs of the Caesarean party, with 
whom Cicero now found it convenient to culti- 
vate a friendship, in order to ingratiate him- 
self with CjEsar. 

X Pornpey, who being jealous of the popula- 
rity which Cicero had acquired during his con- 
sulship, struck in with the designs of Caesar, 
and others who had formed a party against our 
author. 



Sect. I. 



CICERO. 



27 



talk over these and many more points 
with you in person. Nothing indeed de- 
tains me in Rome, but to wait the event 
of the war in Africa, which, I imagine, 
must now he soon decided. And though 
it seems of little importance on which 
side the victory shall turn, yet I think it 
may he of some advantage to be near my 
friends when the news shall arrive, in or- 
der to consult with them on the measures 
it may be advisable for me to pursue. 
Affairs are now reduced to such an un- 
happy situation, that though there is 
considerable difference, 'tis true, between 
the cause of the contending parties, I be- 
lieve there will be very little as to the 
consequence of their success. However, 
though my spirits were too much dejected, 
perhaps, whilst our affairs remained in 
suspense, I find myself much more com- 
posed now that they are utterly des- 
perate. Your last letter has contributed 
to confirm me in this disposition ; as it 
is an instance of the magnanimity with 
which you support your unjust disgrace *. 
It is with particular satisfaction I observe 
that you owe this heroic calmness not 
only to philosophy, but to temper. For 
I will confess, that I imagined your mind 
was softened with that too delicate sen- 
sibility which we, who passed our lives in 
the ease and freedom of Rome, were apt 
in general to contract. But as we bore 
our prosperous days with moderation, it 
becomes us to bear our adverse fortune, 
or more properly indeed our irretrievable 
ruin, with fortitude. This advantage we 
may at least derive from our extreme ca- 
lamities, that they will teach us to look 
upon death with contempt ; which, even 
if we were happy, we ought to despise, as 
a state of total insensibility ; but which, 
under our present auctions, should be 
the object of our constant wishes. Let not 
any fears, then, I conjure you, by your 
affection for me, disturb the peace of 
your retirement ; and be well persuaded, 
nothing can befal a man that deserves to 
raise his dread and horror, but (what I 
am sure ever was, and ever will be, far 
from you) the reproaches of a guilty 
heart. 

I purpose to pay you a visit very soon, 
if nothing should happen to make it ne- 
cessary for me to change my resolution : 
and if there should, I will immediately 

* Mescinius, it is probable, was banished 
by Caesar, as a partisan of Pompey, to a cer- 
tain distance from Rome. 



let you know. But I hope you will not, 
whilst you are in so weak a condition, be 
tempted, by your impatience of seeing 
me, to remove from your present situa- 
tion, at least not without previously con- 
sulting me. In the mean time, continue 
to love me, and take care both of your 
health and your repose. FareweD. 

LETTER XLVI. 

To Varro. 

[A. U. 707.] 
Though I have nothing to write, yet 
I could not suffer Caninius to pay you 
a visit, without taking the opportunity 
of conveying a letter by his hands. And 
now I know not what else to say, but 
that I propose to be with you very soon : 
an information, however, which I am per- 
suaded you will be glad to receive. But 
will it be altogether decent to appear in 
so gay a scene f at a time when Rome 
is in such a general flame ? And shall we 
not furnish an occasion of censure to those 
who do not know that we observe the 
same sober philosophical life, in all sea- 
sons, and in every place ? Yet after all, 
what imports it, since the world wiU talk 
of us, in spite of our utmost caution ? And 
indeed whilst our censurers are immersed 
in every kind of flagitious debauchery, 
it is much worth our concern, truly, 
what they say of our innocent relaxations. 
In just contempt, therefore, of these illite- 
rate barbarians, it is my resolution to join 
you very speedily. I know not how it is, 
indeed, but it should seem that our fa- 
vourite studies are- attended with much 
greater advantages in these wretched 
times than formerly ; whether it be that 
they are now our only resource ; or that 
we were less sensible of their salutary ef- 
fects when we were in too happy a state 
to have occasion to experience them. 
But this is sending owls to Athens:}:, as 
we say ; and suggesting reflections which 
your own mind will far better supply. 
All that I mean by them, however, is to 

f Varro seems to have requested Cassar to 
give him a meeting at Baiae, a place much fre- 
quented by the Romans on account of its hot 
baths ; as the agreeableness of its situation on 
the bay of Naples rendered it at the same time 
the general resort of the pleasurable world. 

X A proverbial expression of the same im- 
port with that of ♦* sending coals to New- 
castle." It alludes to the Athenian coin, 
which was stamped (as Manutius observes) 
with the figure of an owl. 



28 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book 



draw a letter from you in return, at the 
same time that I give you notice to ex- 
pect me soon. Farewell. 

LETTER XLVIL 

To Papirius Patiis. 

[A. U. 707.] 

Your letter afforded me a very agree- 
able instance of your friendship, in the 
concern it expressed lest I should he un- 
easy at the report which had been brought 
hither by Silius*. I was before indeed 
perfectly sensible how much you were 
disturbed at this circumstance, by your 
care in sending me duplicates of a former 
letter upon the same subject : and I then 
returned such an answer as I thought 
would be sufficient to abate at least, if 
not entirely remove, this your generous 
solicitude. But since I perceive, by your 
last letter, how much this affair still 
dwells upon your mind ; let me assure 
you, my dear Psetus, that I have employed 
every artifice (for we must now, my 
friend, be armed with cunning as well as 
prudence) to conciliate the good graces 
of the persons you mention ; and, if I 
mistake not, my endeavours have not 
proved in vain. I received indeed so many 
marks of respect and esteem from those 
who are most in Ceesar's favour, that 1 
cannot but flatter myself they have a true 
regard for me. It must be confessed at 
the same time, that a pretended affection 
is not easily discernible from a real one, 
unless in seasons of distress. For adversity 
is to friendship what fire is to gold ; the 
only infallible test to discover the genuine 
from tlie counterfeit ; in all other circum- 
stances they both bear the same common 
signatures. I have one strong reason, how- 
ever, to persuade me of their sincerity ; 
as neither their situation nor mine can by 
any means tempt them to dissemble with 
me. As to that person f in whom all 
power is now centred, 1 am not sensible 
that I have any thing to fear from him ; 
or nothing more, at least, than what arises 
from that general jirecarious state in 
which all things must stand where the 
fence of laws is broken down ; and from 
its being impossible to pronounce with 

* Silius, it should seem, had brought an ac- 
count from the army, that some witticisms of 
Cicero had been reported to Cocsar, which had 
given him ofVencc. 

f Caisar. 



assurance concerning any event, which 
depends wholly upon the will, not to say 
the caprice, of another. But this I can 
with confidence affirm, that I have not 
in any single instance given him just oc- 
casion to take offence ; and in the article 
you point out, I have been particularly 
cautious. Tliere was a time, 'tis true, 
when I thought it well became me, by 
Avhom Rome itself was free|, to speak 
my sentiments with freedom : but now 
that our liberties are no more, I deem 
it equally agreeable to my present situ- 
ation, not to say any thing that may dis- 
gust either Caesar or his favourites . But 
were I to suppress every rising raillery 
that might pique those at whom it is 
directed, I must renounce, you know, all 
my reputation as a wit. And in good 
earnest, it is a character upon which I do 
not set so high a value, as to be unwill- 
ing to resign it if it were in my power. 
However, I am in no danger of suffering 
in Caesar's opinion, by being represented 
as the author of any sarcasms to which I 
have no claim ; for his judgment is much 
too penetrating ever to be deceived by any 
imposition of this nature. I remember 
your brother Servius, whom 1 look upon 
to have been one of the most learned 
critics that this age has produced, was 
so conversant in the writings of the poets, 
and had acquired such an excellent and 
judicious ear, that he could immediately 
distinguish the numbers of Plautus from 
those of any other author. Thus Caesar, 
I am told, when he made his large col- 
lection of apophthegms §, constantly re- 
jected any piece of wit that was brought 
to him as mine, if it happened to be 
spurious : a distinction which he is much 
more able to make at present, as his par- 
ticular friends jjass almost every day of 
their lives in my company. As our con- 
versation generally turns upon a variety of 
subjects, I frequently strike out thoughts 
which they look upon as not altogether 
void, perhaps, of spirit and ingenuity. 
Now these little sallies of pleasantry, to- 
gether with the general occurrences of 
Rome, are constantly transmitted to Cae- 
sar, in pursuance of his own express di- 

X Alluding to his services in the suppression 
of Catiline's conspiracy. 

§ This collection was made by Caesar when 
he was very young; and probably it. was a per- 
formance by no means to his honour. For 
Augustus, into whose hands it came after his 
death, would not suffer it to be published. 



Sect. I. 



CICERO. 



29 



rection : so that if any thing* of this kind 
be mentioned by others as coming- from 
me, he always disregards it. You see. 
then, that the lines yon quote with so 
much propriety from the tragedy of 
(Enomaus*, contain a caution aitog'ether 
imnecessary. For tell me, my friend, 
what jealousies can I possibly create ? Or 
who will look witli envy upon a man in 
my humble situation? But granting that 
I were in ever so enviable a state ; jet let 
me observe, that it is the opinion of those 
philosophers, who alone seem to have 
understood the true nature of virtue, that 
a good man is answerable for nothing 
farther than his own innocence. Now 
in this respect I think mj self doubly ir- 
reproachable ; in the first place, by hav- 
ing recommended such public measures 
as were for the interest of the common- 
wealth ; and in the next, that finding I 
was not sufficiently supported to render 
my coinisels effectual, I did not deem it 
advisable to contend for them by arms 
against a superior strength. Most cer- 
tainly, therefore, I cannot justly be ac- 
cused of having failed in the duty of a 
good citizen. Tlie only part then that 
now remains for me, is to be cautious not 
to expose myself, by any indiscreet word 
or action, to the resentment of those in 
power : a part which I hold likewise to 
be agreeable to the character of true 
wisdom. As to the rest ; what liberties 
any man may take in imputing words to 
me which I never spoke ; what credit 
Csesar may give to such reports ; and 
how far those who court my friendship, 
are really sincere ; these are points for 
which it is by no means in my power to 
be answerable. My tranquillity arises, 
therefore, from the conscious integrity of 
my counsels in the times that are past, 
and from the moderation of my conduct 
in these that are present. Accordingly, 
I apply the simile you quote from Ac- 
ciusf, not only to Envj-, but to Fortune ; 
that weak and inconstant power, whom 
every wise and resolute mind should re- 
sist, with as much firmness as a rock re- 
pels the waves. Grecian story Avill abun- 
dantly supply examples of the greatest 
men, both at Athens and Syracuse, who 
have in some sort preserved their inde- 
pendency amidst the general servitude of 
their respective communities. May I not 

* Written by Accius, a tragic poet, who flou- 
rished about the year of Rome 617. 

f The poet mentioned in the preceding re- 
mark. 



hope then to be able so to comport my- 
self under the same circumstances, as 
neither to give offence to oiu' riders, on 
the one hand, nor to injure the dignity 
of my character, on the other ? 

But to tiu-n from the serious to the 
jocose part of your letter.— The strain of 
pleasantry you break into, immediately 
after having quoted the tragedy of (Eno- 
maus, puts me in mind of the modern 
method of introducing at the end of those 
graver dramatic pieces, the buffoon hu- 
mour of our low mimes, instead of the 
more delicate burlesque of the old Atel- 
lan farces I Why else do you talk of 
yoiu- paltry pol^^us§, and your mouldy 
cheese ? In pure good-nature, 'tis true, 
I formerly submitted to sit dovm v/itli you 
to such homely fare : but more refined 
company has improved me into a better 
taste. For Hirtius and DolabeUa, let 
me tell you, are my preceptors in the 
science of the table ; as in return, they 
are my disciples in that of the bar. But 
I suppose you have already heard, at least 
if all the town-news be transmitted to 
you, that they frequently declaim at my 
house|!, and that I as often sup at theirs. 
You must not however hope to escape 
my intended visit, by pleading poverty 
in bar to the admission of so luxui'ious a 
guest. Wliilst you were raising a fortune 
indeed, I bore with your parsimonious 
humour : but now that you are in circum- 
stances to support the loss of half your 
wealth, I expect that you receive me in 
another manner than you would one of 
your compounding debtors^ . And though 

J These Atellan farces, which in the earlier 
periods of the Roman stage were acted at the 
end of the more serious dramatic perform- 
ances, derived their name from Atella, a town in 
Italy; from whence they were first introduced 
at Rome. They consisted of a more liberal 
and genteel kind of humour than the mimes, 
a species of comedy, which seems to have 
taken its subject from low life. 

§ A sea-fish so extremely tough, that it was 
necessary to beat it a considerable time before 
it could be rendered fit for the table. 

II Cicero had lately instituted a kind of aca- 
demy for eloquence in his own house ; at 
which several of the leading young men in 
Rome used to meet, in order to exercise them- 
selves in the art of oratory. 

^ This alludes to a law which Caesar passed in 
favour of those who had contracted debts before 
the commencement of the civil war. By this 
law commissioners were appointed to take an 
accountof the estate and effects ofthese debtors, 
which were to be assigned to their respective 
creditors according to their valuation before 



30 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book L 



your finances may somewhat suffer by 
my visit, remember it is better tbey 
should be impaired by treating a friend, 
than by lending to a stranger. I do not 
insist, however, that you spread your ta- 
ble with so unbounded a profus'on as to 
furnish out a splendid treat with the re- 
mains ; I am so wonderftilly moderate, 
as to desire nothing more than what is 
perfectly elegant and exquisite in its kind. 
I remember to have heard you describe 
an entertainment which was given by 
Phameas. Let yours be the exact copy 
of his : only I should be glad not to wait 
for it quite so long. Should you still 
persist, after all, to invite me, as usual, to 
a penurious supper, dished out by the 
sparing hand of maternal oeconomy ; even 
this, perhaps, I may be able to support. 
But I would fain see that hero bold who 
should dare to set before me the vil- 
lanous trash you mention ; or even one 
of your boasted polypuses, with an hue 
as florid as vermilioned Jove*. Take my 
word for it, my friend, your prudence 
will not suffer you to be thus adventu- 
rous. Fame, no doubi, will have pro- 
claimed at your villa my late conversion 
to luxury, long before my arrival : and 
you will shiver at the sound of her tre- 
mendous report. Nor must you flatter 
yourself with the hope of abating the 
edge of my appetite, by your cloying 
sweet wines before supper : a silly custom 
which I have now entirely renounced : 
being much wiser than when I used to 
damp my stomach with your antepasts 
of olives and Lucanian sausages. — But 
not to run on any longer in this jocose 
strain ; my only serious wish is, that I may 
be able to make you a visit. You may 
compose your countenance, therefore, 
and return to your mouldy cheese in full 
security : for my being your guest will 
occasion you, as usual, no other expence 
than that of heating your baths. As for 
all the rest, you are to look upon it as 
mere pleasantry. 

The trouble you have given yourself 
about Selicius's villaf, is extremely ob- 

the civil war broke out^ and whatever sums 
had been paid for interest, were to be consi- 
dered as in discharge of the principal. By 
this ordinance Paitus, it seems, had been a 
particular sufferer. 

* Pliny, the naturalist, mentions a statue of 
Jupiter erected in the Capitol, which on cer- 
tain festival days it was customary to paint 
with vermilion. * 

f In Naples. 



liging ; as your description of it was ex- 
cessively droU. I believe therefore, from 
the account you give me, I shall renounce 
all thoughts of making that purchase : 
for though the country, it seems, abounds 
in salt, the neighbourhood, I find, is but 
insipid. Farewell. 

LETTER XLVIIL 

To Papirius Pcetus. 

[A. U. 701.] 
Your letter gave me a double pleasure : 
for it not only diverted me extremely, 
but was a proof likewise that you are so 
well recovered as to be able to indulge 
your usual gaiety. I was well contented 
at the same time to find myself the sub- 
ject of your raillery ; and, in truth, the 
repeated provocations, I had given you, 
were sufficient to call forth all the severity 
of your satire. My only regret is, that 
I am prevented from taking my intended 
journey into your part of the world ; 
where I proposed to have made myself, 
I do not say your guest, but one of your 
family. You would have found me won- 
derfully changed from the man I for- 
merly was, when you used to cram me 
with your cloying antepasts |. For I 
now more prudently sit down to table 
with an appetite altogether unimpaired, 
and most heroically make my way through 
every dish that comes before me, from 
the e^^^ that leads the van, to the roast 
veal that brings up the rear||. The 
temperate and unexpensive guest whom 
you were wont to applaud, is now no 
more. I have bidden a total farewell to 
all the cares of the patriot ; and have 
joined the professed enemies of my for- 
mer principles ; in short, I am become 
an absolute Epicurean. You are by no 
means however to consider me as a friend 
to that injudicious profusion, which is 

X These antepasts seem to have been a kind 
of collation preparatory to the principal enter- 
tainment. They generally consisted, it is pro- 
bable, of such dishes ds were provocatives to 
appetite : but prudent oeconomists, as may be 
collecJ-cd from the turn of Cicero's raillery, 
sometimes contrived them in such a manner 
as to damp rather than improve the stomach 
of their guests. 

§ The first dish at every Roman table was 
constantly eggs; which maintained their post 
of honour even at the most magnificent enter- 
tainments. 

II It appears by a passage which Manutius 
cites from TertuUian, that the Romans usually 
concluded their feasts with broiled or roast 
meat. 



Sect. I. 



CICERO. 



31 



now the prevailing- taste of our modern 
entertainments : on the contrary, it is 
that more elegant luxury I admire, which 
you formerly used to display when your 
finances were more flourishing, though 
your farms were not more numerous than 
at present. Be prepared therefore for 
my reception accordingly ; and remem- 
ber you are to entertain a man who has 
not only a most enormous appetite, hut 
who has some little knowledge, let me 
tell you, in the science of elegant eating. 
You know there is a peculiar air of self- 
sufficiency, that generally distinguishes 
those who enter late into the study of 
any art. You wiU not wonder, therefore, 
when I take upon me to inform you, that 
you must banish your cakes and your 
sweetmeats, as articles that are now ut- 
terly discarded from aU fashionable bills 
of fare. I am become indeed such a pro- 
ficient in this science, that I frequently 
venture to invite to my table those re- 
fined friends of yours, the delicate Vir- 
rius and Camillus. Nay I am bolder 
still, and have presumed to give a supper 
even to Hirtius himself ; though, I 
must own, I could not advance so far as 
to honour him with a peacock. To tell 
you the truth, my honest cook had not 
skill enough to imitate any other part of 
his splendid entertainments, except only 
his smoking soups. 

But to give you a general sketch of my 
manner of life ; I spend the first part of 
the morning in receiving the compli- 
ments of several, both of oui* dejected 
patriots and our gay victors : the latter 
of whom treat me with great marks of 
civility and esteem. As soon as that 
ceremo ly is over, I retire to my library ; 
where I employ myself either with my 
books or my pen. And here I am some- 
times surrounded by an audience, who 
look upon me as a man of most profound 
erudition, for no other reason, perhaps, 
than because I am not altogether so ig- 
norant as themselves. The rest of my 
time I wholly devote to indulgences of a 
less intellectual kind. I have sufficiently 
indeed paid the tribute of sorrow to my 
unhappy country ; the miseries whereof 
I have longer and more bitterly lamented, 
than ever tender mother bewailed the 
loss of her only son. 

Let me desire you, as you would se- 
cure your magazine of provisions from 
falling into my hands, to take care of 



your health ; for I have most unmerci- 
fully resolved that no pretence of indis- 
position shall preserve your larder from 
my depredations. Farewell. 

LETTER XLIX. 

To Gallus. 

[A. U. 707.] 
1 AM much surprised at your reproaches ; 
as I am sure they are altogether v/ithout 
foundation. But were they ever so just, 
they would come with a very ill grace 
from you, who ought to have remem- 
bered those marks of distinction you 
received from me during my consulate. 
It seems, however (for so you are pleased 
to inform me) , that Caesar will certainly 
restore you. I know you are never 
sparing of your boasts : but I know too, 
that they have the ill luck never to be 
credited. It is in the same spirit you re- 
mind me, that you offered yourself as a 
candidate for the tribunitial office, merely 
in order to serve me*. Now to shew 
you how much I am in your interest, I 
wish you were a tribune still : as in that 
case you could not be at a loss for an in- 
tercessor ■\. You go on to reproach me, 
with not daring to speak my sentiments. 
In proof however of the contrary, I need 
only refer you to the reply I made, when 
you had the front to solicit my assistance. 
Thus (to let you see how absolutely 
impotent you are, where you most af- 
fect to appear formidable) I thought 
proper to answer you in your own style. 
If you had made your remonstrances in 
the spirit of good manners, I should with 
pleasure, as I could with ease, have vin- 
dicated myself from your charge : and 
in truth, it is not your conduct, but your 
language, that I have reason to resent. 
I am astonished indeed that you, of all 
men living, should accuse' me of want of 
freedom, who are sensible it is by my 
means that there is any freedom left in 

* Probablj' during Cicero's exile. 

f Cicero's witticism in this passage, turns 
upon the doxible sense of the word intercessor : 
which, besides its general meaning, hasrelation 
likewise to a particular privilege annexed to 
the tribunitial office. For every tribune had 
the liberty of interposing his negative upon the 
proceedings of the senate: which act was called 
intercessio, and the person who executed it was 
said to be the intercessor of the particular law, 
or other matter in deliberation. 



32 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book I. 



the republic"*. I say j/oz* of all men liv- 
ing: tiecause, if the informations you 
gave me concerning Catiline's conspiracy 
were false ; where are the services of 
which you remind me ? If they were 
true, you yourself are the best judge how 
great those obligations are which I have 
conferred upon every Roman in general. 
Farewell. 

LETTER L. 

To CcBsar. 

[A. U. 708.] 

I VERY particularly recommend to your 
favour the son of our worthy and com- 
mon friend Prfecilias : a youth whose 
modest and polite behaviour, together 
with his singular attachment to myself, 
have exceedingly endeared him to me. 
His father likewise, as experience has 
now fully convinced me, was always my 
most sincere well-wisher. For to confess 
the truth, he was the first and most zeal- 
ous of those who used both to rally and 
reproach me for not joining in your 
cause : especially after you had invited 
me by so many honourable overtures. 
But, 

All unavailing prov'd his every art, 
To shake the purpose of my stedfast heart. 
HoM. Odyss. vii. 258. 

For whilst the gallant chiefs of our 
party were on the other side perpetually 
exclaiming to me. 

Rise thou, distinguish'd midst the sons of 

fame, 
And fair transmit to times unborn thy name. 
HoM. Odyss, i. 502. 

Too easy dupe of flattery's specious voice, 
Darkling I stray'd from -wisdom's better 
choice. 

HoM. Odyss. xxiv. 314. 

And fain would they still raise my spi- 
rits, while they endeavour, insensible as I 
now am to the charms of glory, to re- 
kindle that passion in my heart. With 
this view they are ever repeating — 

O let me not inglorious sink in death, 
And yield like vulgar souls my parting breath: 
In some brave effort give me to expire, 
That distant ages may the deed admire ! 
HoM. II. xxii. 

But I am immoveable, as you see, by 
all their persuasions. Renouncing there- 

* Alluding to his having suppressed Cati- 
line's conspiracy. 



fore, the pompous heroics of Homer, I 
turn to the just maxims of Euripides, 
and say with that poet. 

Curse on the sage, who,, impotently wise, 
O'erlooks the paths where humbler pru- 
dence lies. 

My old friend Preecilius is a great ad- 
mirer of the sentiment in these lines ; 
insisting, that a patriot may preserve a 
prudential regard to his own safety, and 

yet, 

Above his peers the first in honour shine. 
HoM. II. vi. 208. 

But to return from this digression : 
you will greatly oblige me by extending 
to this young man that uncommon ge- 
nerosity which so peculiarly marks your 
character ; and by suffering my recom- 
mendation to increase the number of 
those favours which I am persuaded you 
are disposed to confer upon him for the 
sake of his family. 

I have not addressed you in the usual 
style of recommendatory letters, that 
you might see I did not intend this as 
an application of common form. Fare- 
well. 

LETTER LI. 

To Dolabcllaf. 

[A. U. 708.] 
Oh ! that the silence you so kindly re- 
gret, had been occasioned by my own 
death, rather than by the severe loss I have 
suffered^ ; a loss I should be better able 
to support, if I had you with me. For 
your judicious counsels, and singular af- 
fection towards me, would greatly con- 
tribute to alleviate its weight. This good 
office indeed I may yet perhaps receive ; 
for as I imagine we shall soon see you 
here, you will find me still so deeply af- 
fected, as to have an opportunity of afford- 
ing me great assistance. Not that this 
affliction has so broken my spirit as to 
render me unmindftd that I am a man, 
or apprehensive that I must totally sink 
under its pressure. But all that cheer- 
fulness and vivacity of temper, which you 
once so particularly admired, has now, 
alas ! entirely forsaken me. My fortitude 
and resolution, nevertheless (if these 
virtues were ever mine), I still retain, 

f He was at this time with Csesar in Spain. 
X The death of his daughter TuUia. 



Sect. I. 



CICERO. 



33 



and retain them too in the same vig'our 
as when you left me. 

As to those battles which, you tell me, 
you have sustained upon my account ; I 
am far less solicitous that you should 
confute my detractors, than that the 
world should know (as it unquestionably 
does) that I enjoy a place in your aifec- 
tion : and may you still continue to ren- 
der that truth conspicuous. To this re- 
quest I will add another, and intreat you 
to excuse me for not sending you a longer 
letter. I shorten it, not only as ima- 
gining we shall soon meet, but because 
my mind is at present by no means suffi- 
ciently composed for writing. Farewell. 

LETTER LIL 

Servius Sulpicius to Cicet'o. 

[A. U. 708.] 
I RECEIVED the news of your daughters 
death with all the concern it so justly 
deserves ; and indeed I cannot but con- 
sider it as a misfortune in which I bear 
an equal share with yourself. If I had 
been near you when this fatal accident 
happened, I should not only have min- 
gled my tears with yours, but assisted you 
with all the consolation in my power. I 
am sensible, at the same time, that offices 
of this kind afford at best but a wretched 
relief ; for as none are qualified to per- 
form them, but those who stand near to 
us by the ties either of blood or affection, 
such persons are generally too much af- 
flicted themselves to be capable of admi- 
nistering comfort to others. Neverthe- 
less, I thought proper to suggest a few 
reflections which occurred to me upon 
this occasion ; not as imagining they 
would be new to you, but believing that 
in your present discomposure of mind 
they might possibly have escaped your 
attention. Tell me, then, my friend, 
wherefore do you indulge this excess of 
sorrow ? Reflect, I entreat you, in what 
manner fortune has dealt with every one 
of us ; that she has deprived us of what 
ought to be no less dear than our chil- 
dren, and overwhelmed in one general 
ruin our honours, our liberties, and our 
country. And after these losses, is it pos- 
sible tliat any other should increase our 
tears ? Is it possible that a mind long- 
exercised in calamities so truly severe, 
sltould not become totally callous and 
indifferent to every event ? But you will 



tell me, perhaps, that your grief arises 
not so much on your own account as on 
that of Tullia. Yet surely you must often, 
as well as myself, have had occasion in 
these wretched times to reflect, that their 
condition by no means deserves to be re- 
gretted, whom death has gently removed 
from this unhappy scene. What is there, 
let me ask, in the present circumstances 
of our country, that could have rendered 
life greatly desirable to your daughter ? 
What pleasing hopes, what agreeable 
views, what rational satisfaction could 
she possibly have proposed to herself 
from a more extended period ? Was it in 
the prospect of conjugal happiness in the 
society of some distinguished youth ? as 
if, indeed, you could have found a son-in- 
law amongst our present set of young 
men, worthy of being intrusted with the 
care of your daughter ! Or was it in the 
expectation of being the joyful mother 
of a flourishing race, who might possess 
their patrimony with independence, who 
might gradually rise through the several 
dignities of the state, and exert the li- 
berty to which they were born in the 
service and defence of their friends and 
country ? But is there one amongst all 
these desirable privileges, of which we 
were not deprived before she was in a 
capacity of transmitting them to her de- 
scendants ? Yet, after all, you may still 
allege, perhaps, that the loss of our chil- 
dren is a severe affiiction ; and unques- 
tionably it would be so, if it were not a 
much greater to see them live to endure 
those indignities which their parents 
suffer. 

I lately fell into a reflection, which as 
it afforded great relief to the disquietude 
of my own heart, it may possibly contri- 
bute likewise to assuage the anguish of 
yours. In my return out of Asia, as I 
was sailing from JEgmn towards Mq- 
gara*, I amused myself with contem- 
plating the circumjacent countries. Be- 
hind me lay ^Egina, before me Megara ; 
on my right I saw Piraeus t, and on my 
left Corinth I . These cities, once so 
flourishing and magnificent, now pre- 

* yTF-giiia, now called Engia, is an island 
situated in the gulf that runs between the Pe- 
loponnesus and Attica, to which it gives its 
name. — Megara was a city near the isthmus 
of Corinth. 

f A celebrated sea-port at a small distance 
from Athens, now called Port Lion. 

:|: A city in the Peloponnesus. 

D 



34 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book L 



sented nothing to my view but a sad 
spectacle of desolation. " Alas," I said 
to myself, "^ shall such a short-lived crea- 
ture as man complain, when one of his 
species falls either by the hand of vio- 
lence, or by the common covu'se of na- 
ture : whilst in this narrow compass so 
many great and glorious cities, formed 
for a much longer duration, thus lie ex- 
tended in ruins ? Remember, then, oh my 
heart ! the general lot to wiiicli man is 
born, and let that thought suppress thy 
unreasonable murmurs." Believe me, 
I found ray mind greatly refreshed and 
comforted by these reflections. Let me 
advise you in tlie same manner to repre- 
sent to yourself what numbers of our 
illustrious countrymen have lately been 
cut oif at once * ; how much the strength 
of the Roman republic is impaired, and 
what dreadful devastation has gone forth 
throughout all its provinces ! And can 
you, with the impression of these greater 
calamities upon your mind, be so immo- 
derately afflicted for the loss of a single 
individual, a poor, little, tender woman ? 
who, if she had not died at this time, 
must in a few fleeting years more have 
inevitably undergone that common fate 
to which she was born. 

Reasonable, however, as these reflec- 
tions are, I would call you from them a 
while, in order to lead your thoughts to 
others more pecidiarly suitable to your 
circumstances and character. Remember 
then tliat your daughter lived as long as 
life was worth possessing, that is, till li- 
berty was no more : that she lived to see 
you in the illustrious oflices of prretor, 
consul, and augur; to be married to 
some of the noblest youths in Rome f ; 
to be blessed with almost every valuable 
enjoyment ; and at length to exnire with 
the republic itself. Tell me, now, what 
is there in this view of her fate that 
€Ould give either her or yourself Just rea- 
son to complain ? In fine, do not forget 
that you are Cicero, the wise, the philo- 
sophical Cicero, who were wont to give 
advice to others ; nor resemble those un- 
skilful empirics, who, at the same time 
that they pretend to be furnished with 
remedies for other men's disorders, arc 
altogether incapable of finding a cure 
for their own. On the contrary, apjdy 
to your private use those judicious pre- 

* In the civil wars. 

t To Piso, Crassipes, ami Dolabolla. 



cepts you have administered to the pub- 
lic. Time necessarily weakens the 
strongest impressions of sorrow ; but it 
would be a reproach to your character 
not to anticipate this its certain effect, 
by the force of your own good sense and 
judgment. If the dead retain any con- 
sciousness of what is here transacted, 
your daughter's affection, I am sure, was 
such, both to you and to all her relations, 
that she can by no means desire you 
should abandon yourself to this excess of 
grief. Restrain it, then, I conjure you, 
for her sake, and for the sake of the rest 
of your family and friends, who lament 
to see you thus afflicted. Restrain it, too, 
I beseech you, for the sake of your coun- 
try ; that whenever the opportunity shall 
serve, it may reap the benefit of your 
counsels and assistance. In short, since 
such is our fortune that we must neces- 
sarily submit to the present system of 
public affairs, suffer it not to be sus- 
pected, that it is not so much the death 
of your daughter, as the fate of the re- 
public, and the success of our victors, 
that you deplore. 

But it would be ill manners to dwell 
any longer upon this subject, as I should 
seem to question the efficacy of your 
own good sense. I will only add, there- 
fore, that as we have often seen you bear 
prosperity in the noblest manner, and 
with the highest applause, shew us like- 
wise that you are not too sensible of ad- 
versity, but know how to support it with 
the same advantage to your character. 
In a word, let it not be said, that forti- 
tude is the single virtue to which my 
friend is a stranger. 

As for what concerns myself, I will 
send you an account of the state of this 
l)rovince, and of what is transacting in 
this part of the world, as soon as I shall 
hear that you are sufficiently composed 
to receive the information. Farewell. 



LETTER LIII. 

To Servius Sulpicius. 

[A. U. 708.] 
I JOIN with you, my dear Sulpicius, in 
wishing that you had been in Rome when 
this most severe calamity befel me. I 
am sensible of the advantage I should 
have received from your presence, and I 
had almost said your equal participation 



Sect. 1. 



CICERO. 



35 



of my grief, by having found myself 
somewhat more composed after 1 had 
read your letter. It fiiniished me indeed 
witli arguments extremely proper to 
sooth the anguish of affliction ; and evi- 
dently flov/ed from a heart that sympa- 
thised with the sorrows it endeavoured to 
assuage. But although I could not en- 
joy the benefit of your own good offices 
in person, I had the advantage, however, 
of your son's, v/ho gave me a proof, by 
every tender assistance that could be con- 
tributed upon so melancholy an occasion, 
how much he imagined that he was act- 
ing agreeably to your sentiments, when 
he thus discovered the affection of his 
own. More pleasing instances of his 
friendship I have frequently received, 
but never any that were more obliging. 
As to those for which I am indebted to 
yourself, it is not only the force of your 
reasonings, and the very considerable 
share you take in my afflictions, that 
have contributed to compose my mind ; 
it is the deference, likevrise, which I al- 
ways pay to the authority of your senti- 
ments. For knowing, as I perfectly do, 
the superior wisdom with which you are 
enlightened, I should be ashamed not to 
support my distresses in the manner 
you think I ought. I will acknowledge, 
nevertheless, that they sometimes al- 
most entirely overcome me : and I am 
scarce able to resist the force of my 
grief when I reflect, that I am destitute 
of those consolations which attended 
others, whose examples I propose to my 
imitation. Thus Quintus Maximus lost 
a son of consular rank, and distinguished 
by many brave, and illustrious actions ; 
Lucius Paulus was deprived of two sons 
in the space of a single week ; and 
your relation Gallus, together with Mar- 
cus Cato, had both of them the unhap- 
piness to survive their respective sons, 
who were endowed with the highest 
abilities and \qrtues. Yet? these unfor- 
tunate parents lived in times when the 
honours they derived from the republic 
might in some measure alleviate the 
weight of their domestic misfortunes. 
But as for myself, after having been 
stripped of those dignities you mention, 
and which I had acquired by the most 
laborious exertion of my abilities, I had 
one only consolation remaining : and of 
that I am now bereaved, I could no 
longer divert the disquietude of my 



thoughts, by employing myself in the 
causes of my friends, or the business of 
the state : for I could no longer with any 
satisfaction appear either in the Forum 
or the Senate. In short, I justly con- 
sidered myself as cut off from the benefit 
of all those alleviating occupations in 
which fortune and industry had qualified 
me to engage. But I considered, too, 
that this was a deprivation which I suf- 
fered in common with yourself and 
some others : and whilst I was endea- 
vouring to reconcile my mind to a 
patient endurance of those ills, there was 
one to whose tender offices I could have 
recourse, and in the sweetness of whose 
conversation I could discharge all the 
cares and anxiety of my heart. But this 
last fatal stab to my peace has torn open 
those wounds, which seemed in some 
measure to have been tolerably healed. 
For I can now no longer lose my private 
sorrows in the prosperity of the common- 
wealth, as I was wont to dispel the imea= 
siness I suffered upon the public account, 
in the happiness I received at home. Ac- 
cordingly I have equally banished myself 
from my house*, and from the public ; 
as finding no relief in either, from the 
calamities I lament in both. It is this, 
therefore, that heightens my desire of 
seeing you here ; as nothing can afford 
me a more effectual consolation than the 
renewal of our friendly intercourse : a 
happiness which I hope, and am informed, 
indeed , that I shall shortly enj oy . Among 
the many reasons I have for impatiently 
wishing your arrival, one is, that we may 
previously concert together our scheme 
of conduct in the present conjuncture ; 
Avhich, however, must now be entirely 
accommodated to another's will. This 
person f, 'tis true, is a man of great abi- 
lities and generosity ; and one, if I mis- 
take not, who is by no means my enemy ; 
and I am sure he is extremely your friend. 
Nevertheless it requires much conside- 
ration, I do not say in wdiat manner we 
shall act with respect to public affairs, 
but by what methods we may best 
obtain his permission to retire from 
them. Farewell. 



5^- Cicero, upon the death of his daughter, 
retired from his own house, to one helongincc 
to Atticus, near Rome, from which, perh^p*!, 
this letter was Avritton, 



f Ca^sav, 



D 2 



36 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book I. 



LETTER LIV. 

To Lucius Lucceius. 

[A. U. 708.] 
All the letters I have received from 
you, upon the subject of my late misfor- 
tune, were extremely acceptable to me, 
as instances of the hig-Jiest affection and 
good sense. But the great advantage 
I have derived from them, principally 
results from the animating contempt 
with which you look down upon human 
affairs, and that exemplary fortitude 
which arms you against all the various 
assaults of fortune. I esteem it the most 
glorious privilege of philosophy to be 
thus superior to external accidents, and 
to depend for happiness on ourselves 
alone : a sentiment, which, although it 
was too deeply planted in my heart to be 
totally eradicated, has been somewhat 
weakened, I confess, by the violence of 
those repeated storms to which I have 
been lately exposed. But you have en- 
deavoured, and with great success in- 
deed, to restore it to all its usual strength 
and vigour. I cannot, therefore, either too 
often or too strongly assure you, that nor 
thing could give me a higher satisfac- 
tion than your letter. But powerful as 
the various arguments of consolation are 
which you have collected for my use, and 
elegantly as you have enforced them ; I 
must acknowledge, that nothing proved 
more effectual than that firmness of mind 
which I remarked in your letters, and 
which I should esteem as the utmost re- 
proach not to imitate. But if I imitate 
I must necessarily excel my guide and in- 
structor in this lesson of fortitude : for I 
am altogether unsupported by the same 
hopes which I find you entertain, that 
public affairs will improve. Those il- 
lustrations indeed which you draw from 
the gladiatorial combats, together with 
the whole tendency of your reasoning in 
general, all concur in forbidding me to 
despair of the commonwealth. It would 
be nothing extraordinary, therefore, if 
you should be more composed than my- 
self, whilst you are in possession of these 
pleasing hopes : the only wonder is, how 
you can possibly entertain any. P'or say, 
my friend, what is there of our constitu- 
tion that is not utterly subverted ? Look 
round the republic and tell me (you who 
80 well understand the nature of our go- 
vernment) what part of it remains un- 



broken or unimpaired ? Most unquestion- 
ably there is not one, as I would prove 
in detail, if I imagined my own discern- 
ment was superior to yours, or were ca- 
pable (notwithstanding all your powerful 
admonitions and precepts) to dwell upon 
so melancholy a subject without being 
extremely affected. But I will bear my 
domestic misfortunes in the manner you 
assure me that I ought ; and as to those 
of the public, I shall support them, per- 
haps, with greater equanimity than even 
my friend. For (to repeat it again) 
you are not, it seems, v/ithout some sort 
of hopes ; whereas for myself, I have 
absolutely nxjne, and shall, therefore, in 
pursuance of your advice, preserve my 
spirits even in the midst of despair. The 
pleasing recollection of those actions you 
recal to my remembrance, and which, 
indeed, I performed chiefly by your en- 
couragement and recommendation, will 
greatly contribute to this end. To say 
the truth, I have done every thing for the 
service of my country that I ought, and 
more than could have been expected from 
the courage and counsels of any man. 
You will pardon me, I hope, for speak- 
ing in this advantageous manner of my 
own conduct : but as you advise me to 
alleviate my present uneasiness by a re- 
trospect of my past actions, I will con- 
fess, that in thus commemorating them 
I find great consolation. 

I shall punctually observe your admo- 
nitions, by calling off my mind as much 
as possible from every thing that may 
disturb its peace, and fixing it on those 
speculations which are at once an orna- 
ment to prosperity and the support of 
adversity. For this purpose I shall en- 
deavour to spend as much of my time 
with you, as our health and years will 
mutually permit : and if v/e cannot meet 
so often as I am sure we both wish, we 
shall always at least seem present to each 
other by a sympathy of hearts, and an 
union in the same philosophical contem- 
plations. Farewell. 

LETTER LV. 

Lucceius to Cicero* 

[A. U. 708.] 
I SHALL rejoice to hear that you are 
well. As to my own health, it is much 
as usual; or rather, I think, somewhat 
worse. 



Sect. 1. 



CICERO. 



37 



I have frequently called at your door, 
and am much surprised to find that you 
have not been in Rome since Ceesar left 
it. Wliat is it that so strongly draws 
you fi'om hence ? If any of your usual 
engagements of the literary kind renders 
you thus enamoured of solitude, I am 
so far from condemning your retii-ement 
that I think of it with pleasure. There 
is no sort of life indeed that can be more 
agreeable, not only in times so disturbed 
as the present, but even in those of the 
most desirable calm and serenity ; espe- 
cially to a mind like yours, which may 
have occasion for repose from its public 
labours, and which is always capable of 
producing something that will afford both 
pleasiu-e to others and honour to youi'self. 
But if you have withdravvn from the 
world, in order to give a free vent to 
those tears which you so immoderately 
indulged when you were here, I shall la- 
ment indeed your grief ; but (if you will 
allow me to speak the truth) I never can 
excuse it. For tell me, my friend, is it 
possible that a man of your uncommon 
discernment should not perceive what is 
obvious to all mankind ? Is it possible 
you can be ignorant that your perpetual 
complaints can profit nothing, and only 
serve to increase those disquietudes which 
your good sense requires you to subdue ? 
But if argLunents cannot prevail, intrea- 
ties perhaps may. Let me conjure you, 
then, by all the regard you bear me, to 
dispel this gloom that hangs upon your 
heart ; to return to that society and to 
those occupations which were either 
common to us both, or peculiar to your- 
self. But though I would fain dissuade 
you from continuing your present way 
of life, yet I would by no means suffei 
my zeal to be troublesome. In the diffi- 
culty therefore of steering between these 
two inclinations, I will only add my 
request, that you would either comply 
with my advice, or excuse me for offer^ 
ing it. Farewell. 

LETTER LVI. 

To Lucius Lucceius. 

[A. U. 70S.] 
Every part of your last letter glowed 
with that warmth of friendship, which, 
though it was by no means new to me, I 
could not but observe with peculiar satis- 
faction ; I would Shyplccmae, if that were 
not a word to which I have now for ever 



bidden adieu ; not merely, however, for 
the cause you suspect, and for which, 
under the gentlest and most affectionate 
terms, you in fact very severely reproach 
me ; but because all that ought in reason 
to assuage the anguish of so deep a wound , 
is absolutely no more. For whither shall 
I fly for consolation? Is it to the bo- 
som of my friends ? But tell me (for 
we have generally shared the same com- 
mon amities together), how few of that 
number are remaining? how few that 
have not perished by the sword, or that 
are not become strangely insensible ? You 
will say, perhaps, that I might seek my 
relief in your society ; and there indeed I 
would willingly seek it. The same ha- 
bitudes and studies, a long intercourse of 
friend sliip — in short, is there any sort of 
bond, any single circumstance of connec- 
tion wanting to unite us together ? Why 
then are we such strangers to one ano- 
ther ? For my own part, I know not : 
but this I know, that we have hitherto 
seldom met, I do not say in Rome, where 
the Forum usually brings every body 
together^, but w^hen we were near 
neighbours at Tusculum and Puteolse. 

I know not by what ill fate it has 
happened, that at an age when I might 
expect to flourish in the greatest credit 
and dignity, I should find myself in so 
wretched a situation as to be ashamed 
that I am still in being. Despoiled indeed 
of every honour and every comfort that 
adorned my public life, or smoothed my 
private ; vrhat is it that can now afford 
me any refuge ? My books, I imagine you 
will tell me ; and to these indeed I very 
assiduously apply. For to wliat else can I 
possibly have recourse ? Yet even these 
seem to exclude me from that peaceful 
port which I fain would reach, and re- 
proach me, as it were, for prolonging 
that life which only increases my sorrows 
with my years. Can you wonder, then, 
that I absent myself from Rome, where 
there is nothing under my own roof to 
afford me any satisfaction, and where I 
abhor both public men and public mea- 
sures, both the Forum and the Senate ? 
For this reason it is that I wear away my 
days in a total application to literary pur- 

* The Forum was a place of general resort for 
the whole city. It was here that tlie lawyers 
pleaded their causes, that the poets recited their 
works, and that funeral orations were spoken 
in honour of the dead. It was here, in short, 
every thing was going forward that could en- 
gage the active or amuse the idle. 



38 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book I. 



suits ; not indeed as entertammg so vain 
a hope, that 1 may find in tliem a com- 
plete cure for my misfortunes, hut in or- 
der to obtain at least some little respite 
from their bitter remembrance. 

If those dangers, with v/hich we were 
daily menaced, had not formerly pre- 
vented both you and myself from re- 
flecting with that coolness we ought, we 
sliould never have been thus separated. 
Had that proved to have been the case, 
we should both of us have spared our- 
selves much uneasiness ; as I should not 
have indulged so many groundless fears 
for your health, nor you for the conse- 
quences of my grief. Let us repair 
then this unlucky mistake as well as we 
may : and as nothing can be more suit- 
able to both of us than the company of 
each other, I purpose to be with you in 
a few days. Farewell. 

LETTER LVIL 

To Tiro- 

[A. U. 708.] 
Eelieve me, my dear Tiro, I am greatly 
anxious for your health : however, if 
you persevere in the same cautious 
regimen which you have hitherto ob- 
served, you will soon, I trust, be well. 
As to my library, I beg you would put 
the books in order, and take a catalogue 
of them, when your physician shall give 
you his consent : for it is by his direc- 
tions you must novv^ be governed. With 
respect to the garden, I leave you to 
adjust matters as you shall judge pro- 
j)cr. 

I think you might come to Rome on 
the first of next month, in order to see 
tbe gladiatorial combats, and return the 
following day : but let this be entirely as 
is most agreeable to your own inclina- 
tions. In the mean time, if you have 
any affection for me, take care of your 
lualth. Farewell. 



LETTER LVllL 

To the sa??ie. 

[A. U. 708.] 
Wiiv should you not direct your letters 
to uk; with the familiar superscription 
which one friend generally uses to ano- 
iluH- ? llowcvei-, if you are unwilling to 
hazard the envy which this privilege 
may draw upon you, be it as you think 
l)roper; though lor my own part it is 



a inaKim v/hich I have generally pur-' 
sued with respect to myself, to treat 
envy with the utmost disregard. 

1 rejoice that you found so much bene- 
fit by your sudorific ; and should the air 
of Tusculum be attended with the same 
happy effect, how infinitely will it in- 
crease my fondness for that favourite 
scene ! If you love me then (and if you 
do not, you are undoubtedly the most 
successful of all dissemblers), consecrate 
your whole time to the care of your 
liealtli ; which hitherto indeed your as« 
siduous attendance upon myself has but 
too much prevented. You well know 
the rules which it is necessary you should 
observe for this purpose ; and 1 need not 
tell you that your diet should be light, 
and your exercises moderate : that you 
should keep your body open, «and your 
mind amused. Ee it your care, in short, 
to return to me perfectly recovered : and 
I shall ever aftervi'^ards not only love 
you, but Tusculum so much the more 
ardently. 

I vt'isli you could prevail with your 
neighbour to take my garden, as it will 
be the most effectual means of vexing 
that rascal Helico. TJiis fellow, although 
he paid a thousand sesterces* for the 
rent of a piece of cold barren ground, 
that had not so much as a walFor a shed 
upon it, or was supplied with a single 
drop of water, has yet the assurance to 
laugh at the price I require for mine ; 
notwithstanding all the money I have 
laid out upon the improvements. But 
let it be your business to spirit the man 
into our terms ; as it shall be mine to 
make the same artful attack upon Otho. 

Let me know what you have done 
with respect to the fountain ; though 
possibly this wet season may now have 
oversupplied it with water. If the wea- 
ther should prove fair, I will send the 
dial, together with the books you desire. 
But how happened it that you took none 
with you? Was it that you were em- 
ployed in some poetical composition 
upon the model of your admired So- 
phocles? If so, 1 hope you Avill soon 
oblige the world with your performance. 

Ligurius, Ccesar's great favourite, is 
dead. He was a very worthy man, and 
much my friend. Let me know when I 
may expect you : in the mean time be 
careful of your health. Farewell. 

* About 8/. of our money. 



BOOK THE FIRST. 



ANCIENT AND CLASSICAL. 



SECTION 11. 



FROM THE LETTERS OF PLINY THE CONSUL*, TO SEVERAL OF HIS FRIENDS, 
AS TRANSLATED BY WILLIAM MELMOTH, ESQ. 



LETTER I. 

To Caninius Rufus. 

How stands Comiimt, tliat favourite 
scene of yours and mine ? What becomes 
of the pleasant villa, the vernal portico, 
the shady planetree walk, the crystal 
canal so agreeably winding- along- its 

* Pliny was born in the reign of Nero, about 
the eight hundred and fifteenth year of Rome, 
and the sixty-second of the Christian aera. 
As to the time of his death antiquity has given 
us no information ; but it is conjectured that 
he died either a little before, or soon after, 
that excellent prince, his admired Trajan ; 
that is, about the year of Christ one hundred 
and sixteen. 

The elegance of this author's manner adds 
force to the most interesting, at the same time 
that it enlivens the most common subjects. 
But the polite and spirited turn of these let- 
ters is by no means their principal recom- 
mendation : they receive a much higher value, 
as they exhibit one of the most amiable and 
animating characters in all antiquity. Pliny's 
whole life seems to have been employed in the 
exercise of every generous and social affection. 
To forward modest merit, to encourage in- 
genious talents, to vindicate oppressed inno- 
cence, are some of the glorious purposes to 
which he devoted his power, his fortune, and 
his abilities. But how does he rise in our 
esteem and admiration, when we see him exer- 
cising (with a grace that discovers his huma- 
nity as well as his politeness) the noblest acts 
both of public and private munificence, not 
so much from the abundance of his wealth, as 
the wisdom of his oeconomy ! 

f The city where Pliny was born : it still 
subsists, and is now called Como. situated 
upon the lake Larius, or Lago di Como, in 
the dachv of Milan, 



flowery banks, together with the charm- 
ing lake X below, that serves at once the 
purposes of use and beauty ? What have 
you to tell me of the firm yet soft ges- 
tatio §, the sunny bath, the public saloon, 
the private dining-room, and all the ele- 
gant apartments for repose both at noon 
and night 1 1 ? Do these enjoy my friend, 
and divide his .time with pleasing vicis- 
situde ? Or do the affairs of the world, 
as usual, call you frequently out from 
this agreeable retreat ? If the scene of 
your enjoyment lies vdioily there, you 
are happy ; if not, you are under the 
common error of mankind. But leave, 
my friend (for certainly it is high time), 
the sordid pursuits of life to others, and 
devote yourself, in this calm and undis- 
turbed recess, entirely to pleasures of 
the studious kind. Let these employ 
your idle as well as serious hours ; let 
them be at once your business and your 
amusement, the subjects of your waking 
and even sleeping thoughts : produce 
something that shall be really and for 
ever your own. All your other posses- 
sions will pass on from one master to 
another : this alone, when once it is 



X The lake Larius, upon the banks of which 
this villa was situated. 

§ A piece of ground set apart for the purpose 
of exercise, either on horseback, or in their ve- 
hicles; it was generally contiguous to their 
gardens, and laid out in the form of a circus. 

II It was customary among the Romans to 
sleep in the middle of the day, and they had 
apavtmcuts for that purpose distinct from 
their bed-chambers. 



40 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book I. 



yours, Avill for ever be so. As I well 
know the temper and genius of him to 
whom I am addressing myself, 1 must 
exhort you to think as well of your 
abilities as they deserve : do justice to 
those excellent talents you possess, and 
the world, believe me, will certainly do 
so too. Farewell. 

LETTER IL 

To Pcmpeia Cderina. 

You might perceive, by my last short 
letter, I had no occasion of yours to in- 
form me of the various conveniences 
you enjoy at your several villas. The 
elegant accommodations which are to be 
found at Narnia^, Ocriculumf, Car- 
sola |, Perusia§, particularly the pretty 
bath at Narnia, I am extremely well ac- 
quainted with. The truth is, I have a 
property in every thing which belongs to 
you ; and I know of no other difference 
between your house and my own, than 
that I am more carefully attended in the 
former than the latter. You may, per- 
haps, have occasion to make the same 
observation in your turn, whenever you 
shall give me your company here, which 
I wish for, not only that you may par- 
take of mine with the same ease and free- 
dom that I do of yours, but to awaken 
the industry of my domestics, who are 
grown something careless in their attend- 
ance upon me. A long course of mild 
treatment is apt to wear out the impres- 
sions of awe in servants ; whereas new 
faces quicken their diligence, as they 
are generally more inclined to please 
their master by attention to his guest, 
than to himself. Farewell. 

LETTER III. 

To Cornelius Tacitus. 

Ceiitainly you will laugh (and laugh 
you may) when I tell you that your old 
acquaintance is turned sportsman, and 
has taken three noble boars. What ! 
(methinks I hear you say with astonish- 
ment) Pliny ! — Even he. However, I 
indulged at the same time my beloved 

* Now called Narni, a city in Ombria, in 
the duchy of Spoleto. 

f Otricoli, in the same duchy. 

X Carsola, in the same ducliy, 

§ Perugia, in Tuscany. 



inactivity, and while I sat at my nets, 
you would have found me, not with my 
spear, but my pen by my side. I mused 
and wrote, being resolved, if I returned 
with my hands empty, at least to come 
home with my papers full. Believe me, 
this manner of studying is not to be 
despised : you cannot conceive how 
greatly exercise contributes to enliven 
the imagination. There is, besides, 
something in the solemnity of the vene- 
rable woods with which one is sur- 
rounded, together with that awful si- 
lence |j which is observed on these occa- 
sions, that strongly inclines the mind 
to meditation. For the future, therefore, 
let me advise you, whenever you hunt, to 
take along with you your pen and paper, 
as well as your basket and bottle ; for be 
assured you will find Minerva as fond of 
traversing the hills as Diana. Farewell. 

LETTER IV. 

To Minutius Fundanus, 

When one considers how the time passes 
at Rome, one cannot but be surprised 
that take any single day, and it either 
is, or at least seems to be, spent reason- 
ably enough ; and yet upon casting up 
the whole sum, the amount will appear 
quite otherwise. Ask any one how he 
has been employed to-day ? he mil tell 
you, perhaps, " I have been at the cere- 
mony of taking up the ?nanli/ robe^ ; 
this friend invited me to a wedding ; 
that desired me to attend the hearing 
of his cause : one begged me to be wit- 
ness to his will ; another called me to 
consultation." These are offices which 
seem, while one is engaged in them, ex- 
tremely necessary; and yet when, in 
the quiet of some retirement, we look 
back upon the many hours thus employed, 
we cannot but condemn them as solemn 

II By the circumstance of silence here men- 
tioned, as well as by the whole air of this let- 
ter, it is plain the hunting here recommended 
was of a very different kind from what is prac- 
tised amongst us. It is probable the wild 
boars were allured into their nets by some 
kind of prey, with which they were baited, 
while the sportsman watched at a distance in 
silence and concealment. 

^ The Roman youths at the age of seven- 
teen changed their habit, and took up the 
toga virilis, or manly gown, upon which occa- 
sion they were conducted by the friends of the 
family with great ceremony either into the 
Forum or Capitol, and there invested with this 
new robe. 



Sect. II. 



PLINY. 



41 



impertinences. At such a season one is 
apt to reflect, How much of my life has 
been lost in trifles ! At least it is a re- 
flection which frequently comes across 
me at Laurentum, after I have been em- 
ploying- myself in my studies, or even 
in the necessary care of the animal ma- 
chine (for the body must be repaired 
and supported^ if we would preserve the 
mind in all its vigour). In that peace- 
ful retreat I neither hear nor speak any 
thing of which I have occasion to repent. 
I suffer none to repeat to me the whispers 
of malice ; nor do I censure any man, 
unless myself, when I am dissatisfied 
with my compositions. There I live un- 
disturbed by rumour, and free from the 
anxious solicitudes of hope or fear, con- 
versing- only with myself and my books. 
True and genuine life ! Pleasing and ho- 
nourable repose ! More, perhaps, to be 
desired than the noblest employments ! 
Thou solemn sea and solitary shore, best 
and most retired scene for contemplation, 
with how many noble thoughts have you 
inspired me ! Snatch, then, my friend, as 
I have, the first occasion of leaving the 
noisy town, with all its very empty pur- 
suits, and devote your days to study, or 
even resign them to ease ; for, as my in- 
genious friend Attilius pleasantly said, 
" It is better to do nothing, than to be 
doing of nothing.'" FarcAvell. 



LETTER V. 

To Atrius Clemens. 

If ever polite literature flourished at 
Rome, it certainly does now, of which 
I could give you many eminent in- 
stances ; I mil content myself, however, 
with naming only Euphrates the philo- 
sopher. I first made Acquaintance with 
this excellent person in my youth, when 
I served in the army in Syria. I had an 
opportunity of conversing with him fa- 
miliarly, and took some pains to gain his 
affection ; though that indeed was no- 
thing difficult, for he is exceedingly open 
to access, and full of that humanity 
which he professes. I should think my- 
self extremely happy if I had as much 
answered the expectations he at that time 
conceived of me, as he exceeds every 
thing that I had imagined of him. But 
perhaps I admire his excellencies more 



now than I did then, because I under- 
stand them better ; if I can with truth 
say I understand them yet. For as none 
but those who are skilled in painting, 
statuary, or the plastic art, can form a 
right judgment of any performance in 
those sciences ; so a man must himself 
have made great advances in learning, 
before he is capable of forming a just 
notion of the learned. However, as far 
as I am qualified to determine, Euphrates 
is possessed of so many shining talents, 
that he cannot fail to strike the most 
injudicious observer. He reasons with 
much force, penetration, and elegance, 
and frequently launches out in'o all the 
sublime and luxuriant eloquence of 
Plato. His style is rich and flowing, , 
and at the same time so wonderfully 
sweet, that with a pleasing violence he 
forces the attention of the most unwilling 
hearer. His outward appearance is 
agreeable to all the rest x he has a good 
shape, a comely aspect, long hair, and a. 
large white beard ; circumstances which, 
though they may probably be thought 
trifling and accidental, contribute how- 
ever to gain him much reverence. There 
is no affected negligence in his habit ; 
his countenance is grave, but not austere ; 
and his approach commands respect 
without creating awe. Distinguished as 
he is by the sanctity of his manners, he 
is no less so by his polite and affable ad- 
dress. He points his eloquence against 
the vices, not the persons of mankind, 
and without chastising reclaims the 
wanderer. His exhortations so captivate 
your attention, that you hang as it were 
upon his lips ; and even after the heart 
is convinced, the ear still wishes to listen 
to the harmonious reasoner. His family 
consists of three children (two of which 
are sons), whom he educates with the 
utmost care. His father-in-law, Pompeius 
Julianus, as he gi-eatly distinguished him- 
self in every other part of his life, so 
particularly in this, that though he was 
himself of the highest rank in his pro- 
vince, yet among many considerable 
competitors for his daughter, he pre- 
ferred Euphrates, as first in merit, though 
not in dignity. But to dwell any longer 
upon the virtues of a man, whose con- 
versation I am so unfortunate as not to 
have leisure to enjoy, what Avould it avail 
but to increase my uneasiness that 1 can- 
not enjoy it ? ]My time is Svholly taken 
up in the execution of a very honourable^ 



42 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book L 



indeed, l)ut very troublesome employ- 
ment ; in licaring of causes, answering 
petitions, passing accounts, and v/riting 
of letters: but letters, alas! where genius 
has no share. I sometimes complain to 
Euphrates (for I have leisure at least for 
that) of these unpleasing occupations. 
He endeavours to comfort me, by atlirm- 
ing, tliat to be engaged in the service of 
the public, to hear and determine causes, 
to explain the laws, and administer jus- 
tice, is a part, and the noblest part too, 
of philosophy, as it is reducing to prac- 
tice what her professors teach in specu- 
lation. It may be so : but that it is as 
agreeable as to spend whole days in at- 
tending to his useful conversation — even 
this rhetoric will never be able to con- 
vince me. I cannot therefore but strong- 
ly recommend it to you, who have lei- 
sure, the next time you come to Rome 
(and you will come, I dare say, so much 
the sooner) to take the benefit of his ele- 
gant and refined instructions. I am not, 
you see, in the number of those who envy 
others the happiness they cannot share 
themselves : on the contrary, it is a very 
sensible pleasure to me, when I find my 
friends in possession of an enjoyment 
from which I have the misfortune to be 
excluded. Farev/ell. 

LETTER VL 

To Calestrius Tiro. 

I HAVE suffered a most sensible loss ; if 
that word is strong enough to express 
the misfortune which has deprived me of 
so excellent a man. Cornelius Rufus is 
dead ! and dead too by his own act ! a 
circumstance of great aggravation to my 
afliiction ; as that sort of death which we 
cannot impute either to the course of na- 
ture, or the hand of Providence, is of all 
otherh the most to be lamented. It af- 
fords some consolation in the loss of 
those friends whom disease snatches from 
us, that they fall by the general fate of 
mankind : but those, who destroy them- 
/selves, leave us under the inconsolable 
reflection that they had it in their power 
to have lived longer. ^Tis true, Corne- 
lius had many inducements to be fond of 
life ; a blameU^ss conscien(;c, high rejRi- 
tation, and great dignity, together with 
ail the tender endearments of a \vife, a 
daughter, a i>randson, and sisters ; and 
amidtjt thcye considerable j)leflges of haj)- 



piness, many and faithful friends. Still 
it must be owned he had the highest 
reason (which to a wise man will always 
have the force of the strongest obliga- 
tion) to determine him in this resolution. 
He had long laboured under so tedious 
and painful a distemper, that even these 
blessings, great and valuable as they are, 
could not balance the evils he suffered. 
In his thirty-third year (as I Iiave fre- 
quently heard him say) he was seized 
with the gout in his feet. This he re- 
ceived from his father ; for diseases, as 
well as possessions, are sometimes trans- 
mitted by a kind of inheritance. A life 
of abstinence and virtue had something 
broke the force of this distemper while 
he had strength and youth to struggle 
with it ; as a manly courage supported 
him under the increasing weight of it in 
his old age. I remember in the reigrji 
of Domitian, I made him a visit at his 
villa near Rome, where I found him 
under the most incredible and unde- 
served tortures ; for the gout was now 
not only in his feet, but had spread itself 
over his whole body. As soon as I en- 
tered his chamber, his servants with- 
drew : for it was his constant rule never 
to suffer them to be present when any 
very intimate friend was with him : he 
even carried it so far as to dismiss his 
wife upon such occasions, though wor- 
thy of the highest confidence. Looking 
round about him, Do you know (says 
he) why I endure life under these cruel 
agonies ? It is with the hope that I may 
outlive, at least for one day, that vil- 
lain^. And O ! ye Gods, had you given 
me strength, as you have given me re 
solution, I would infallibly have that 
pleasure ! Heaven heard his prayer, 
and having survived that tyrant, and 
lived to see liberty restored, he broke 
through those great, but however now 
less forcible attachments to the world, 
since he could leave it in possession of 
security and freedom. His distemper in- 
creased ; and as it now grew too violent 
to admit of any relief from temperance, 
he resolutely determined to put an end 
to its uninterrupted attacks by an effort of 
heroism. He had refused all sustenance 
for four days, when his wife HispuUa 
sent to me our common friend Gfeminius, 
with the melancholy news that he was 
resolved to die ; and that she and her 

^' Domitian. 



Sect. II. 



PLINY. 



43 



daughter having in vain joined in their 
most tender persuasions to divert liim 
from his purpose, the only hope they 
had now left was in my endeavours to 
reconcile him to life. I ran to his house 
with the utmost precipitation. As I ap- 
proached it, I met a second messenger 
from Hispulla, who informed me there 
was nothing to he hoped for, even from 
me, as he now seemed more inflexible 
than ever in his resolution. What con- 
firmed their fears was an expression he 
made use of to his physician, who pressed 
him to take some nourishment: " 'Tis 
resolved," said he : an expression which, 
as it raised my admiration of his great- 
ness of soul, so it does my grief for the 
loss of him. I am every moment re- 
flecting wliat a valuable friend, what an 
excellent man I am deprived of. That 
he was arrived to his sixty-seventh year, 
which is an age even the strongest sel- 
dom exceed, I well know : that he is de- 
livered from a life of continual pain ; that 
he left his family and (what he loved even 
more) his country in a flourishing state ; 
all this I know. Still I cannot forbear 
to weep for him, as if he had been in the 
prime and vigour of his days ; and 1 
weep. (shall 1 own my weakness?) upon 
a private account. For I have lost, oh ! 
my friend, I have lost the witness, the 
guide, and the director of my life ! 
And to confess to you what I did to Cal- 
visius in the first transport of my grief, 
I sadly fear, nov/ that 1 am no longer 
under his eye, I shall not keep so strict 
a guard over my conduct. Speak com- 
fort to me, therefore, I intreat you ; not 
by telling me that he was old, that he was 
infirm ; all this I know ; but by supply- 
ing me with some arguments that are 
uncommon and resistless, that neither 
the commerce of the world, nor the pre- 
cepts of the philosophers, can teach me. 
For all that I have heard, and all that I 
have read, occur to me of themselves ; 
but all these are by far too weak to 
support me under so heavy an aifiiction. 
Farewell. 

LETTER VII. 

To Junius Mauricus. 

You desii*e me to look out a husband for 
your niece ; and it is with justice you 
enjoin me that oflice. You were a wit- 
ness to the esteem and affection I bore 



that great man her father, and with 
what noble instructions he formed my 
youth, and taught me to deserve those 
praises he was pleased to bestow upon 
me. You could not give me then a 
more important, or more agreeable com- 
mission ; nor could I be employed in an 
office of higher honour, than of choosing 
a young man worthy of continuing the 
family of Rusticus Arulenus ! a choice 
I should be long in determining if I 
were not acquainted with Miiuitius ^mi- 
lianus, who seems formed for our pur- 
pose. While he loves me with that 
warmth of affection which is usual be- 
tween young men of equal years (as in- 
deed I have the advance of him bat by 
a very few), he reveres me at the same 
time with all the deference due to age ; 
and is as desirous to model himself by 
my instructions, as I was by those of 
yourself and your brother. He is a na- 
tive of Brixia*, one of those provinces 
in Italy which still retains much of the 
frugal simplicity and purity of ancient 
manners. He is son to Minutius Macri- 
nus, whose humble desires were satis- 
fied with being first in rank of the 
Equestrian order ; for though he was 
nominated by Vespasian in the number 
of those whom that prince dignified with 
the Praetorian honours, yet with a de- 
termined greatness of mind, he rather 
preferred an elegant repose, to the am- 
bitious, shall I call them, or honourable 
pursuits in which we in public life are 
engaged. His grandmother on the mo- 
ther's side is Serrana Procula, of Padua : 
you are no stranger to the manners of 
that place ; yet Serrana is looked upon, 
even among these reserved people, as 
an exemplary instance of strict virtue. 
Acilius, his uncle, is a man of singular 
gravity, wisdom, and integrity. In a 
word, you will find nothing throughout 
his family unworthy of yours. Minutius 
himself has great vivacity, as weU as ap- 
plication, joined at the same time with a 
most amiable and becoming modesty. 
He has already, with much credit, passed 
through the offices of Qutestor, Tribune, 
and Praetor, so that you will be spared 
the trouble of soliciting for him those 
honourable employments. He has a gen- 
teel and ruddy countenance, with a cer- 
tain noble mien that speaks the man of 



X A town iu the tenitorics of Venice, now 
called Brescia. 



44 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book I. 



distinction ; advantages, I think, by no 
means to be slighted, and which I look 
upon as the proper tribute to virgin inno- 
cence. I am doubtful whether I should 
add, that his father is very rich. When 
I consider the character of those who re- 
quire a husband of my choosing, I know 
it is unnecessary to mention wealth ; but 
when 1 reflect upon the prevailing man- 
ners of the age, and even the laws of 
Rome, which rank a man according to 
his possessions, it certainly claims some 
notice ; and indeed in establishments of 
this nature, where children and many 
other circumstances are to be considered, 
it is an article that well deserves to be 
taken into the account. You will be in- 
clined perhaps to suspect, that affection 
has had too great a share in the character 
I have been drawing, and that I have 
heightened it beyond the truth. But I 
will stake all my credit, you will find 
every thing far beyond what I have re- 
presented. I confess, indeed, I love Mi- 
nutius (as he justly deserves) with all 
tlie warmth of the most ardent affection ; 
but for that very reason 1 would not 
ascribe more to his merit, than I know 
it will support. Farewell. 

LETTER VIIL 

To Septitius Clarus. 

How happened it, my friend, that you 
did not keep your engagement the other 
night to sup witli me ? But take notice, 
justice is to be had, and I expect' you 
shall fully reimburse me the expense I 
was at to treat you ; which, let me tell 
you, was no small sum. I had prepared, 
you must know, a lettuce a-piece, three 
snails*, two eggs, and a barley cake, 
with some sweet wine and snow f ; the 

* A dish of snails was very common at a 
Roman table. The manner used to fatten 
them is related by some very grave authors 
of antiquity; and Pliny the Elder mentions 
one Fulvius Hirpinus, who had studied that art 
with so much success, that the shells of some 
of his snails would contain about ten quarts. 
In some parts of Switzerland this food is still 
in high repute. 

f The Romans used snow not only to cool 
their liquors, but their stomachs, after having 
inflamed themselves witii high eating. This 
custom still prevails in Italy, especially in 
Naples, where tliey drink very few liquors,' not 
so much as water, that hav(; not lain in fresco, 
and everybody from the hi u best to the lowest 
n)akcs use of it: insomuch that a scarcity of 



snow most certainly I shall charge to 
your account, as a rarity that will not 
keep. Besides all these curious dishes, 
there were olives of Andalusia, gourds, 
shalots, and a hundred other dainties 
equally sum.ptuous. You should like- 
wise have been entertained either with 
an interlude, the rehearsal of a poem, or 
a piece of music, as you liked best ; or 
(such was my liberality) with all three. 
But the luxurious delicacies :j: and Spa- 
nish dancers of a certain 1 know not 

who, v«'ere it seems more to your taste. 
However, 1 shall have my revenge of you, 
depend upon it — in v/hat manner, shall 
be at present a secret. In good truth it 
was not kind thus to mortify your friend, 
I had almost said yourself; — and upon 
second thoughts I do say so : for how 
agreeably should we have spent the even- 
ing, in laughing, trifling, and deep specu- 
lation ! You may sup, 1 confess, at many 
places more splendidly ; but you can be 
treated nowhere, believe me, with more 
unconstrained cheerfulness, simplicity, 
and freedom : only make the experiment : 
and if you do not ever afterwards prefer 
my table to any other, never favour me 
with your company again. Farewell. 

LETTER IX. 

To Erucius, 

1 CONCEIVED an affection for my friend 
Pompeius Saturnius, and admired his 
genius, even long before I knew the ex- 
tensive variety of his talents : but he 
has now taken full and unreserved pos- 
session of my whole heart. 1 have heard 
him in the unpremeditated, as well as 
studied speech, plead with no less warmth 
and energy, than grace and eloquence. 
He abounds with just reflections ; his 
periods are graceful and majestic ; his 
words harmonious, and stamped with 

snow would raise a mutiny at Naples, as much 
as a dearth of corn or provisions in another 
country. 

X In the original the dishes are specified, viz. 
oysters, the matrices of sows, and a certain 
sea shell-fish, prickly like a hedge-ho?, called 
echinus, all in the highest estimation among 
the Koman admirers of table luxury ; as aj)- 
pears by numberless passages in the classic 
writers. Our own country had the honour to 
furnish them with oysters, which they fetched 
from Sandwich: Montanus, mentioned by Ju- 
venal, was so well skilled in the science of 
good eating, that he could tell by the first taste 
whether they came from thence or not. 



Sect. II. 



PLINY. 



45 



the authority of genuine antiquity. These 
united qualities infinitely delight you, not 
only when you are carried along, if I 
may so say, with the resistless flow of his 
charming and emphatical elocution ; but 
when considered distinct and apart from 
the advantage. 1 am persuaded you will 
he of this opinion when you peruse his 
orations, and will not hesitate to place 
him in the same rank with the ancients, 
whom he so happily imitates. But you 
will view him with still higher pleasure 
in the character of an historian, where his 
style is at once concise and clear, smooth 
and sublime ; and the same energy of 
expression, though with more closeness, 
runs through his harangues, which so 
eminently distinguishes and adorns his 
pleadings. But these are not all his ex- 
cellencies ; he has composed several 
poetical pieces in the manner of my fa- 
vourite Calvus and Catullus. What 
strokes of wit, what sweetness of num- 
bers, what pointed satire, and what 
touches of the tender passion appear in 
his verses ! in the midst of which he 
sometimes designedly falls into an agree- 
able negligence in his metre, in imitation 
too of those admired poets. He read to 
me, the other day, some letters which he 
assured me were wrote by his wife. I 
fancied I was hearing Plautus or Terence 
in prose. If they were that lady's (as he 
positively affirms), or his own (which he 
absolutely denies), either way he deserves 
equal applause ; whether for writing so 
politely himself, or for having so highly 
improved and refined the genius of his 
wife, whom he married young and unin- 
structed. His works are never out of my 
hands ; and whether I sit down to write 
any thing myself, or to revise what I 
have already wrote, or am in a disposition 
to amuse myself, I constantly take up 
this agreeable author ; and as often as I 
do so, he is still new. Let me strongly 
recommend him to the same degree of 
intimacy with you ; nor be it any pre- 
judice to his merit that he is a cotempo- 
rary writer. Had he flourished in some 
distant age, not only his works, but the 
very pictures and statues of him, would 
have been passionately inquired after ; 
and shall we then, from a sort of satiety, 
and merely because he is present among 
us, suffer his talents to languish and fade 
away unhonoured and unadmired? It 
is surely a very perverse and envious dis- 



position, to look with indifference upon 
a man worthy of the highest approbation 
for no other reason but because we have 
it in our power to see him and to con- 
verse with him, and not only to give 
him our applause, but to receive him 
into our friendship. Farewell. 



LETTER X. 

To Cornelius Tacitus. 

I HAVE frequent debates with a learned 
and judicious person of my acquaint- 
ance, who admires nothing so much in 
the eloquence of the bar as conciseness. 
I agree with him, where the cause will 
admit of this manner, it may be properly 
enough pursued ; but to insist, that to 
omit what is material to be mentioned, 
or only slightly to touch upon those 
points which should be strongly incul- 
cated, and urged home to the minds of 
the audience, is in effect to desert the 
cause one has undertaken. In many cases 
a copious manner of expression gives 
strength and weight to our ideas, which 
frequently make impressions upon the 
mind, as iron does upon the solid bodies, 
rather by repeated strokes than a single 
blow. In answer to this he usually has 
recourse to authorities ; and produces 
Lysias among the Grecians, and Cato 
and the two Gracchi among our own 
countrymen, as instances in favour of 
the concise style. In return, I name De- 
mosthenes, ^schynes, Hisperides, and 
many others, in opposition to Lysias ; 
while I confront Cato and the Gracchi, 
with Csesar, PoUio, Cffilius, and above all 
Cicero, whose longest oration is generally 
esteemed the best. It is in good com- 
positions, as in every thing else that is 
valuable; the more there is of them, the 
better. You may observe in statues, 
basso-relievos, pictures, and the bodies of 
men, and even in animals and trees, that 
nothing is more graceful than magnitude, 
if it is accompanied with proportion. 
The same holds true in pleading ; and 
even in books, a large volume carries 
something of beauty and authority in its 
very size. My antagonist, who is ex- 
tremely dexterous at evading an argu- 
ment, eludes all this, and much more 
which I usually urge to the same purpose, 
by insisting that those very persons, upon 



40 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book L 



whose works i found my opinion, made 
considerable additions to their orations 
when they published them. This I 
deny : and appeal to the harangues of 
numberless orators ; particularly to those 
of Cicero for Murena and Varenus, where 
he seems to have given us little more than 
the general charge. Wlience it appears, 
that many things which he enlarged 
upon at the time he delivered those ora- 
tions, were retrenched when he gave 
them to the public. The same excellent 
orator informs us, that, agreeably to the 
ancient custom which allowed only one 
counsel on a side, Cluentius had no other 
advocate but himself : and tells us far- 
ther, that he employed four whole days 
in defence of Cornelius : by which it 
plainly appears that those orations which, 
wlien delivered at their fnli length, had 
necessarily taken up so much time at the 
bar, were greatly altered and abridged 
when he afterwards comprised them in 
a sing-le volume, though I must confess, 
indeed, a large one. But it is objected, 
there is a great difference between good 
pleading and just composition. This 
opinion, I acknowledge, has some fa- 
vourers, and it may be true ; neverthe- 
less I am persuaded (though I may per- 
haps be mistaken), that, as it is possible 
a pleading may be well received by the 
audience, which has not merit enough to 
recommend it to the reader, so a good 
oration cannot be a bad pleading ; for 
the oration upon paper is, in truth, the 
original and model of the speech that is 
to be pronounced. It is for this reason 
we find in many of the best orations ex- 
tant, numberless expressions which have 
the air of unpremeditated discourse ; and 
tliis even where v/e are sure they Avere 
never spoken at all : as for instance in 
the following passage from the oration 
against Verres, — " A certain mechanic 
— what's his name ? Oh, I am obliged 
to you for helping me to it; yes, I 
mean I'olycletus." It cannot then be 
denied, that the nearer ap])roacli a speak- 
er makes to the rules of just compo- 
sition, the more perfect he will be in his 
art ; always supposiiig, however, that he 
lias the necessary indulgence in point of 
time ; for if he be abridged of that, no 
imputation can justly be fixed upon the 
advocate, thougli certainly a very great 
one is chargeable upon the judge. The 
sense of the laws is, I am sure, on my 



side, Avliich are by no means sparing of 
the orator's time ; it is not brevity, but an 
enlarged scope, a full attention to every 
thing material, which they recommend. 
And how is it possible for an advocate to 
acquit himself of that duty, unless in the 
most insignificant causes, if he affects to 
be concise ? Let me add what experience, 
that unerring guide, has taught me : it 
has frequently been my province to act 
both as an advocate and as a judge, as I 
have often assisted as an assessor *, where 
I have ever found the judgments of man- 
kind are to be influenced by different ap- 
plications ; and that the slightest circum- 
stances often produce the most important 
consequences. There is so vast a variety 
in the dispositions and understandings 
of men, that they seldom agree in their 
opinions about any one point in debate 
before them ; or if they do, it is gene- 
rally from the movement of different 
passions. Besides, as every man natu- 
rally favours his own discoveries, and 
when he hears an argument made use 
of which had before occurred to himself, 
will certainly embrace it as extremely 
convincing, the orator therefore should 
so adapt himself to his audience as to 
throw out something to every one of 
them, that he may receive and approve 
as his own peculiar thought. I remem- 
ber when Regulus and I were concerned 
together in a cause, he said to me. You 
seem to think it necessary to insist upon 
every point ; whereas I always take aim 
at my adversary's throat, and there 1 
closely press him. ('Tis true, he tena- 
ciously holds whatever part he has once 
fixed upon : but the misfortune is, he 
is extremely apt to mistake the right 
place.) I answered. It might possibly 
happen that what he took for what he 
called the throat, was in reality some 
other part. As for me, said I, who do 
not pretend ^ to direct my aim with so 
much certainty, I attack every part, and 
push at every opening ; in short, to use 
a vulgar proverb, I leave no stone un- 
turned. As in agriculture, it is not my 
vineyards, or my woods alone, but my 
fields also that I cultivate ; and (to pur- 
sue the allusion) as I do not content 
myself with sowing those fields with 

* The Prastor was assisted by ten assessors, 
five of whom were senators, and the rest kniglits. 
Willi these he was obliged to consult before 
he pronoiincci] sentence. 



Sect. II. 



PLINY. 



47 



only one kind of grain, but employ 
several different sorts : so in my plead- 
ings at the bar, I spread at large a 
variety of matter like so many different 
seeds, in order to reap from thence 
whatever may happen to hit : for the dis- 
position of your jiidg'es is as precarious 
and as little to be ascertained, as that 
of soils and seasons. I remember the 
comic writer Eupolis mentions it in 
praise of that excellent orator Pericles, 
that 

On his lips persuasiou hung", 
And powerful reason rul'd his tongue: 
Thus he alone could boast the art, 
To charm at once and sting the heart. 

But could Pericles, without the richest 
variety of expression , and merely by force 
of the concise or the rapid style, or both 
together (for they are extremely dif- 
ferent), have exerted that charm and 
that sting of which the poet here speaks ? 
To delight and to persuade requires 
time and a great compass of language ; 
and to leave a sting in the minds of his 
audience is an effect not to be expected 
from an orator who slightly pushes, but 
from him, and him only, who thrusts 
home and deep. Another comic poet*, 
speaking of the same orator, says. 

His mighty words like Jove's owa thunder 

roll; 
Greece hears and trembles to her inmost soul. 

But it is not the concise and the reserved, 
it is the copious, the majestic, and the 
sublime orator, who with the blaze and 
thunder of his eloquence hurries impe- 
tuously along, and bears down all before 
him. There is a just mean, I own, in 
every thing ; but he equally deviates from 
that true mark, who falls short of it, as 
he who goes beyond it ; he who confines 
himself in too narrow a compass, as he 
who launches out with too great a lati- 
tude. Hence it is as common to hear 
our orators condemned for being too bar- 
ren, as too luxuriant ; for not reaching, 
as well as for overflowing the bounds of 
their subject. Both, no doubt, are equally 
distant from the proper medium ; but 
with this difference, however, that in the 
one the fault arises from an excess, in the 
other from a deficiency ; an error which 
if it be not a sign of a more correct, yet 
is certainly of a more exalted genius. 
^Vlien I say this, I would not be under- 

* Aristophanes. 



Stood to approve that everlasting talker^ 
mentioned in Homer, but tliat other:}: 
described in the following lines : 

Frequent and soft as falls the winter snow, 
Thus from his lips the copious periods flow. 

Not but I extremely admire him too §, of 
whom the poet says, 

Fevy- were his word?, but wonderfuU}"- strons:. 

Yet if I were to choose, I should clearly 
give the preference to the style resembling 
winter snov/, that is, to the full and dif- 
fusive : in short, to that pomp of elo- 
quence which seems all heavenly and 
divine. But ('tis urged) the harangue of 
a more moderate length is most ge- 
nerally admired. It is so, I confess ; 
but by whom? By the indolent only; 
and to fix the standard by the laziness 
and false delicacy of these would surely 
be the highest absurdity. Wsre you to 
consult persons of this cast, they would 
tell you, not only that it is best to say 
little, but that it is best to say nothing. — 
Thus, my friend, I have laid before you 
my sentiments upon this subject, which 
I shall readily abandon, if I find they are 
not agreeable to yours. But if you should 
dissent from me, I beg you would com- 
mu nicate to me your reasons . For th ougli 
I ought to yield in this case to your more 
enlightened judgment, yet in a point of 
such consequence, I had rather receive 
my conviction from the force of argu- 
ment than authority. If you should be 
of my opinion in this matter, a line or 
two from you in return, intimating your 
concurrence, will be sufficient to confirm 
me in the justness of my sentiments. On 
the contrary, if you think me mistaken, 
I beg you would give me your objections 
at large. Yet has it not, think you, 
something of the air of bribery, to ask 
only a short letter if you agree with 
me ; but enjoin you the trouble of a 
very long one,- if you are of a contrary 
opinion ? Farewell. 



LETTER XI. 

To Catiliiis Sevcrus. 

I AM at present detained in Rome (and 
have been so a considerable time) under 
the most alarming apprciiensions . Titus 

f Thersitcs, Iliad ii. v. 212. 
t Ulysses, Iliad iii. v. 222. 
§ Menelans., ihid. 



48 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book I. 



Aristo, whom 1 infinitely love and es- 
teem, is fallen into a dangerous and ob- 
stinate illness, wliicli deejily affects me. 
Virtue, knowledge, and good sense, shine 
out with so superior a lustre in this ex- 
cellent man, that learning herself and 
every valuable endowment seems in- 
volved in the danger of his single per- 
son. How consummate is his know- 
ledge, both in the political and civil 
laws of his country ! How thoroughly 
conversant is he in every branch of his- 
tory and antiquity ! There is no article 
of science, in short, you would wish to 
be informed of, in which he is not skill- 
ed. As for my OAvn part, whenever I 
would acquaint myself with any abstruse 
point of literature, I have recourse to 
him, as to one who supplies me with its 
most hidden treasures. What an amia- 
ble sincerity, what a noble dignity is 
there in his conversation ! How hum- 
ble, yet how graceful is his diffidence ! 
Though he conceives at once every 
point in debate, yet he is as slow to de- 
cide as he is quick to apprehend, calmly 
and deliberately v/eighing every opposite 
reason that is offered, and tracing it, 
with a most judicious penetration, from 
its source through all its remotest con- 
sequences. His diet is frugal, his dress 
plain ; and whenever I enter his cham- 
ber, and view him upon his couch, I 
consider the scene before me as a true 
image of ancient simplicity, to which 
his illustrious mind reflects the noblest 
ornament. He places no part of his 
liappiness in ostentation, but refers the 
whole of it to conscience ; and seeks the 
reward of his virtue, not in the clamor- 
ous applauses of the world, but in the 
silent satisfaction which results from 
liaving acted well. In short, you will 
not easily find his equal even among our 
philosophers by profession. He frequents 
not the places of public disputations*, 
nor idly amuses himself and others with 
vain and endless controversies. His 
nobler talents are exerted to more use- 
ful purposes ; in the scenes of civil and 
active life. Many has he assisted with 
his interest, still more with his advice. 
But though he dedicates his time to the 
affairs of the world, he regulates his 
conduct by the prece|)ts of the philoso- 
phers ; and in the [)ractice of temper- 

* The philosophers nspcl to ho1<l their dis- 
putations in tho Gymnasia and Porticos, bein;? 
plaresof most public resort for walking, &c. 



ance, piety, justice, and fortitude, he has 
no superior. It is astonishing with what 
patience he bears his illness; how be 
struggles with pain, endures thirst, and 
quietly submits to the troublesome re- 
gimen necessary in a raging fever. He 
lately called me, and a few more of his 
particular friends, to his bedside, and 
begged we would ask his physicians 
v/hat turn they apprehended his distem- 
per would take ; that if they pronounced 
it incurable, he might voluntarily put an 
end to his life ; but if there were hopes 
of a recovery, however tedious and dif- 
ficult, he might wait the event with pa- 
tience ; for so much, he thought, was 
due to the tears and intreaties of his 
wife and daughter, and to the affection- 
ate intercession of his friends, as not 
voluntarily to abandon our hopes, if in 
truth they were not entirely desperate. 
A resolution this, in my estimation, truly 
heroical, and worthy of the highest ap- 
plause. Instances are frequent enough 
in the world, of rushing into the arms 
of death without reflection, and by a 
sort of blind impulse : but calmly and 
deliberately to weigh the reasons for 
life or death, and to be determined in 
our choice as either side of the scale 
prevails, is the mark of an uncommon 
and great mind f. We have had the sa- 
tisfaction of the opinion of his physicians 
in his favour ; and may Heaven give 
success to their art, and free me from 
this restless anxiety ! If that should 
happily be the event, I shall immediately 
return to my favourite Laurentinum, or, 
in other words, to my books and stu- 
dious retirement. At present, so much 
of my time and thought I employ in 
attendance upon my friend, and in my 
apprehensions for him, that I have 
neither leisure nor inclination for sub- 
jects of literature. Thus have I in- 
formed you of my fears, my wishes, and 
my intentions. Communicate to me, in 
your turn, but in a gayer style, an ac- 
count not only of what you are and have 
been doing, but even of your future de- 
signs. It will be a very sensible con- 
solation to me in this perplexity of 
mind, to be assured that yours is easy. 
Farewell. 

•}' The general lawfulness of self-murder was 
a doctrine by no means universally received in 
the ancient Pa^an world ; many of the most 
considerable names, both Greek and Foman, 
havini^ expressly declart^l aj^ainst that practice. 



Sect. 11, 



P L I N Y. 



49 



LETTER Xll. 

To Behius. 

My friend and guest Tranquillus has an 
inclination to purchase a small farm, of 
which, as I am informed, an acquaint- 
ance of yours intends to dispose. I beg" 
you would endeavour he may have it 
'Upon reasonable terms ; a circumstance 
which will add to his satisfaction in ob- 
taining it. A dear bargain is always dis- 
agreeable, particularly as it is a reflec- 
tion upon the purchaser's judgment. 
There are several circumstances attend- - 
ing this little villa, which (supposing my 
friend has no objection to the price) are 
extremely suitable to his taste : the con- 
venient distance from Rome, the good- 
ness of the roads, the smallness of the 
building, and the very few acres of land 
around it, which is just enough to amuse 
but not employ him. To a man of the 
studious turn that Tranquillus is, it is 
sufficient if he has but a small spot to 
relieve the mind and divert the eye, 
where he may saunter round his grounds, 
traverse his single walk, grow familiar 
with his two or three vines, and count 
his little plantations. I mention these 
particulars, to let you see how much he 
will be obliged to me, as I shall to you, 
if you can help him to the purchase of 
this little box, so agreeable to his taste, 
upon terms of which he shall have no 
•©ccasion to repent. 

LETTER XIIL 
To Voconius Romanus. 

Rome has not for many years beheld 
a more magnificent and solemn spec- 
tacle, than was lately exhibited in the 
public funeral of that great man, the 
Hlustrious and fortunate * Vii-ginius 
Rufus. He lived thirty years in the full 
enjoyment of the highest reputation : 
and as he had the satisfaction to see his 

* The ancients seem to have considered for- 
tune as a mai-k of merit in the person who was 
thus distinguished. Cicero (to borrow the ob- 
servation of an excellent writer) recommended 
Pompey to the Romans for their general upon 
three accounts, as he was a man of courage, 
conduct, and good fortune ; and not only Sj'lla 
the Dictator, but several of the Roman empe- 
rors, as is still to be seen upon their meda'.s, 
among other titles, gave themselves that of 
/elix, or fortunate. 



actions celebrated by poets and recorded 
by historians, he seems even to have an- 
ticipated his fame with posterity. He 
was thrice raised to the dignity of con- 
sul, that he who refused to be the first 
of princes f might at least be the high- 
est of subjects. As he escaped the re- 
sentment of those emperors to whom 
his virtues had given umbrage, and 
even rendered him odious, and ended 
his days when this best of princes, this 
friend of mankind |, was in quiet pos- 
session of the empire, it seems as if Pro- 
vidence had purposely preserved him to 
these times, that he might receive the 
honour of a public funeral. He arrived 
in full tranquillity, and universally re- 
vered, to the eighty-fourth year of his 
age ; having enjoyed an uninterrupted 
state of health during his whole life, ex- 
cepting only a paralytic disorder in his 
hands, which, however, was attended 
with no pain. His last sickness, indeed, 
was severe and tedious ; but even the 
accident that occasioned it added to his 
glory. As he was preparing to return 
his public acknowledgments to the em- 
peror, who had raised him to the consul- 
ship, a large volume, which he accident- 
ally received at that time, too weighty 
for a feeble old man, slipped out of 

f At the time of the general defection from 
Nero, Virginius was at the head of a very pow- 
erful army in Germany, whichhad pressed him, 
and,even attempted to force him, to accept the 
title of emperor. But he constantly refused it, 
adding, that he would not even suffer it to be 
given to any person but whom the senate should 
elect. With this army he marched against Vin- 
dex, who had put himself at the head of 1 00,000 
Gauls. Having come up with him, he gave him 
battle, in which Vindex was slain, and his forces 
entirely defeated. After this victory, when 
Nero's death was known in the army, the sol- 
diers renewed their applicationto Virginius to 
accept the imperial dignity ; and though one of 
the tribunes rushed into his tent, and threat- 
ened that he should either receive the empire, or 
his sword through his body, he resolutely persist- 
ed in his former sentiments. But as soon as 
the news of Nero's death was con6rmed, and 
that the senate had declared for Galba, he pre- 
vailed with the army, though with much dif- 
ficultj'-, to do so too. 

J The j ustness of this glorious title, the friend 
of mankind, here given to Nerva, is conBrraed 
by the concurrent testimony of all the histo- 
rians of these times. That excellent emperor's 
short reign seems indeed to have been one un- 
interrupted series of generous and benevolent 
actions; and he used to say himself, he had 
the satisfaction of being conscious he had not 
committed a single act that could give just 
offence to any man. 

E 



50 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book I. 



his hands. In hastily endeavouring to 
recover it, the pavement heing extremely 
slippery, he fell down and broke his 
thigh bone ; which fracture, as it was 
unskillfully set at first, and having be- 
sides the infirmities of age to contend 
with, could never be brought to unite 
again. The funeral obsequies paid to 
the memory of this great man, have 
done honour to the emperor, to the 
present age, and even to eloquence her- 
self. The consul Cornelius Tacitus 
pronounced his funeral oration ; for, 
to crown the series of his felicities, he 
received the applause of the most elo- 
quent of orators. He died full of years 
and of glory, as illustrious by the ho- 
nours he refused as by those he acquired. 
Still, however, he will be missed and 
lamented by the world, as the bright 
model of a better age ; especially by 
myself, who not only admired him as a 
patriot, but loved him as a friend. We 
were not only natives of the same pro- 
vince, and of neighbouring towns, but 
our estates were contiguous. Besides 
these accidental connections with him, he 
was also left guardian to me ; and indeed 
he treated me with the affection of a pa- 
rent. Wiienever I offered myself a can- 
didate for any employment, he constantly 
supported me with his interest ; as in all 
the honours I have obtained, though he 
had long since renounced all offices of 
this nature, he would kindly give up the 
repose of his retirement, and come in per- 
son to solicit for me. At the time when 
it is customary for the priests to nominate 
such as they judge worthy to be received 
into their sacred office*, he constantly 
proposed me. Even in his last sickness 
I received a distinguishing mark of bis 
affection ; being apprehensive he might 
be named one of the five commissioners 
appointed by the senate to reduce the 
public expenses, he fixed upon me, young 
as I am, to carry his excuses, in pre- 
ference to so many other friends of su- 
perior age and dignity ; and in a very 
obliging manner assured me, that had he 



* Namely, of Augurs. This college, as regu- 
lated by Sylla, consisted of fifteen, who were 
all persons of the fust distinction in Rome: it 
was a priesthood for life, of a character indeli- 
ble, which no crime or forfeiture could efface; 
it was necessary that every candidate should 
be nominated to the people by two Augurs, 
who gave a solemn testimony upon oath of 
his dignity and fitness for that office. 



a son of his own, he would nevertheless 
have employed me in that office. Have 
I not sufficient cause then to lament his 
death, as if it were immature, and thus 
pour out the fulness of my grief in the 
bosom of my friend? if indeed it be rea- 
sonable to grieve upon this occasion, or 
to call that event deaths v/hich, to such 
a man, is rather to be looked upon as the 
period of his mortality than the end of 
his life. He lives, my friend, and will 
continue to live for ever ; and his fame 
will spread farther, and be more cele- 
brated by mankind, now that he is re- 
moved from their sight. 

I had many other things to write to 
you, but my mind is so entirely taken up 
with this subject that I cannot call it off 
to any other. Virginius is constantly in 
my thoughts ; the vain but lively im- 
pressions of him are continually before 
my eyes, and I am for ever fondly ima- 
gining that I hear him, converse with 
him, and embrace him. There are, 
perhaps, and possibly hereafter will be, 
some few who may rival him in virtue ; 
but not one, I am persuaded, that will 
ever equal him in glory. Farewell. 



LETTER XIV. 

To PauUnus. 

Whether I have reason for my rage, is 
not quite so clear ; however, wondrous 
angry I am. But love, you know, will 
sometimes be irrational ; as it is often 
imgovernable, and ever jealous. The 
occasion of this my formidable wrath is 
great, you must allow, were it but just : 
yet taking it for granted, that there is as 
much truth as weight in it, I am most 
vehemently enraged at your long silence. 
V/ould you soften my resentment ? Let 
your letters for the future be very fre- 
quent, and very long. I shall excuse you 
upon no other terms ; and as absence 
from Rome, or engagement in business, 
it; a plea I can by no means admit ; 
so that of ill health, the gods, I hope, 
will not suffer you to allege. As for my- 
self, I am enjoying at my villa the al- 
ternate pleasures of study and indolence ; 
those happy privileges of retired leisure ! 
Farewell. 



Sect. II. 



PLINY. 



51 



LETTER XV. 



To Nepos. 

We had received very advantageous ac- 
counts of Iseus, before liis arrival liere ; 
but lie is superior to all that was re- 
ported of him. He possesses the utmost 
facility and copiousness of expression, 
and his unpremediated discourses have 
all the propriety and elegance of the most 
studied and elaborate composition. He 
speaks the Greek language, or rather the 
genuine Attic. His exordiums are polite, 
easy, and harmonious ; and, when occa- 
sion requires, solemn and majestic. He 
gives his audience liberty to call for any 
question they please, and sometimes even 
to name what side of it he shall take ; 
when immediately he rises up in all the 
graceful attitude of an orator, and enters 
at once into his subject with surprising 
fluency. His reflections are solid, and 
clothed in the choicest expressions, which 
present themselves to liim with the utmost 
facility. The ease and strength of his 
most unprepared discourses plainly dis- 
cover he has been very conversant in 
the best authors, and much accustomed 
to compose himself. He opens his subject 
with great propriety ; his style is clear, 
his reasoning strong, his inferences just, 
and his figures graceful and sublime. In 
a word, he at once Instructs, entertains, 
and affects you, and each in so high 
a degree, that you are at a loss to deter- 
mine in which of those talents he most 
excels. His arguments are formed in all 
the strengh and conciseness of the strict- 
est logic ; a point not very easy to attain 
even in studied compositions. His me- 
mory is so extraordinary, that he will re- 
peat what he has before spoken extempore 
without losing a single word. This won- 
derful faculty he has acquired by great 
application and practice ; for his whole 
time is so devDted to subjects of this na- 
ture, that he thinks and talks of nothing 
else. Though he is above sixty-three 
years of age, he still chooses to continue 
in this profession ; than which, it must be 
owned, none abounds with men of more 
worth, simplicity, and integrity. We, who 
are conversant in the real contentions 
of the bar, unavoidably contract a certain 
artfulness, however contrary to our na- 
tural tempers : but the business of the 
schools, as it turns merely upon matters 



of imagination, affords an employment as 
innocent as it is agreeable ; and it must, 
methinks, be particularly so to those who 
are advanced in years ; as nothing can 
be more desirable at that period of life, 
than to enjoy those reasonable pleasures, 
which are the most pleasing entertain- 
ments of our youth. I look therefore 
upon Iseus, not only as the most eloquent, 
but the most happy of men ; as I shall 
esteem you the most insensible if you ap- 
pear to slight his acquaintance. Let me 
prevail with you then to come to Rome, 
if not upon my account, or any other, at 
least for the pleasure of hearing this ex- 
traordinary person. Do you remember 
to have read of a certain inhabitant of 
the city of Cadiz, who was so struck 
with the illustrious character of Livy, 
that he travelled to Rome on purpose to 
see that great genius ; and, as soon as he 
had satisfied his curiosity, returned home 
again ? A man must have a very inele- 
gant, illiterate, and indolent (I had al- 
most said a very mean) turn of mind, not 
to think whatever relates to a science so 
entertaining, so noble, and so polite, 
worthy of his curiosity. You will tell me, 
perhaps, you have authors in your own 
study equally eloquent. I allow it ; and 
those authors you may turn over at any 
time, but you cannot always have an op- 
portunity of hearing Iseus. Besides, we 
are infinitely more affected with what 
we hear, than what we read. There is 
something in the voice, the countenance, 
the habit*, and the gesture of the 
speaker, that concur in fixing an impres- 
sion upon the mind, and gives this me- 
thod of instruction greatly the advantage 
of any thing one can receive from books ; 
this at least was the opinion of iEschines, 
who having read to the Rhodians a speech 
of Demosthenes, which they loudly ap- 
plauded : " But how," said he, " would 
you have been affected, had you heard 
the orator himself thundering out this 
sublime harangue?'' jSlschines, if we 
may believe Demosthenes, had great dig- 
nity of utterance ; yet, you see, he could 
not but confess it would have been a con- 
siderable advantage to the oration, if it 
had been pronounced by the author him- 
self, in all the pomp and energy of his 
powerful elocution. ^Yliat I aim at by 



* The ancients thought every thing that 
concerned an orator worthy of their attention, 
even to his very dress. 

E2 



52 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book I. 



this, is, to persuade you to come and 
hear Iseus ; and let me again intreat you 
to do so, if for no other reason, at least 
that you may have the pleasure to>say, 
you once heard him. Farewell. 



LETTER XVL 

To Caninius. 

Howls my friend employed? Is it in 
the pleasures of study, or in those of the 
field ? Or does he unite both together, 
as he well may, on the banks of our fa- 
vourite Larius * ? The fish in that noble 
lake will supply you with sport of that 
kind ; as the woods that surround it will 
afford you game ; while the solemnity 
of that sequestered scene will at the same 
time dispose your mind to contemplation. 
Whether you are entertained with all, 
or any of these agreeable amusements, 
far be it that I should say I envy you ; 
but, I must confess, I greatly regret that 
I cannot partake of them too ; a happi- 
ness I as earnestly long for, as a man in a 
fever does for drink to allay his thirst, or 
baths and fountains to assuage his heat. 
Shall I never break loose (if I may not 
disentangle myself) from these ties that 
thus closely withhold me ? . I doubt, in- 
deed, never ; for new affairs are daily 
increasing, while yet the former remain 
unfinished ; such an endless train of busi- 
ness rises upon me, and rivets my chains 
still faster ! Farewell. 



LETTER XVn. 

To Octavius. 



nestly expected them, and you ought not 
to disappoint or delay it any longer. 
Some few poems of yours have already, 
contrary to your inclination, indeed, 
broke their prison, and escaped to light ; 
these if you do not collect together, 
some person or other will claim the agree- 
able wanderers as their own. Remember, 
my friend, the mortality of human na- 
ture, and that there is nothing so likely 
to preserve your name as a monument of 
this kind ; all others are as frail and pe- 
rishable as the men whose memory they 
pretend to perpetuate. You will say, I 
suppose, as usual, let my friends see to 
that. May you find many whose care, 
fidelity, and learning, render them able 
and willing to undertake so considerable 
a charge ! But surely it is not altogether 
prudent to expect from others, what a 
man will not do for himself. However, 
as to publishing of them, I will press you 
no farther ; be that when you shall think 
proper. But let me, at least, prevail with 
you to recite them, that you may be more 
disposed to send them abroad; and may 
receive the satisfaction of that applause, 
which I will venture, upon very just 
grounds, to assure you of beforehand. I 
please myself with imagining the crowd, 
the admiration, the applause, and even 
the silence that will attend you : for the 
silence of an audience, when it proceeds 
from an earnest desire of hearing, is as 
agreeable to me as the loudest approba- 
tion. Do not then, by this unreasonable 
reserve, defraud your labours any longer 
of a fruit so certain and so desirable ; if 
you should, the world, I fear, will be apt 
to charge you with carelessness and in- 
dolence, or, perhaps, with timidity. 
Farewell. 



You are certainly a most obstinate, I had 
almost said a most cruel man, thus to 
withliold from the Avorld such excellent 
compositions ! How long do you intend 
to deny your friends the pleasure of your 
verses, and yourself the glory of them.^ 
Suffer them, I entreat you, to come 
abroad, and to be admired ; as admired 
they undoubtedly will be, wherever the 
Roman language is understood. The 
public, believe me, has long and ear- 

* Now called Lago di Como, in the Milanese. 
Comum, the place where Pliny was born, and 
near to which Caninius had a country house, 
was situated tipon the border of this lake. 



LETTER XVin. 

To Priscus. 

As I know you gladly embrace every 
opportunity of obliging me, so there is 
no man to whom I had rather lay myself 
under an obligation. I apply to you, 
therefore, preferably to any body else, 
for a favour which I am extremely de- 
sirous of obtaining. You, who are at the 
head of a very considerable army, have 
many opportunities of exercising your 
generosity ; and the length of time you 
have enjoyed that post, must have enabled 



Sect. II. 



PLINY. 



53 



you to provide for ali your own friends. 
I hope you will nO'>-/ turn your eyes upon 
some of mine : they are but a few indeed 
for whom I shall solicit you ; though your 
g-enerous disposition, I know, would be 
better pleased if tlie number were greater. 
But it would ill become me to trouble 
you with recommending more than one 
or two ; at present I will only mention 
Voconius Romanus. His father was 
of great distinction among the Roman 
knights ; and his father-in-law, or, as I 
might more properly call him, his second 
father (for his affectionate treatment of 
Voconius entitles him to that appella- 
tion), was still more conspicuous. His 
mother was one of the most considerable 
ladies of Upper Spain : you know what 
character the people of that province 
bear, and how remarkable they are for 
the strictness of their manners. As for 
himself, he has been lately admitted into 
the sacred order of priesthood. Our 
friendship began with our studies, and 
we were early united in the closest in- 
timacy. We lived together under the 
same roof in town and country, as he 
shared with me my most serious and my 
gayest hours : and where, indeed, could 
I have found a more faithful friend, or 
more agreeable companion ? In his con- 
versation, and even in his very voice and 
countenance, there is the most amiable 
sweetness ; as at the bar he discovers an 
elevated genius, an easy and harmonious 
elocution, a clear and penetrating appre- 
hension. He has so happy a turn for 
epistolary writing^, that were you to 
read his letters, you would imagine they 
had been dictated by the Muses them- 
selves. I love him with a more than 
common affection, and I know he returns 
it with equal ardour. Even in the earlier 
part of our lives, I warmly embraced 
every opportunity of doing him all the 
good offices which then lay in my power ; 
as I have lately obtained for him of the 
emperor f, the privilege granted to those 
who have three children J. A favour 



* It appears from this and some other pas- 
sages in these letters, that the art of epistolary 
writing was esteemed by the Romans in the 
number of liberal and polite accomplish- 
ments. 

f Trajan. 

;|: By a law passed A. U. 762, it was enacted, 
that whatever citizen of Rome had three chil- 
dren, should be excused from all troublesome 
offices where he lived. This privilege the ein- 



which though Csesar very rarely bestows, 
and always with great caution, yet he 
conferred, at my request, in such a man- 
ner as to give it the air and grace of 
being his own choice. The best way of 
shewing that I think he deserves the 
obligations he has already received from 
me, is, by adding more to them, espe- 
cially as he always accepts my favours 
with so much gratitude as to merit far- 
ther. Thus I have given you a faithful 
account of Romanus, and informed you 
how thoroughly I have experienced his 
worth, and how much I love him. Let 
me intreat you to honour him with your 
patronage in a way suitable to the gene- 
rosity of your heart and the eminence of 
your station. But above all, admit him 
into a share of your affection ; for though 
you were to confer upon him the utmost 
you have in your power to bestow, you 
can give him nothing so valuable as your 
friendship. That you may see he is 
worthy of it, even to the highest degree of 
intimacy, I have sent you this short sketch 
of his character. I should continue my 
intercessions in his behalf, but that I am 
sure you do not love to be pressed, and I 
have already repeated them in every line 
of this letter ; for to shew a just reason 
for what one asks, is to intercede in the 
strongest manner. Farewell. 



LETTER XIX, 

t 

To Valerianus. 

How goes on your old estate at Marsi § ? 
and how do you approve of your new 
purchase ? Has it as many beauties in 
your eye now, as before you bought it ? 
That- would be extraordinary indeed ! 
for an objectin possession seldom retains 
the same charms it had in pursuit. As 
for myself, the estate left nie by my mo- 
ther uses me but ill ; however, I value it 
for her sake, and am besides grown a 
good deal insensible by a long course of 
bad treatment. Thus, frequent com- 
plaints generally end at last in being 
ashamed of complaining any more. 

peror sometimes extended to those who were 
not legally entitled to it. 

§ One of the ancient divisions of Italy., com- 
prehendins: part of what is now called the Far- 
ther Abruzzo. 



54 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book L 



LETTER XX. 

To Mauricus. 

What can be more agreeable to me than 
the office you have enjoined me, of 
choosing a proper tutor for your nephews ? 
It gives me an opportunity of revisiting 
the scene of my education, and of turn- 
ing back again to the most pleasing part 
of my life. I take my seat, as formerly, 
among the young lads, and have the 
pleasure to experience the respect my 
character in eloquence meets with from 
them. I lately came in upon them while 
they were warmly declaiming before a 
very full audience of persons of the first 
rank ; the moment I appeared, they were 
silent. I mention this for their honour, 
rather than my own ; and to let you see 
the just hopes you may conceive of 
placing your nephews here to their ad- 
vantage. I purpose to hear aU the seve- 
ral professors ; and when I have done so, 
I shall write you such an account of them 
as will enable you (as far as a letter can) 
to judge of their respective abilities. 
The faithful execution of this important 
commission is what I owe to the friend- 
ship that subsists between us, and to the 
memory of your brother. Nothing cer- 
tainly is more your concern, than that his 
children (I would have said yours, but 
that I know you now look upon them 
even with more tenderness than your 
own) may be found worthy of such a fa- 
ther, and such an uncle ; and I should 
have claimed a part in that care, though 
you had not required it of me. I am 
sensible, in choosing a preceptor, I shall 
draw upon me the displeasure of all the 
rest of that profession : but when the in- 
terest of these young men is concerned, 
I esteem it my duty to hazard the dis- 
pleasure, or even enmity, of any man, 
with as mucJi resolution as a parent 
would for his own children. Farewell. 



LETTER XXI. 

To Cerealis. 

You advise me to read my late speech 
before an assembly of my friends. I 
shall do so, since it is agreeable to your 
opinion, though I have many scruples 
about it. Compositions of this kind lose, 



I well know, all tbeir fire and force, and 
even almost their very name, by a plain 
recital. It is the solemnity of the tribu- 
nal, the concourse of one's friends, the 
expectation of the success, the emulation 
between the several orators concerned, 
the different parties formed amongst the 
audience in their favour ; in a word, it is 
the air, the motion*, the attitude of the 
speaker, with ail the corresponding ges- 
tures of his body, which conspire to give 
a spirit and grace to what he delivers. 
Hence those who sit when they plead, 
though they have most of the other ad- 
vantages 1 just now mentioned, yet, from 
that single circumstance, weaken and de- 
press the whole force of their eloquence. 
The eyes and hands of the reader, those 
important instances of graceful elocu- 
tion, being engaged, it is no wonder the 
hearer grows languid while he has none 
of those awakening charms to excite and 
engage his attention. To these general 
considerations I must add this particular 
disadvantageous circumstance, which at- 
tends the speech in question, that it is 
chiefly of the argumentative kind ; and 
it is natural for an author to suspect, that 
what he wrote with labour will not be 
read with pleasure. For who is there so 
unprejudiced as not to prefer the flowing 
and florid oration, to one in this close and 
unornamented style ? It is very unreason- 
able there should be any difference ; how- 
ever, it is certain the judges generally ex- 
pect one manner of pleading, and the 
audience another ; whereas in truth an 
auditor ought to be affected only with 
those things which would strike himj 
were he in the place of the judge. Ne- 
vertheless, it is possible the objections 
which lie against this piece may be got 
over, in consideration of the novelty it 
has to recommend it ; the novelty I mean 
with respect to us, for the Greek orators 
have a method, though upon a different 
occasion, not altogether unlike what I 
made use of. They, when they would 
throw out a law, as contrary to some 
former one unrepealed, argue by com- 
paring those laws together ; so I, on the 
contrary, endeavoured to shew that the 
crime, which I was insisting upon as 

* Some of the Roman orators were as much 
too vehement in their action, as those of our 
own country are too calm and spiritless. In 
the violence of their elocution they not only 
used all the warmth of gesture, but actually 
•walked backwards and forwards. 



Sect. II. 



PLINY. 



55 



falling within the intent and meaning of 
the law relating to public extortions, was 
agreeable not only to that, but likewise to 
other laws of the same name. Those, 
who are not conversant in the laws of 
their country, can have no taste for rea- 
sonings of this kind ; but those, who are, 
ought to be so much the more pleased 
with them. I shall endeavour, therefore, 
if you persist in my reciting it, to collect 
a judicious audience. But before you de- 
termine this point, I intreat you tho- 
roughly to weigh the difficulties I have 
laid before you, and then decide as reason 
shall direct ; for it is reason that must 
justify you : obedience to your com- 
mands will be a sufficient apology for 
me. Farewell. 



LETTER XXII. 

To Calvisius. 

I NEVER spent my time more agreeably, 
I think, than I did lately with Spurinna. 
I am so much pleased with the uninter- 
rupted regularity of his way of life, that 
if ever I should arrive at old age, there 
is no man whom I would sooner choose 
for my model. I look upon order in hu- 
man actions, especially at that advanced 
period, with the same sort of pleasure 
as I behold the settled course of the 
heavenly bodies. In youth, indeed, 
there is a certain irregularity and agita- 
tion by no means unbecoming ; but in 
age, when business is unseasonable, and 
ambition indecent, all should be calm 
and uniform. This rule Spurinna religi- 
ously pursues throughout his whole con- 
duct. Even in those transactions which 
one might call minute and inconsiderable 
did they not occur every day, he observes 
a certain periodical season and method. 
The first part of the morning he devotes 
to study ; at eight he dresses and walks 
about three miles, in which he enjoys at 
once contemplation and exercise. At his 
return, if he has any friends with him in 
his house, he enters upon some polite and 
usefid topic of conversation ; if he is 
alone, somebody reads to him ; and some- 
times too when he is not, if it is agree- 
able to his company. When this is over 
he reposes himself, and then again either 
takes up a book, or falls into some dis- 
course even more entertaining and in- 



structive. He afterwards takes the air 
in his chariot, either with his wife (who 
is a lady of uncommon merit) or with 
some friend : a happiness which lately 
was mine ! — How agreeable, how noble 
is the enjoyment of him in that hour of 
privacy ! You would fancy you were 
hearing some worthy of ancient times, 
inflaming your breast with the most he- 
roic examples, and instructing your mind 
with the most exalted precepts ; which 
yet he delivers with so modest an air, 
that there is not the least appearance of 
dictating in his conversation. When he 
has thus taken a tour of about seven 
miles, he gets out of his chariot and 
walks a mile more, after which he returns 
home, and either reposes himself, or re- 
tires to his study. He has an excellent 
taste for poetry, and composes in the lyric 
manner, both in Greek and liatin, with 
great judgment. It is surprising what 
an ease and spirit of gaiety runs through 
his verses, which the merit of the author 
renders still more valuable. ^VTien the 
baths are ready, which in winter is about 
three o'clock, and in summer about two, 
he undresses himself; and if there hap- 
pens to be no wind, he Avalks for some 
time in the sun. After this he plays a 
considerable time at tennis ; for by this 
sort of exercise too, he combats the effects 
of old age. When he has bathed, he 
throws himself upon his couch till supper 
time *, and in the mean while some agree- 
able and entertaining author is read to 
him. In this, as in all the rest, his friends 
are at full liberty to partake ; or to em- 
ploy themselves in any other manner 
more suitable to their taste. You sit down 
to an elegant yet frugal repast, which 
is served up in pure and antique plate. 
He has likewise a complete equipage for 
his side-board, in Corinthian metal f, 
which is his pleasure, not his passion. At 
his table he is frequently entertained with 

* This was the principal meal among the 
Romans, at which all their feasts and invita- 
tions were made; they usually began it about 
their ninth hour, answering pretty nearly to 
our three o'clock in the afternoon. But as 
Spurinna, we find, did not enter upon the exer- 
cises which always preceded this meal till the 
eighth or ninth hour, if we allow about three 
hours for that purpose, he could not sit down 
to table till towards six or seven o'clock. 

f This metal, whatever it was composed of 
(for that point is by no means clear), was so 
highly esteemed among the ancients, that 
they preferred it even to gold. 



56 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Boor I. 



comedians, that even his very amuse- 
ments may be seasoned with good sense ; 
and though he continues there, even in 
summer, till the night is something ad- 
vanced, yet he prolongs the feast with so 
much affability and politeness, that none 
of his guests ever think it tedious. By 
this method of living he has preserved 
all his senses entire, and his body active 
and vigorous to his seventy-eighth year, 
without discovering any appearance of 
old age, but the wisdom. This is a sort 
of life which I ardently aspire after ; as 
I purpose to enjoy it, when I shall arrive 
at those years which will justify a retreat 
from business. In the mean while I am 
embarrassed with a thousand affairs, in 
which Spurinna is at once my support 
and my example. As long as it became 
him he entered into all the duties of pub- 
lic life. It was by passing through the 
various offices of the state, by governing 
of provinces, and by indefatigable toil, 
that he merited the repose he now enjoys. 
I propose to myself the same course and 
the same end ; and I gi\e it to you under 
my hand that I do so. If an ill-timed 
ambition should carry me beyond it, pro- 
duce this letter against me, and condemn 
me to repose, whenever I can enjoy it 
without being reproached with indolence. 
Farewell. 



LETTER XXIII. 

To Hispulla. 

It is not easy to determine whether my 
love or esteem were greater for that wise 
and excellent man your father : but this 
is most certain, that in respect to his 
memory and your virtues, I have the ten- 
derest value for you. Can I fail then to 
wish (as I shall by every means in my 
power endeavour) that your son may 
copy the virtues of both his grandfathers, 
particularly his maternal ? as indeed his 
father and his uncle will furnisli him also 
with very illustrious examples. The surest 
method to train him up in the steps of 
these valuable men, is early to season his 
mind with polite learning and useful 
knowledge ; and it is of the last conse- 
quence from whom he receives these in- 
structions. Hitherto he has had his edu- 
cation under your eye, and in your house, 
where he is exposed to few, I should ra- 
ther say to no wrong impressions. But 



he is now of an age to be sent from 
home, and it is time to place him with 
some professor of rhetoric ; of whose dis- 
cipline and method, but above all, of 
whose morals, you may be well satisfied. 
Among the many advantages for which 
this amiable youth is indebted to nature 
and fortune, he has that of a most beau- 
tiful person : it is necessary, therefore, in 
this loose and slippery age, to find out 
one who will not only be his tutor, but 
his guardian and his guide. I will ven- 
ture to recommend Julius Genitor to you 
under that character. I love him, I con- 
fess, extremely ; but my affection does 
by no means prejudice my judgment ; on 
the contrary it is, in truth, the effect of 
it. His behaviour is grave, and his mo- 
rals irreproachable ; perhaps something 
too severe and rigid for the libertine 
manners of these times. His qualifica- 
tions in his profession you may learn 
from many others ; for the art of elo- 
quence, as it is open to all the world, is 
soon discovered ; but the qualities of the 
heart lie more concealed, and out of the 
reach of common observation ; and it is 
on that side I undertake to be answerable 
for my friend. Your son will hear no- 
thing from this worthy man, but what 
will be for his advantage to know, nor 
learn any thing of which it would be 
happier he should be ignorant. He will 
represent to him as often, and with as 
much zeal as you or I should, the virtues 
of his family, and what a glorious weight 
of characters he has to support. You 
will not hesitate then to place him with 
a tutor, whose first care will be to form 
his manners, and afterwards to instruct 
him in eloquence ; an attainment ill ac- 
quired if with the neglect of moral im- 
provements. Farewell, 



LETTER XXIV. 

To Tra quillus. 

The obliging manner in which you de- 
sire me to confer the military tribunate 
upon your relation, which I had obtamed 
of the most illustrious* Neratius Mar- 
cellus for yourself, is agreeable to that 
respect with which you always treat me. 
As it would have given me great plea- 

* This was a title given to all senators, in 
the times of the latter emperors. 



Sect. II. 



PLINY* 



57 



sure to have seen you in that post, so it 
will not be less acceptable to me to have 
it bestowed upon one whom you recom- 
mend. For hardly, I think, would it be 
consistent to wish a man advanced to 
honours, and yet envy him a title far 
nobler than any other he can receive, 
even that of a generous and an affec- 
tionate relation. To deserve and to grant 
favours, is the fairest point of view in 
which we can be placed ; and this ami- 
able character will be yours, if you re- 
sign to your friend what is due to your 
own merit. I must acknov/ledge at the 
same time I am by this means advancing 
my own reputation, as the world will 
learn from hence, that my friends not 
only have it in their power to enjoy such 
an honourable post, but to dispose of it. 
I readily therefore comply with your ge- 
nerous request ; and as your name is not 
yet entered upon the roll, I can without 
difficulty insert Silvanus's in its stead : 
and may he accept this good office at 
your hands with the same grateful dis- 
position that I am sure you will receive 
mine. Farewell. 



LETTER XXV. 

To Catilius. 

I ACCEPT of your invitation to supper ; 
but I must make this agreement before- 
hand, that you dismiss me soon, and 
treat me frugally. Let our entertain- 
ment abound only in philosophical con- 
versation, and even that too with mode- 
ration. There are certain midnight par- 
ties, which Cato himself could not safely 
faU in with ; though I must confess at 
the same time, that Julius Caesar*, when 
he reproaches him upon that head, ex- 
alts the character he endeavours to ex- 
pose ; for he describes those persons who 
met this reeling patriot, as blushing when 
they discovered who he was ; and adds, 
you would have thought that Cato had 
detected them, and not they Cato. Could 
he place the dignity of Cato in a stronger 
light than by representing him thus ve- 
nerable, even in his cups ? As for our- 
selves, nevertheless, let temperance not 
only spread our table, but regulate our 



* Julius Caesar wrote an invective against 
Cato of Utica, to which, it is probable, Pliny 
here alludes. 



hours ; for we are not arrived at so Iiigh 
a reputation, that our enemies cannot 
censure us but to our honour. Farewell, 



LETTER XXVI. 

To Proculus. 

You desire me to read your poems in my 
retirement, and to examine whether 
they are fit for public view ; and after 
requesting me to turn some of my lei- 
sure hours from my own studies to yours, 
you remind me that Tully was remark- 
able for his generous encouragement and 
patronage of poetical geniuses. But you 
did not do me justice, if you supposed I 
wanted either intreaty or example upon 
this occasion, who not only honour the 
Muses with the most religious regard, 
but have also the warmest friendship fjpr 
yourself : 1 shall therefore do what you 
require, with as much pleasure as care. 
I believe I may venture to declare before- 
hand, that your performance is extremely 
beautiful, and ought by no means to be 
suppressed ; at least that was my opinion 
when I heard you recite it : if indeed 
your manner did not impose upon me : 
for the skill and harmony of your elo- 
cution is certainly enchanting. I trust, 
however, the charming cadence did not 
entirely overcome the force of my criti- 
cism ; it might possibly a little soften its 
severity, but could not totally, I imagine, 
disarm me of it. I think therefore I may 
now safely pronounce my opinion of 
your poems in general ; what they are in 
their several parts I shall judge when I 
read them. 



LETTER XXVII. 

To Nepos. 

I HAVE frequently observed, that, amongst 
the noble actions and remarkable say- 
ings of distinguished persons in either 
sex, those which have been most cele- 
brated have not always been the most 
illustrious ; and I am confirmed in this 
opinion, by a conversation I had yester- 
day with Fannia. This lady is grand- 
daughter to that celebrated Arria, who 
animated her husband to meet death by 
her own glorious example. She informed 
me of several particulars relating to Arria, 



58 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book 1. 



not less lieroical than this famous action 
of hers, though less taken notice of: 
which I am persuaded will raise your ad- 
miration as much as they did mine. Her 
husband Caecinna Pectus, and her son, 
were both at the same time iattacked with 
a dangerous illness, of which the son died. 
This youth, who had a most beautiful 
person and amiable behaviour, was not 
less endeared to his parents by his virtues 
than by the ties of affection. His mother 
manag-ed his funeral so privately, that 
Pectus did not know of his death. When- 
ever she came into his bed-chamber, she 
pretended her son was better : and as 
often as he inquired after his health, 
would answer that he had rested well, or 
had ate with an appetite. When she 
found she could no longer restrain her 
grief, but her tears were gushing out, 
she would leave the room, and having 
given vent to her passion, return again 
with dry eyes and a serene countenance, 
as if she had dismissed every sentiment of 
sorrow at her entrance. The action^ 
was, no doubt, truly noble, when draw- 
ing the dagger she plunged it in her 
breast, and then presented it to her hus- 
band with that ever memorable, I had al- 
most said, that divine expression, " Pgetus 
it is not painful." It must, however, be 
considered, when she spoke and acted 
thus, she had the prospect of immortal 
glory before her eyes to encourage and 
support her. But was it not something 
much greater, without the view, of such 
powerful motives, to hide her tears, to 
conceal her grief, and cheerfully seem 
the mother when she was so no more ? 

Scribonianus had taken up arms in II- 
lyria against Claudius, where having lost 
his life, Pectus, who was of his party, 
was brought prisoner to Rome. When 

* The story, as mentioned by several of the 
ancient historians, is to this purpose: Pfletus 
having joined Scribonianus, who was in arms in 
Illyria against Claudius, was taken after the 
death of the latter, and condemned to death. 
Arria, having in vain solicited his life, per- 
suaded liim to destroy himself, rather than 
suffer the ignominy of falling by the execu- 
tioner's hands j and in order to encourage 
him to an act, to which it seems he was not 
much inclined, she set him the example in 
•the manner Pliny relates. 

In a pleasure house belonging to the Villa 
Ludovisa at Rome there is a fine statue repre- 
senting the action : Paetus is stabbing himself 
with one hand, and holds up the dying Arria 
with the other. Her sinking body han'^s so 
loose, as if every joint were relaxed. 



they were going to put him on board a 
ship, Arria besought the soldiers that she 
might be permitted to go with him : 
Certainly, said she, you cannot refuse a 
man of consular dignity, as he is, a few 
slaves to wait upon him ; but if yoa will 
take me, I alone will perform their of- 
fice. This favour, however, she could 
not obtain ; upon which she hired a 
small fishing vessel, and boldly ventured 
to follow the ship. At her return to 
Rome, she met the wife of Scribonianus 
in the emperor's palace, who pressing 
her to discover all she knew of that in- 
surrection, What ! said she, shall I re- 
gard thy advice, who saw thy husband 
murdered even in thy very arms, and yet 
survivest him? An expression which 
plainly shews, that the noble manner in 
which she put an end to her life was no 
unpremeditated effect of sudden passion. 
When Thrasea, who married her daugh- 
ter, was dissuading her from her purpose 
of destroying herself, and, among other 
arguments which he used, said to her. 
Would you then advise your daughter 
to die with me, if my life were to be 
taken from me ? Most certainly I would, 
she replied, if she had lived as long and 
in as much harmony with you as I 
have with my Psetus. This answer 
greatly heightened the alarm of her fa- 
mily, and made them observe her for the 
future more narrowly, which when she 
perceived, she assured them all their 
caution would be to no purpose. You 
may oblige me, said she, to execute my 
resolution in a way that will give me 
more pain, but it is impossible you should 
prevent it. She had scarce said this, 
when she sprang from her chair, and 
running her head with the utmost vio- 
lence against the wall, she fell down, in 
appearance dead. But being brought to 
herself, I told you, said she, if you would 
not suffer me to take the easy paths to 
death, I should make my way to it 
through some more difficult passage. 
Now, is there not, my friend, something 
much greater in all this, than the so 
much talked of " Psetus, it is not pain- 
ful?" to which, indeed, it seems to have 
led the way : and yet this last is the fa- 
vourite topic of fame, while all the for- 
mer are passed over in profound silence. 
Whence I cannot but infer, what I ob- 
served in the beginning of my letter, that 
the most famous actions are not always 
the most noble. Farewell. 



Sect. 11. 



PLINY. 



59 



LETTER XXVIII. 

To Servianus. 

To what shall I attrihute your long si- 
lence ? Is it want of health, or want of 
leisure, that prevents your writing ? Or 
is it, perhaps, that you have no oppor- 
tunity of conveying your letters ? Free 
me, I in treat you, from the perplexity 
of these doubts ; for they are more, he 
assured, than I am able to support ; and 
do so, even though it be at the expense 
of an express messenger : 1 will gladly 
bear his charges, and even reward him 
too, should he bring me the news I wish. 
As for myself, 1 am well ; if that, with 
any propriety, can be said of a man who 
lives in the utmost suspense and anxiety, 
under the apprehensions of all the acci- 
dents which can possibly befal the friend 
he most tenderly loves. Farewell. 



LETTER XXIX. 

To Maximus. 

You remember, no doubt, to have read 
what commotions were occasioned by 
the law which directs that the elections 
of magistrates shall be by balloting, and 
how much the author* of it was both 
approved and condemned. Yet this very 
law the senate lately unanimously re- 
ceived, and upon the election day, with 
one consent, called for the ballots. It 
must be owned, the method by open votes 
had introduced into the senate more riot 
and disorder than is seen even in the 
assemblies of the people ; ail order in 
speaking, all decency of silence, all dig- 
nity of character, was broke through ; 
and it was universal dissonance and cla- 
mour ; here, the several candidates run- 
ning from side to side with their patrons ; 
there, a troop collected together in the 
middle of the senate-house ; and, in short, 
the whole assembly divided into separate 
I»arties, created the most indecent con- 



* The author of this law was one Gabinius, 
a tribune of the people, A. U. 614. It gave a 
very considerable blow to the influence of the 
nobility, as in this way of balloting it could 
not be discovered on which side the people 
gave their votes, and consequently took off 
that restraint they before lay under, by the 
fear of offending their superiors. 



fusion. Thus widely had we departed 
from the manners of our ancestors, who 
conducted these elections with a calmness 
and regularity suitable to the reverence 
which is due to the majesty of the senate. 
I have been infonned by some who re- 
member those times, that the method 
observed in their assemblies was this : the 
name of the person who offered himself 
for any office being called over, a pro- 
found silence ensued, v/hen immediately 
the candidate appeared, who, after he had 
spoken for himself, and given an account 
to the senate of his life and manners, 
called witnesses in support of his cha- 
racter. These were, either the person 
under whom he had served in the army, 
or to whom he had been quaestor, or 
both (if the case admitted of it) ; to whom 
he also joined some of those friends who 
espoused his interest. They delivered 
what they had to say in his favour in 
few words, but with great dignity ; and 
this had far more influence than the 
modern method of humble solicitation. 
Sometimes the candidate would object 
either to the birth, or age, or character 
of his competitor ; to which the senate 
would listen with a severe and impartial 
attention ; and thus was merit generally 
preferred to interest. But corruption 
having abused this wise institution of our 
ancestors, we were obliged to have re- 
course to the way of balloting, as the 
most probable remedy for this evil. The 
method being new, and immediately put 
in practice, it answered the present pur- 
pose very well : but, I am afraid, in pro- 
cess of time it vdll introduce new incon- 
veniences ; as this manner of balloting 
seems to afl^ord a sort of screen to injustice 
and partiality. For how few are there 
who preserve the same delicacy of con- 
duct in secret, as when exposed to the 
view of the world? The truth is, the 
generality of mankind revere Fame more 
than Conscience. But this, perhaps, 
may be pronouncing too hastily upon a 
future contingency : be it therefore as it 
may, we have in the mean time obtained 
by this method an election of such ma- 
gistrates as best deserved the honour. 
For it was with us as with those sort of 
judges who are named upon the spot ; 
we were taken before we had time to be 
biassed, and therefore determined im- 
partially. 

I have given you this detail, not only 
as a piece of news, but because I am glad 



60 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book L 



to seize every opportunity of speaking 
of the republic ; a subject, which as we 
have fewer occasions of mentioning than 
our ancestors, so we ought to be more 
careful not to let any of them slip. In 
good earnest, t am tired with repeating 
over and over the same compliments, 
How d'ye do ? and I hope you are well. 
Why should our letters for ever turn 
upon trivial and domestic concerns ? It 
is true, indeed, the direction of the pub- 
lic weal is in the hands of a single per- 
son, who, for the general good, takes 
upon himself solely to ease us of the care 
and weight of government ; but still that 
bountiful source of power permits, by a 
very generous dispensation, some streams 
to flow down to us ; and of these we 
may not only taste ourselves, but thus, 
as it were, administer them to our absent 
friends. Farewell. 



LETTER XXX. 

To Fabatus, 

You have long desired a visit from your 
grand-daughter* and myself. Nothing, 
be assured, could be more agreeable to 
us both ; for we equally wish to see you, 
and are determined to delay that plea- 
sure no longer. For this purpose, our 
baggage is actually making ready, and 
we are hastening to you with all the 
expedition the roads will permit. We 
shall stop only once, and that for a short 
time, intending to turn a little out of the 
way in order to go into Tuscany ; not 
for the sake of looking upon our estate 
and into our family concerns, for that we 
could defer to another opportunity ; but 
to perform an indispensable duty. There 
is a town near my estate, called Tifer- 
num-upon-the-Tiberf, which put itself 
under my patronage when I was yet a 
youth. These people enter extremely 
into my interest, celebrate my arrival 
among them, express the greatest con- 
cern when I leave them, and, in short, 
give every proof of an aflfection towards 
me, as strong as it is undeserved. That 
I may return their good offices (for what 
generous mind can bear to be excelled 
in acts of friendship ? ) I have built a 
temple in this place, at my own expense; 

* Caiphurnia, Pliny's wife, 
t Now Citta di Castello, 



and as it is finished, it would be a sort of 
impiety to omit the dedication of it any 
longer. We design, therefore, to be 
there on the day that ceremony is to be 
performed, and I have resolved to cele- 
brate it with a grand feast. We may 
possibly continue there all the next day, 
but we shall make so much the more ex- 
pedition upon the road. May we have the 
happiness to find you and your daughter 
in good health ! as I am sure we shall 
in good spirits, if you see us safely 
arrived. Farewell. 



LETTER XXXL 

To Clemens. 

Regulus has lost his son, and it is per- 
haps the only undeserved misfortune 
which could have befallen him ; for I 
much doubt whether he thinks it one. 
The boy was of a sprightly but ambi- 
guous turn ; however, he seemed capable 
enough of steering right, if he could have 
avoided splitting upon his father's exam- 
ple. Regulus gave him his freedom]:, 
in order to entitle him to the estate left 
him by his mother ; and when he got 
into possession of it, endeavoured (as the 
character of the man made it generally 
believed) to wheedle him out of it, by the 
most singular and indecent complaisance. 
This perhaps you will scarce think cre- 
dible ; but if you consider Regulus, you 
wiU not be long of that opinion. How- 
ever, he now expresses his concern for the 
loss of this youth in a most outrageous 
manner. The boy had a great number 
of little coach and saddle horses ; dogs 
of diiferent sorts, together with parrots, 
blackbirds, and nightingales § in abun- 
dance ; all these Regulus slew || round 

% The Romans had an absolute power over 
their children, of which no age or station of 
the latter deprived them. 

§ This bird was much esteemed among nice 
eaters, and was sold at a high price. Horace 
mentions, as an instance of great extravagance, 
two brothers who used to dine upon them : 

2uinti progenies Arri, par nobile fratrum — 

Luscinias soliti impenso prandere co'e'mtas. 

L. 2. Sat. 3. 

A noble pair of brothers — 

On nightingales of monstrous purchase din'd. 
Mu. Francis. 

II From an unaccountable notion that pre- 
vailed among the ancients, that the ghosts de- 
lighted in blood, itwas customary to kill a great 



Sect. II. 



PLINY. 



ei 



the funeral pile of his son, in the osten- 
tation of an affected grief. He is visited 
upon this occasion hy a surprising num- 
ber of people, who though they secretly 
detest and abhor him, yet are as assiduous 
in their attendance upon him, as if they 
were influenced by a principle of real 
esteem and affection : or, to speak my 
sentiments in few words, they endeavour 
to recommend themselves to his favour 
by following his example. He has retired 
to his villa across the Tiber ; where he 
has covered a vast extent of ground with 
his porticos, and crowded all the shore 
with his statues : for he blends prodi- 
gality with covetousness, and vain-glory 
with infamy. By his continuing there, 
he lays his visitors under the great incon- 
venience of coming to him at this un- 
wholesome season ; and he seems to con- 
sider the trouble they put themselves to, 
as a matter of consolation. He gives 
out, with his usual absurdity, that he de- 
signs to marry. You must expect, there- 
fore, to hear shortly of the wedding of a 
man opprest with sorrow and years ; that 
is, of one who marries both too soon and 
too late. Do you ask me why I conjec- 
ture thus ? Certainly, not because he af- 
firms it himself (for never was there so 
infamous a liar), but because there is no 
doubt that Regulus will do every thing 
he ought not. Farewell. 



as difficult as it is great : yet these un- 
common qualities you have most happily 
united in those wonderful charms, which 
not only grace your conversation, but 
particularly distinguish your writings. 
Your lips, like the venerable old man's 
in Homer*, drop honey, and one would 
imagine the bee had diffused her sweet- 
ness over all you compose. These were 
the sentiments I had when I lately read 
your Greek epigrams and satires. What 
elegance, what beauties shine in this col- 
lection ! how sweetly the numbers flow, 
and how exactly are they wrought up in 
the true spirit of the ancients ! What a 
vein of wit runs through every line, and 
how conformable is the whole to the 
rules of just criticism ! I fancied I had 
got in my hands Callimachus or Hesiod; 
or, if possible, some poet even superior 
to these ; though indeed neither of those 
authors excelled, as you have, in both 
those species of poetry. Is it pospble, 
that a Roman can write Greek in so 
much perfection ? I protest I do not be- 
lieve Athens herself can be more Attic. 
To own the truth, I cannot but envy 
Greece the honour of your preference. 
And since yon can write thus elegantly 
in a foreign language, it is past conjec- 
ture what you could have performed in 
your own. Farewell, 



LETTER XXXII. 

To Antoninus. 

That you have twice enjoyed the dig- 
nity of consul, with a conduct equal to 
that of our most illustrious ancestors ; 
that few (your modesty will not suffer 
me to say none) ever have, or ever will 
come up to the integrity and wisdom of 
your Asiatic administration : that in vir- 
tue, in authority, and even in years, you 
are the first of Romans ; these, most 
certainly, are shining and noble parts of 
your character ; nevertheless, I own it 
is in your retired hours that I most ad- 
mire you. To season the severity of 
business with the sprightliness of wit, 
and to temper wisdom with politeness, is 

number of beasts, and throw them on the fune- 
ral pile. In the more ignorant and barbarous 
ages, men were the unhappy victims of this 
horrid rite. 



LETTER XXXIII. 



To Naso. 



A STORM of hail, I am informed, has 
destroyed all the produce of my estate 
in Tuscany; whilst that which I have 
on the other side the Po, though it has 
proved extremely fruitful this season, 
yet from the excessive cheapness of every 
thing, turns to small account. Lauren- 
tinum is the single possession which 
yields me any advantage. I have no- 
thing there, indeed, but a house and gar- 
dens ; all the rest is barren sands ; still, 
however, my best productions rise at 
Laurentinum. It is there I cultivate, if 



H8u£7r>jf avapovas, Ktyog HbKiwv ayaprinrig, 
Tou xa< aTTo y'Kwacrr\g fieXiTog yKvxiwv peev auSjj. 

II. i. 247. 

Experienc'd Nestor, in persuasion skilPd ; 
Words sweet as honey from his lips distill'd. 

Pops. 



62 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book L 



not my lapds, at least my mind, and 
form many a composition. As in other 
places I can shew you full barns, so 
there I can entertain 5^ou with good store 
of the literary kind. Let me advise you 
then, if you wish for a never-failing re- 
venue, to purchase something upon this 
contemplative coast. Farewell. 



LETTER XXXIV. 

To Lepidus. 

I HAVE often told you that Regulus is 
a man of spirit ; whatever he engages 
in, he is sure to execute it in a most ex- 
traordinary manner. He chose lately to 
be extremely concerned for the loss of 
his son: accordingly he mourned for him 
in a way which no man ever mourned 
before. He took it into his head that he 
would have several statues and represen- 
tations of him ; immediately all the arti- 
sans in Rome are set to work. Colours, 
wax, brass, silver, ivory, marble, all 
exhibit the figure of young Regulus. 
Not long ago he read, before a numerous 
audience, a panegyric upon the life of 
his son : a large book upon the life of a 
boy ! then a thousand transcribers were 
employed to copy this curious anecdote, 
which he dispersed all over the empire. 
He wrote likewise a sort of circular let- 
ter to the several Decurii, to desire they 
would choose out one of their order who 
had a strong clear voice, to read this eu- 
logy to the people ; and I am informed 
it has been done accordingly. Had this 
spirit (or whatever else you will call an 
earnestness in executing all one under- 
takes) been rightly applied, what infi- 
nite good might it have produced ! The 
misfortune is, this active cast is generally 
strongest in men of vicious characters : 
for as ignorance begets rashness, and 
knowledge inspires caution ; so modesty 
is apt to depress and weaken the great 
and well-formed genius, whilst boldness 
supports and strengthens low and little 
minds. Regulus is a strong proof of the 
truth of this observation ; he has a 
weak voice, an awkward address, a 
thick speech, a slow imagination, and 
no memory ; in a word, he has nothing 
but an extravagant genius : and yet by 
the assistance of this flighty turn and 
much impudence, he passes with many 



for a finished orator. Herennius Sene- 
cio reversed Cato's definition of an ora- 
tor"*, and applied it with great justness 
to Regulus : An orator, said he, is a 
bad man unskilled in the art of speaking. 
And, in good earnest, Cato's definition 
is not a more exact description of a true 
orator, than Senecio's is of the character 
of this man. Would you make a suit- 
able return to this letter, let me know 
if you, or any of my friends in your 
town have with an air of pleasantry 
mouthed (as Demosthenes calls it) this 
melancholy piece to the people, like a 
stroller in the market-place. For so 
absurd a performance must move rather 
laughter than compassion ; and indeed 
the composition is as puerile as the sub- 
ject. Farev/ell. 



LETTER XXXV. 

To Cornelius Tacitus. 

I REJOICE that you are safely arrived in 
Rome ; for though I am always desirous 
to see you, I am more particularly so 
now. I purpose to continue a few days 
longer at my house at Tusculum, in 
order to finish a work which I have upon 
my hands. For I am afraid, should I 
put a stop to this design now that it is so 
nearly completed, I shall find it difficult 
to resume it. In the mean while, that I 
may lose no time, I send this letter be- 
fore me, to request a favour of you, which 
I hope shortly to ask in person. But 
before I inform you what my request is, 
I must let you into the occasion of it. 
Being lately at Comum, the place of my 
nativity, a young lad, son to one of my 
neighbours, made me a visit. I asked 
him whether he studied oratory, and 
where ? He told me he did, and at Me- 
diolanumf. And why not here? Be- 
cause (said his father, who came with 
him) we have no masters. " No ! (said 
I), surely it nearly concerns you who 
are fathers (and very opportunely se- 
veral of the company were so) that 
your sons should receive their educa- 
tion here, rather than any where else. 

* Cato, as we learn from Nonius, composed 
a treatise upon rhetoric, for the use of his son, 
wherein he defined an orator to be, A good 
man skilled in the art of speaking. 

f Milan. 



Sect. II. 



PLINY. 



63 



For where can they be placed more 
agreeably than in their own country, 
or instructed with more safety and less 
expense than at home and under the 
€ye of their parents ? Upon what very 
easy terms might you, by a general 
contribution, procure proper masters, 
if you would only apply towards the 
raising a salary for them, tlie extraor- 
dinary expense it costs you for your 
sons' journeys, lodgings, and whatever 
else you pay for upon account of their 
being abroad ; as pay, indeed, you 
must in such a case for every thing. 
Though I have no children myself, yet 
I shall willingly contribute to a design 
so beneficial to (what I look upon as 
a child or a parent) my country ; and 
therefore I will advance a third part 
of any sum you shall think proper to 
raise for this purpose. I would take 
upon myself the whole expense, were 
I not apprehensive that my benefaction 
might hereafter be abused and per- 
verted to private ends ; as I have ob- 
served to be the case in several places 
where public foundations of this nature 
have been established. The single 
means to prevent this mischief is, to 
leave the choice of the masters entirely 
in the breast of the parents, who will 
be so much the more careful to de- 
termine properly, as they shall be 
obliged to share the expense of main- 
taining them. For though they may 
be careless in disposing of another's 
bounty, they will certainly be cautious 
how they apply their own ; and will 
see that none but those who deserve it 
shall receive my money, when they 
must at the same time receive theirs 
too. Let my example then encourage 
you to unite heartily in this useful de- 
sign ; and be assured the greater the 
sum my share shall amount to, the 
more agreeable it will be to me. You 
can undertake nothing that will be more 
advantageous to your children, nor more 
acceptable to your country. They will 
by this means receive their education 
where they receive their birth, and be 
accustomed from their infancy to in- 
habit and affect their native soil. May 
you be able to procure professors of 
such distinguished abilities, that the 
neighbouring towns shall be glad to 
draw their learning from hence ; and 
as you now send your children to 
foreigners for education, may foreigners 



in their turn flock hither for their in- 
struction." 

I thought proper thus to lay open to 
you the rise of this affair, that you 
might be the more sensible how agree- 
able it will be to me, if you undertake 
the office I request. I intreat you, 
therefore, with all the earnestness a 
matter of so much importance deserves, 
to look out, amongst the great numbers 
of men of letters which the reputation 
of your genius brings to you, proper 
persons to whom we may apply for this 
purpose ; but without entering into any 
agreement with them on my part. For 
I would leave it entirely free to the pa- 
rents to judge and choose as they shall 
see proper : all the share I pretend to 
claim is, that of contributing my care 
and my money. If, therefore, any one 
shall be found who thinks himself quali- 
fied for the undertaking, he may repair 
thither ; but without relying upon any 
thing but his merit. Farewell. 



LETTER XXXVI. 
To Valerius Paulinus. 

Rejoice with me, my friend, not only 
upon my account, but your own, and 
that of the public ; for eloquence is still 
held in honour. Being lately engaged 
to plead in a cause before the Centum- 
viri, the crowd was so great that I could 
not get to my place, but in passing by 
the tribunal where the judges sat. And 
I have this pleasing circumstance to add 
farther, that a young nobleman, having 
lost his robe in the press, stood in his 
vest to hear me for seven hours to- 
gether : for so long I was speaking ; 
and with a success equal to my great 
fatigue. Come on then, my friend, and 
let us earnestly pursue our studies, nor 
screen our own indolence under pre- 
tence of that of the public. Never, we 
may rest assured, will there be wanting 
hearers and readers, so long as we can 
supply them with orators and authors 
worthy of their attention. Farewell. 



^4 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book 1. 



LETTER XXXVn. 

To Galium. 

You acquaint me that Coecilius, the 
consul elect, has commenced a suit 
against Correllia, and earnestly beg- me 
to undertake her cause in her absence. 
As I have reason to thank you for your 
information, so I have to complain of 
your intreaties : without the first, indeed, 
I should have been ignorant of this affair, 
but the last was unnecessary, as I want 
no solicitations to comply, where it would 
be ungenerous in me to refuse ; for can 
I hesitate a moment to take upon myself 
the protection of a daughter of Correl- 
lius } It is true, indeed, though there is 
no particular intimacy between her ad- 
versary and me, we are, however, upon 
good terms. It is true likewise, that he 
is a person of great rank, and who has a 
claim to particular regard from me, as he 
is entering upon an office which I have 
had the honour to fill ; and it is natural 
for a man to be desirous those dignities 
should be treated with the highest re- 
spect, which he himself once possessed. 
Yet these considerations have little 
weight, when I reflect that it is the 
daughter of Correllius whom I am to de- 
fend. The memory of that excellent 
person, than whom this age has not pro- 
duced a man of greater dignity, rectitude, 
and good sense, is indelibly impressed 
upon my mind. I admired him before I 
was acquainted with him ; and, contrary 
to what is usually the case, my esteem 
increased in proportion as I knew him 
better : and indeed I knew him tho- 
roughly, for he treated me v»^ithout re- 
serve, and admitted me to share in his 
joys and his sorrows, in his gay and his 
serious hours. When I was but a youth, 
he esteemed, and (I will even venture to 
say) revered me as if I had been his 
equal. When I solicited any post of ho- 
nour, he supported me with his interest, 
and recommended me by his testimony : 
when I entered upon it, he was my in- 
troducer and my attendant : when I exer- 
cised it, he was my guide and my counsel- 
lor. In a word, wherever my interest 
was concerned, he exerted himself with 
as much alacrity as if he had been in all 
his health and vigour. In private, in 
public, and at court, how often has he 
advanced and supported my reputation ! 
It happened once, that the conversation 



before the emperor Nerva turned upon 
the hopeful young men of that time, and 
several of the company were pleased to 
mention me with applause : he sat for a 
little while silent, which gave what he 
said the greater weight ; and then with 
that air of dignity, to which you are no 
stranger, I must be reserved, said he, in 
my praises of Pliny, because he does 
nothing without my advice. By wjiich 
single sentence he gave me a greater 
character than I would presume even to 
wish for, as he represented my conduct 
to be always such as wisdom must ap- 
prove, since it was wholly under the di- 
rection of one of the wisest of men. 
Even in his last moments he said to his 
daughter (as she often mentions), I have 
in the course of a long life raised up 
many friends to you ; but there is none 
that you may more assuredly depend 
upon, than Pliny and Cornutus. A cir- 
cumstance I cannot reflect upon, without 
being deeply sensible how much it is in- 
cumbent upon me, to endeavour to act up 
to the opinion so excellent a judge of 
mankind conceived of me. I shall there- 
fore most readily give my assistance to 
Correllia in this afl'air ; and willingly 
hazard any displeasure I may incur by 
appearing in her cause. Though I should 
imagine, if in the course of my pleadings 
I should find an opportunity to explain 
and enforce, more at large than I can do 
in a letter, the reasons I have here men- 
tioned, upon which I rest at once my 
apology and my glory ; her adversary 
(whose suit may perhaps, as you say, be 
entirely vmprecedented, as it is against a 
woman) wiU not only excuse, but ap- 
prove my conduct. Farewell. 

LETTER XXXVIII. 

, To HispuUa. 

As you are an exemplary instance of 
tender regard to your family in general, 
and to your late excellent brother in par- 
ticular, whose affection you returned 
with an equal warmth of sentiment ; 
and have not only shewn the kindness 
of an aunt, but supplied the loss of a ten- 
der parent to his daughter*, you wiU 
hear, I am well persuaded, with infinite 
pleasure, that she behaves worthy of her 
father, her grandfather, and yourself. 

* Calphuri^ia, Pliny's wife. 



Sbct. U. 



PLINY. 



65 



She possesses an excellent understanding, 
together with a consummate prudence, 
and gives the strongest testimony of the 
purity of her heart by her fondness of 
me. Her affection to me has given her 
a turn to books ; and my compositions, 
which she takes a pleasure in reading, 
and even getting by heart, are conti- 
nually in her hands. How full of tender 
solicitude is she when I am entermg upon 
any cause ! How kmdly does she rejoice 
with me when it is over ! WliUe I am 
pleading, she places persons to inform 
her from time to time how I am heard, 
what applauses I receive, and what suc- 
cess attends the cause. When at any 
time I recite my works, she conceals her- 
self behind some ciu'tain, and with secret 
rapture enjoys my praises. She sings my 
verses to her lyre, with no other master 
but love, the best instructor, for her 
guide. From these happy circumstances 
I draw my most assured liOpeS;, that the 
harmony between us v/iU increase with 
our days, and be as lasting as our lives. 
For it is not my youth or my person, 
which time gTadually impairs ; it is my 
reputation and my glory of which she is 
enamoured. But what less coidd be ex- 
pected from one who was trained by your 
hands, and formed by your instructions ; 
who was early familiarised under your 
roof with all that is worthy and amiable, 
and was first taught to conceive an affec- 
tion for me, by the advantageous colours 
in which you were pleased to represent 
me ? And as you revered my mother with 
all the respect due even to ^ parent, so 
you kindly directed and encouraged my 
infancy, presaging of me from that early 
period aU that my viife now fondly 
imagines I really am. Accept therefore 
of our mutual thanks, that you have 
thus, as it were designedly, formed us 
for each other. Farewell. 

LETTER XXXIX. 

To Maximus. 

I HAVE already acquainted you with my 
opinion of each particular part of your 
work, as I perused it ; I must now teU 
you my general thoughts of the whole. 
It is a strong and beautiful perfonnance ; 
the sentiments are sublime and mascu- 
line, and conceived in aU the variety of 
a pregnant imagination; the diction is 
chaste and elegant ; the figures are hap- 



pily chosen, and a copious and diffusive 
vein of eloquence runs through the whole, 
and raises a very high idea of the author. 
You seem borne away by the full tide of 
a strong imagination and deep sorrow, 
which mutually assist and heighten each 
other ; for your genius gives sublimity 
and majesty to your passion : and your 
passion adds strength and poignancy to 
your genius. Farewell. 

LETTER XL. 

To Velius Cerealis. 

How severe a fate has attended the 
daughters of Helvidius ! These two sisters 
are both dead in child-bed, after having 
each of them been delivered of a girl. 
This misfortime pierces me with the 
deepest sorrow ; as indeed, to see two 
such amiable young ladies fall a sacrifice 
to their fruitfuhiess, in the pume and 
flower of their years, is a misfortune 
which 1 cannot too greatly lament. I 
lament for the unhappy condition of the 
poor infants, who are thus become or- 
phans from their birth : I lament for the 
sake of the disconsolate husbands of these 
ladies ; and I lament too for my own. 
The affection I bear to the memory of 
their late father is inviolable, as my de- . 
fence of him in the senate, and all my 
writings, will witness for me. Of three 
children which survived him, there now 
remains but one ; and his family, tliat had 
lately so many noble supports, rests only 
upon a single person ! It will however be 
a great mitigation of my afiliction, if for- 
tune shall kindly spare that one, and ren- 
der him worthy of his father and grand- 
father * : and I am so much the more 
anxious for his welfare and good conduct, 
as he is the only branch of the family 
remaining. You know the softness and 
solicitude, of my heart where I have any 
tender attachments ; you must not won- 

* The famous Helvidius Priscus, who signa- 
lized himself in the senate by the freedom of 
his speeches in favoiu- of libert)'-, during the 
reigns of Galba, Otho, Vitellius, and Vespa- 
sian ', in whose time he was put to death by the 
order of the senate, though contrary to the in- 
clination of the emperor, who countermanded 
the execution : but it was too late, the execu- 
tioner having performed his office before the 
messenger arrived. Tacitus represents him as 
acting in all the various duties of social life 
with one consistent tenor of uniform virtue; 
superior to all temptations of wealth, of inflex- 
ible integrity, and unbroken courage. 



66 



ELEGANT EPISTLES, 



Book I, 



der then that I have many fears where I 
have great hopes. Farewell. 

LETTER XLL 

To Valens. 

Being engaged lately in a cause before 
the Centumviri, it occurred to me that 
when I was a youth I was also concerned 
in one which passed through the same 
courts. I coidd not forbear, as usual, 
t6 pursue the reflection my mind had 
started, and to consider if there were 
any of those advocates then present, who 
were joined with me in the former cause ; 
but I found I was the only person re- 
maining who had been counsel in both : 
such changes does the instability of hu- 
man nature, or the vicissitudes of fortune, 
produce ! Death had removed some ; ba- 
nishment others ; age and infirmities had 
silenced those, while these were with- 
drawn to enjoy the happiness of retire- 
ment ; one was at the head of an army ; 
and the indulgence of the prince had ex- 
empted another from the burthen of civil 
employments. What turns of fortune 
have I experienced even in my own per- 
son ! It was eloquence that first raised 
me ; it was eloquence that occasioned my 
disgrace ; and it was eloquence that ad- 
vanced me again. The friendships of the 
wise and good, at my first appearance in 
the world, were highly serviceable to 
me ; the same friendships proved after- 
ward extremely prejudicial to my interest ; 
and now again they are my ornament and 
support. If you compute the time in 
which these incidents have happened, it 
is but a few years ; if you number the 
events, it seems an age. A lesson that 
will teach us to check both our despair 
and presumption, when we observe such 
a variety of revolutions roll round in so 
swift and narrow a circle. It is my cus- 
tom to communicate to my friend all my 
thoughts, and to set before him the same 
rules and examples by which I regulate 
my own conduct ; and such was my de- 
iiign in this letter. Farewell. 

LETTER XLII. 

To Maximus. ' 
I MENTIONED to you in a former letter, 
that I apprehended the method of voting 
by ballots would be attended with in"^ 
iBonveniences ; and so it has proved. At 



the last election of magistrates, upon 
some of the tablets were Avritten several 
pieces of pleasantry, and even indecen- 
cies ; in one particularly, instead of the 
name of the candidate, were inserted the 
names of those who espoused his interest. 
The senate was extremely exasperated at 
this insolence ; and with one voice threat- 
ened the vengeance of the emperar upon 
the author. But he lay concealed, and 
possibly might be in the number of those 
who expressed the greatest indignation. 
What must one think of such a man's 
private conduct, who in public, upon so 
important an affair, and at so solemn a 
time, could indulge himself in such scur- 
rilous liberties, and dare to act the droU 
in the face of the senate ? Who will know 
it? is the argument that prompts little 
and base minds to commit these indecen- 
cies. Secure from being discovered by 
others, and unawed by any self-respect, 
they take their pen and tablets ; and 
hence arise these buffooneries, which are 
fit only for the stage. What course shall 
we take, what remedy apply against this 
abuse ? Our disorders indeed in general 
have everywhere eluded all attempts to 
restrain them. But this is a point much 
too high for us, and will be the care of 
that superior power, who by these low 
but daring insults has daily fresh occa- 
sions of exerting all his pains and vigi- 
lance. Farewell. 

LETTER XLIII. 

To Nepos, 

The request you make me to supervise 
the correction of my works, which you 
have taken the pains to collect, I shall 
most willingly comply with ; as indeed 
there is nothing I ought to do with more 
readiness, especially at your instance. 
When a man of such dignity, learning, 
and eloquence, deeply engaged in busi- 
ness, and entering upon the important 
government of a province, has so good 
an opinion of my works as to think 
them worth taking with him, how am I 
obliged to endeavour that this part of 
his baggage may not seem an useless 
embarrassment ! My first care therefore 
shall be, that they may attend you with 
all the advantages possible ; and my next, 
to supply you at your return with others, 
which you may not think undeserving to 
be added to them ; for I can have no 



Sect. II. 



PLINY. 



67 



strong-er encouragement to enter upon 
some new work, than being* assured of 
finding a reader of your taste and dis- 
cernment. Farewell. 



LETTER XLIV. 

To Liciniiis. 

i HAVE brought you as a present out of 
the country, a query which well de- 
serves the consideration of your extensive 
erudition. There is a spring which rises 
in a neighbouring mountain, and run- 
ning among the rocks is received into a 
little banqueting-room, from whence, 
after being detained a short time, it 
falls into the Larian lake. The nature 
of this spring is extremely surprising : 
it ebbs and flows regularly three times a 
day. This increase and decrease is 
plainly visible, and very entertaining to 
observe. You sit down by the side of 
the fountain, and whilst you are taking 
a repast, and drinking its water, which 
is extremely cool, you see it gradually 
rise and fall. If you place a ring, or any 
thing else at the bottom when it is dry, 
the stream reaches it by degrees till it is 
entirely covered, and then again gently 
retires from it ; and this you may see it 
do for three times successively. Shall 
we say, that some secret current of air 
stops and opens the fountain-head, as it 
advances to or recedes from it ; as we 
see in bottles and other vessels of that 
nature, where there is not a free and 
open passage, though you turn their 
necks downwards, yet the outward air 
obstructing the vent, they discharge their 
contents as it were by starts ? Or may it 
not be accounted for upon the same prin- 
ciple as the flux and reflux of the sea? 
or, as those rivers, which discharge 
themselves into the sea, meeting with 
contrary winds and the swell of the 
ocean, are forced back in their channels ; 
so may there not be something that 
checks this fountain, for a time, in its 
progress? or is there rather a certain 
reservoir that contains these waters in 
the bowels of the earth, which while it 
is recruiting its discharges, the stream 
flows more slowly and in less quantity, 
but when it has collected its due mea- 
sure, it runs again into its usual strength 
and fulness? or lastly, is there not I 
know not what kind of subterraneous 
poise, tliat throws up the water when the 



fountain is dry, and repels it when it is 
full ? You, who are so well qualified for 
the inquiry, will examine the reasons of 
this wonderful appearance * ; it will be 
sufficient for me if I have given you a 
clear description of it. Farewell. 

LETTER XLV. 

To Maximus, 

I A^i deeply afflicted with the news I 
have received of the death of Fannius, 
not only as I have lost in him a friend 
whose eloquence and politeness I ad- 
mired, but a guide whose judgment I 
pursued ; and indeed he possessed a most 
penetrating genius, improved and quick- 
ened by great experience. There are 
some circumstances attending his death, 
which aggravate my concern : he left be- 
hind him a will which had been made a 
considerable time, by which it happens 
his estate has fallen into the hands of 
those who had incurred his displeasure, 
while his greatest favourites have no 
share of it. But what I particularly re- 
gi-et is, that he has left unfinished a very 
noble work in which he was engaged. 
Notwithstanding his full employment at 
the bar, he had undertaken a history of 
those persons who had been put to death 
or banished by Nero ; of which he had 
perfected three books. They are written 
with great delicacy and exactness : the 
style is pure, and preserves a proper 
medium between the plain narrative and 
the historical : and as they were very fa- 
vourably received by the public, he was 
the more desirous of being able to com- 
plete the rest. The hand of death, is 
ever, in my estimation, too severe and 
too sudden when it falls upon such as are 
employed in some immortal work. The 
sons of sensuality, wlio have no views 
beyond the present hour, terminate with 
each day the whole purpose of their lives ; 
but those who look forward to posterity, 
and endeavour to extend their memories 
to future generations by useful labours : 
to such, death is always immature, as it 
still snatches them from amidst some 
unfinished design. Fannius, long before 

* There are several of these peviodical foun- 
tains in different parts of the world ; as we 
have some in England. Lay-well near 'forbay 
is mentioned in the Philosophical Transactions 
(No. 104, p. r09.) to ebb and flow several 
times everv hour. 

F 2 



6S 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book L 



his death, had a strong presentiment of 
what has happened : he dreamed one 
night, that as he was in his study with 
his papers before him. Nero came in, 
and placing liimself by his side, took up 
the three first books of his history, which 
he read through, and then went away. 
Tliis di'eam greatly alarmed him, and he 
looked upon it as an intimation that he 
should not carry on his history any far- 
ther than Nero had read : and so the 
event proved. I cannot reflect upon 
this accident without lamenting tliat he 
should not be able to accomplish a work, 
which had cost liim so much pains and 
vigilance, as it suggests to me at the 
same time the thoughts of my own mor- 
tality-, and the fate of my writings : and 
I am persuaded the same reflection 
alaiTus your apprehensions for those in 
wliich you are employed. Let us then, 
my friend, while yet we live, exert all 
our endeavours, that death, whenever it 
arrives, may find as little as possible to 
destroy. Farewell. 

LETTER XLVL 

To Capito. 

You are not singular in the advice you 
give me to imdertake the writing of 
history ; it is a work which has been 
frequently pressed upon me by several 
others of my friends ; and what I have 
some thoughts of engaging in. Not that 
I have any confidence of succeeding in 
this way ; that would be too rashly pre- 
suming upon the success of an experi- 
ment vrhich I have never yet made : but 
because it is a noble employment to res- 
cue from oblivion those who deserve to 
be eternally remembered, and extend the 
reputation of others at the same time that 
we advance our own. Nothing, I con- 
fess, so strongly affects me as the desire 
of a lasting name : a passion highly 
worthy of the himian breast, especially 
of one who, not being conscious to him- 
self of any iU, is not afraid of being 
known to posterity. It is the continual 
subject therefore of my thoughts, 

Hy what fair deed I too may raise my name* j 

for to that I moderate my >vishes ; the 
rest, 

And gather round the world immortal fame, 

Ls much beyond my hopes : 

* Virgil 1 Georg. sub. init. 



"Though yetf" However, the 

first is sufficient, and history perhaps is 
the single means that can ensure it to me. 
Oraton- and poetry, unless carried to the 
liighest point of eloquence, are talents 
but of small recommendation to those 
who possess them ; but history, however 
executed, is always entertaining. Man- 
kind are naturally inquisitive, and are so 
fond of having this iiirn gratified, that 
they will listen with attention to the 
plainest matter of fact, and the most idle 
tale. But besides this, I have an example 
in my own family that inclines me to 
engage in this study, my uncle and 
adoptive father having acquired great 
reputation as a very accurate historian ; 
and the philosophers, you know, recom- 
mend it to us to tread in the steps of our 
ancestors, when they have gone before us 
in the right path. If you ask me then, 
why I do not immediately enter upon 
the task ? my reason is this : I have 
pleaded some verj' important causes, and 
(though I am not extremely sanguine in 
my hopes concerning' them) I have de- 
termined to revise my speeches, lest, for 
want of this remaining labour, all the 
pplns they cost me should be throvvn 
away, and they with their author be bu- 
ried in oblivion ; for with respect to pos- 
terity, the work that was never finished 
was never begim. You ^vill think, per- 
haps, I might correct my pleadings and 
write history at the same time. I wish 
indeed I were capable of doing so ; but 
they are both such great undertakings, 
that either of them is abundantly suf- 
ficient. I was but nineteen when I first 
appeared at the bar ; and yet it is only 
now at last I imderstand (and that in 
truth but imperfectly) what is essential 
to a complete orator. How then shall I 
be able to support the weight of an ad- 
ditional burthen ? It is true indeed, his- 
tory and oratory have in many points a 
general resemblance ; yet in those very 
things in which they seem to agree, 
there are several circumstances wherein 
they differ. Narration is common to 
tliem both, but it is a narration of a dis- 
tinct kind : the fonner contents itself fre- 
quently with low and vidgar facts ; the 

f Part of a verse from the fifth jEneid, 
where Mnestheus, one of the competitors in 
the naval games, who was in some danj,'er 
of being distanced, exhorts his men to exert 
their utmost vigour to prevent such a dis- 
grace. 



Sect. II. 



P L I N Y. 



69 



latter requires every thing splendid, ele- 
vated, and extraordinary ; strength and 
nerves is sufficient in that, but beauty and 
ornament is essential to this : tlie excellen- 
cy of the one consists in a strong, severe, 
and close style ; of the other, in a diflPu- 
sive, flowing, and harmonious narration : 
m short, the words, the emphasis, and the 
whole turn and structure of the periods, 
are extremely different in these two arts ; 
for, as Thucydides observes, there is a 
wide distance between compositions 
which are calculated for a present pur- 
pose, and those which are designed to re- 
main as lasting monuments to posterity ; 
by the first of v/liich expressions he al- 
ludes to oratory, and by the other to 
history. For these reasons I am not in- 
clined to blend together two perform- 
ances of such distinct natures, which, as 
they are both of the highest rank, neces- 
sarily therefore require a separate atten- 
tion ; lest, confounded by a crowd of 
different ideas, I should introduce into 
the one what is only proper to the other. 
Therefore (to speak in our language of 
the bar) I must beg leave the cause may 
be adjourned some time longer. In the 
mean while, I refer it to your considera- 
tion from what period I shall commence 
my history. Shall I take it up from 
those remote times which have been 
treated of already by others ? In this way, 
indeed, the materials will be ready pre- 
pared to my hands, but the collating of 
the several historians will be extremely 
troublesome ; or shall I write only of the 
present times, and those wherein no other 
author has gone before me ? If so, I may 
probably give offence to many, and please 
but few. For, in an age so overrun with 
vice, you will find infinitely more to con- 
demn than approve ; yet your praise, 
though ever so lavish, will be thought too 
reserved ; and your censure, though ever 
so cautious, too i3rofuse. However, this 
does not at aU discourage me ; for I want 
not sufficient resolution to bear testimony 
to truth. I expect then that you pre- 
pare the way which you have pointed 
out to me, and determine what subject I 
shall fix upon for my history, that when 
I am ready to enter upon the task you 
have assigned me, I may not be delayed 
by any new difficulty. Farewell. 



LETTER XLVII. 

To Saturninus. 

Your letter made very different im- 
pressions upon me, as it brought me 
news which I both rejoiced and grieved 
to receive. It gave me a pleasure when it 
informed me you were detained in Rome ; 
which though you will tell me is a cir- 
cmnstance that affords you none, yet I 
cannot but rejoice at it, since you assure 
me you continue there upon my account, 
and defer the recital of your work till 
my return, for which I am greatly obliged 
to you. But I was much concerned at 
that part of your letter which men- 
tioned the dangerous illness of Julius 
Valens ; though, indeed, with respect to 
himself it ought to affect me with other 
sentiments, as it cannot but be for his 
advantage the sooner he is relieved by 
death from a distemper of which there is 
no hope he can ever be cured. But what 
you add concerning Avitus, who died 
in his return from the province where he 
had been qusestor, is an accident that 
justly demands our sorrow. That he 
died on board a ship, at a distance from 
his brother whom he tenderly loved, 
and from his mother and sisters, are cir- 
cumstances, which though they cannot 
affect him now, yet undoubtedly did in 
his last moments, as well as tend to 
heighten the affliction of those he has 
left behind. How severe is the reflection, 
that a youth of his weU-formed disposi- 
tion should be extinct in the prime of 
life, and snatched from those high ho- 
nours to which his virtues, had they been 
permitted to grow to their full maturity, 
would certainly have raised him ! How 
did his bosom glow with the love of the 
fine arts ! How many books has he 
perused ! How many volumes has he 
transcribed ! But the fruits of his labours 
are now perished with him, and for ever 
lost to posterity. — Yet why indulge my 
sorrow ? a passion which, if we once give 
a loose to it, will aggravate every the 
slightest circumstance. 1 will put an end 
therefore to my letter, that I may to the 
tears which yours has drawn from me. 
Farewell. 

LETTER XLVIII. 

To Marcellinus. 

I WRITE this to you under the utmost 
oppression of sorrow : the youngest 



70 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book I, 



daughter of my friend Fimdanus is dead ? 
Never surely was there a more agreeable 
and more amiable young person, or one 
who better deserved to have enjoyed a 
long, I had ahnost said an immortal life ! 
She was scarce fourteen, and yet had all 
the wisdom of age and discretion of a 
matron, joined with youthful sv/eetness 
and virgin modesty. With what an en- 
gaging fondness did she behave to her 
father ! How kindly and respectfully re- 
ceive his friends ! How affectionately treat 
all those who in their respective offices 
had the care and education of her ! She 
employed much of her time in reading, 
in which she discovered great strength 
of judgment ; she indulged herself in few 
diversions, and those with much caution. 
With what forbearance, with what pa- 
tience, with what courage did she endure 
her last illness *, she complied with aU the 
directions of her physicians ; she en- 
couraged her sister and her father ; and 
when all her strength of body was ex- 
hausted, supported herself by the single 
vigour of her mind. That, indeed, con- 
tinued even to her last moments, un- 
broken by the pain of a long illness, or 
the terrors of approaching death ; and it 
is a reflection which makes the loss of 
her so much the more to be lamented. 
A loss infinitely severe ! and more severe 
by the particular conjuncture in which it 
happened ! She was contracted to a most 
worthy youth ; the wedding day was 
fixed, and we were aU invited. How sad 
a change from the highest joy to the 
deepest sorrow ! How shall I express the 
wound that pierced my heart, when I 
heard Fundanus himself (as grief is ever 
finding out circumstances to aggravate 
its melancholy) ordering the money he 
had designed to lay out upon clothes and 
jewels for her marriage, to be employed 
in myrrh and spices for her funeral ! He 
is a man of great learning and good 
sense, who bas applied himself from his 
earliest youth to the nobler and most 
elevated studies ; but all the maxims of 
fortitude which he has received from 
books, or advanced himself, he now ab- 
solutely rejects, and every other virtue of 
his lieart gives place to all a parent's 
tenderness. You will excuse, you will 
even approve his sorrow, when you con- 
sider what he has lost. He has lost a 
daughter who resembled him in his man- 
ners as well as his person, and exactly 
copied out all her father. If you shall 



tliink proper to write to him upon the 
subject of so reasonable a grief, let me 
remind you not to use the rougher argu- 
ments of consolation, and such as seem 
to carry a sort of reproof with them, but 
those of kind and sympathizing humani- 
ty. Time will render him more open to 
the dictates of reason ; for, as a fresh 
wound shrinks back from the hand of the 
surgeon, but by degrees submits to, and 
even requires the means of its cure, so a 
mind under the first impressions of a 
misfortune shuns and rejects all argu- 
ments of consolation, but at length, if 
applied with tenderness, calmly and will- 
ingly acquiesces in them. Farewell. 



LETTER XLIX. 

To Spurinna. 

Knowing, as I do, how much you ad- 
mire the polite arts, and what satisfac- 
tion you take in seeing young men of 
quality pursue the steps of their ances- 
tors, I seize this earliest opportunity of 
informing you, that I went to-day to 
hear Calpumius Piso read a poem he has 
composed upon a very bright and learned 
subject, entitled the Constellations. His 
numbers, which were elegiac, Avere soft, 
flowing, and easy, at the same time that 
they had all the sublimity suitable to such 
a noble topic. He varied his style from 
the lofty to the simple, from the close to 
the copious, from the grave to the florid, 
with equal genius and judgment. These 
beauties were extremely heightened and 
recommended by a most harmonious 
voice, which a very becoming modesty 
rendered still more pleasing. A confu- 
sion and concern in the countenance of a 
speaker throws a grace upon all he 
utters ; for there is a certain decent ti- 
midity, which, I know not how, is infi- 
nitely more engaging than the assured 
and self-sufficient air of confidence. I 
might mention several other circum- 
stances to his advantage, which I am 
the more inclined to take notice of, as 
they are most striking in a person of 
his age, and most uncommon in a youth 
of his quality ; but not to enter into a 
farther detail of his merit, I will only 
tell you, that when he had finished his 
poem, I embraced him with the utmost 
complacency ; and being persuaded that 
nothing is a greater encouragement 



Sect. II. 



PLINY. 



71 



than applause, I exhorted him to per- 
severe in the paths he had entered, and 
to shme out to posterity with the same 
glorious lustre which reflected from his 
ancestors to himself. I congratulated 
his excellent mother, and his hrother, 
who gained as much honour hy the 
generous affection he discovered upon 
this occasion, as Calpurnius did by his 
eloquence, so remarkable a concern he 
shewed for him when he began to recite 
his poem, and so much pleasure in his 
sucess. May the gods grant me fre- 
quent occasions of giving you accounts 
of this nature ! for I have a partiality to 
the age in which I live, and should re- 
joice to find it not barren of merit. 
To this end I ardently vrish our young 
men of quality would not derive all their 
glory from the images of their ances- 
tors*. As for those which are placed 
in the house of these excellent youths, I 
now figure them to myself as silently 
applauding and encouraging their pur- 
suits, and (what is a sufficient degree 
of honour to them both) as owning and 
confessing them to be their kindred. 
Farewell. 

LETTER L. 

To Servianus. 

I AM extremely rejoiced to hear that 
you design your daughter for Fuscus 
Salinator, and congratulate you upon it. 
His family is patrician f, and both his 
father and mother are persons of the most 
exalted merit. As for himself, he is stu- 
dious, learned, and eloquent, and with aU 
the innocence of a child, unites the 
sprightliness of youth to the wisdom of 
age. I am not, believe me, deceived by 
my affection, when I give him this cha- 
racter ; for though I love him, I confess, 
beyond measure (as his friendship and 
esteem for me weU deserve), yet partiality 
has no share in my judgment ; on the 
contrary, the stronger my fondness of 
him is, the more rigorously I weigh his 

* None had the right of using family pic- 
tures or statues, but those whose ancestors or 
themselves had borne some of the highest dig- 
nities. So that the jus imagbiis was much the 
same thing among the Romans, as the right 
of bearing a coat of arms among us. 

f Those families were styled Patrician, 
whose ancestors had been members of the 
senate in the earliest times of the legal or 
consular government. 



merit. I will venture then to assure you 
(and I speak it upon my own experience) 
you could not have formed to your wish 
a more accomplished son-in-law. May 
he soon present you with a grandson, 
Avho shaU be the exact copy of his father ! 
And with what pleasure shall I receive 
from the arms of two such friends their 
children or grandchildren, whom I shall 
claim a sort of right to embrace as my 
own ! Farewell. 

LETTER LI. 

To Sluintilian, 

Though your desires, I know, are ex- 
tremely moderate, and the education 
which your daughter has received is 
suitable to your character, and that of 
Tutilius her grandfather ; yet as she is 
going to be married to a person of so 
great distinction as Nonius Celer, whose 
station requires a certain splendour of liv- 
ing, it wiU be necessary to consider the 
rank of her husband in her clothes and 
equipage ; circumstances which, though 
they do not augment our real dignity, 
yet certainly adorn and grace it. But as 
I am sensible your fortune is not equal 
to the greatness of your mind, I claim 
to myself a part in your expense, and 
like another father, present the young 
lady with fifty thousand sesterces %. The 
sum should be larger, but that I am well 
persuaded the smallness of the pre- 
sent is the only consideration that can 
prevail with your modesty not to refuse 
it. Farewell. 

LETTER LII. 

To Restitutus. 

This obstinate distemper which hangs 
upon you greatly alarms me : and 
though I know how extremely tem- 
perate you are, yet I am afraid your dis- 
ease should get the better of your mo- 
deration. Let me intreat you then to 
resist it with a determined abstemious- 
ness : a remedy, be assured, of all others 
the most noble as well as the most 
salutary. There is nothing impractica- 
ble in what I recommend ; it is a rule, 
at least, which I always direct my fa- 
mily to observe with respect to myself. 
I hope, I tell them, that should I be «at- 
tacked with any disorder, I shall desire 

+ About 400/. of ©ur money. 



72 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book I. 



nothing of which I either ought to be 
ashamed, or have reason to repent : 
however, if my distemper should prevail 
over my resolution, I forbid that any 
thing be given me but by the consent of 
my physicians ; and I assure the people 
about me, that I shall resent their com- 
pliance with me in things improper, as 
much as another man would their re- 
fusal. I had once a most violent fever ; 
when the fit was a little abated, and I 
had been anointed*, my physician offered 
me something to drink ; I desired he 
would first feel my pulse, and upon his 
seeming to think the fit was not quite 
off, I instantly returned the cup, though 
it was just at my lips. Afterwards, 
when I was preparing to go into the 
bath, twenty days from the first attack 
of my illness, perceiving the physicians 
whispering together, I enqtiired what 
they were saying. They replied, they 
were of opinion I might possibly bathe 
with safety, however, that they were not 
wthout some suspicion of hazard. What 
occasion is there, said I, of doing it at 
all? And thus, with great complacency, 
I gave up a pleasure I was upon the 
point of enjoying, and abstained from 
the bath with the same composure I 
was going to enter it. I mention this 
not only in order to enforce my ad- 
vice by example, but also that this let- 
ter may be a sort of tie upon me to per- 
severe in the same resolute abstinence 
for the future. Farewell. 

LETTER LIII. 

To Prwsens. 

Are you determined then to pass your 
whole time between Lucaniaf and 
Campania I? Your answer, I suppose, 
will be, that the former is your native 
country ; and the latter that of your 
wife. This, I admit, may justify a long 
absence, but I cannot allow it as a 
reason for a perpetual one. But are you 
resolved in good earnest never to return 
to Rome, that theatre of dignities, pre- 
ferment, and society of every sort ? Are 
you obstinately bent to live your own 

* Unction was much esteemed and prescribed 
by the ancients. Celsus, who flourished, it is 
supposed, about this time, expressly recom- 
mends it in the remission of acute distempers. 

t Comprehending? the Basilicata, a pro- 
vince in the kingdom of Naples. 

X Now called Campagna di Roma, 



master, and sleep aiid rise when you 
think proper? Will you never change 
your country dress for the habit of the 
town, but spend your whole days unem- 
barrassed by business ? It is time, how- 
ever, you should revisit our scene of hurry , 
were it only that your rural pleasures 
may not grow languid by enjoyment ; 
appear at the levees of the gi-eat, that 
you may enjoy the same honour yourself 
with more satisfaction ; and mix in our 
crowd, that you may have a stronger re- 
lish for the charms of solitude. But am 
I not imprudently retarding the friend I 
would recal ? It is these very circum- 
stances, perhaps, that induce you every 
day more and more to wrap yourself up 
in retirement. All, however, I mean to 
persuade you to, is only to intermit, not 
renounce your repose. If I were to in- 
vite you to a feast, as I would blend 
dishes of a sharper taste with those of a 
more luscious kind, in order to raise the 
edge of your palate by the one, which 
has been flattened by the other ; so I 
now advise you to enliven the smooth 
pleasures of life with those of a quicker 
relish. Farewell. 

LETTER LIV. 

To Calphurnia%. 

It is incredible how impatiently I wish 
for your return ; such is the tenderness 
of my affection for you, and so un- 
accustomed am I to a separation ! I lie 
awake the greatest part of the night in 
thinking of you, and (to use a very 
common, but very true expression) my 
feet carry ^me of tlieir own accord to your 
apartment at those hours I used to visit 
you ; but not finding you there, I return 
with as much sorrow and disappoint- 
ment as an excluded lover. The only 
intermission my anxiety knows, is when 
I am engaged at the bar, and in the 
causes of my friends. Judge how 
wretched must his life be, who finds no 
repose but in business, no consolation 
but in a crowd. Farewell. 

LETTER LV. 

To Tuscus. 

You desire my sentiments concerning 
the method of study you should pursue, 
in that retirement to which you have 

§ His wife. 



Sect. II. 



PLINY. 



73 



long since withdrawn. In the first place, 
then, I look upon it as a very advan- 
tageous practice (and it is what many re- 
commend) to translate either from Greek 
into Latin, or from Latin into Greek. 
By this means you will furnish yourself 
with nohle and proper expressions, with 
variety of beautiful figiu-es, and an ease 
and strength of style. Besides, by imi- 
tating* the most approved authors, you 
wiU find your imagination heated, and 
fall insensibly into a similar turn of 
thought, at the same time that those 
things which you may possibly have 
overlooked in a common way of reading, 
cannot escape you in translating ; and 
this method wUl open your understand- 
ing and improve your judgment. It may 
not be amiss, after you have read an au- 
thor, in order to make yourself master of 
his subject and argument, from his reader 
to turn, as it were, his rival, and attempt 
something of your own in the same way ; 
and then make an impartial comparison 
between your performance and his, in 
t)rder to see in what point either you or 
he most happily succeeded. It will be a 
matter of very pleasing congratulation 
to yourself, if you should find in some 
things that you have the advantage of 
him, as it will be a gTeat mortification if 
he should rise above you in all. You 
may sometimes venture in these little 
assays to try your strength upon the 
most shining passages of a distinguished 
author. The attempt, indeed, will be 
something bold ; but as it is a conten- 
tion which passes in secret, it cannot be 
taxed with presumption. Not but that 
we have seen instances of persons, who 
have publicly entered this sort of lists 
with great success, and while they did not 
despair of overtaking, have gloriously 
advanced before those whom they thought 
it sufficient honour to follow. After 
you have thus finished a composition, 
you may lay it aside, till it is no 
longer fi-esh in your memory, and then 
take it up in order to revise and cor- 
rect it. You will find several things to 
retain, but still more to reject ; you 
will add a new thought here, and 
alter another there. It is a laborious 
and tedious task, I own, thus to re- 
inflame the mind after the first heat 
is over, to recover an impulse when its 
force has been checked and spent; 
in a word, to interweave new parts 
into the texture of a composition with- 



out disturbing or confounding the 
original plan ; but the advantage at- 
tending this method will overbalance the 
difficulty. I know the bent of your pre- 
sent attention is directed towards the 
eloquence of the bar ; but I would not 
for that reason advise you never to quit 
the style of dispute and contention. As 
land is improved by sowing it with va- 
rious seeds, so is the mind by exercising 
it with different studies. I would re- 
commend it to you, therefore, sometimes 
to single out a fine passage of history ; 
sometimes to exercise yourself in the 
epistolary style, and sometimes the poe- 
tical. For it frequently happens, that 
in pleading one has occasion to make 
use not only of historical, but even poe- 
tical descriptions ; as by the epistolary 
manner of writing you will acquire a 
close and easy expression. It will be 
extremely proper also to unbend your 
mind with poetry ; when I say so, I do 
not mean that species of it which turns 
upon subjects of great length (for that is 
fit only for persons of much leisure), but 
those little pieces of the epigrammatic 
kind, which serve as proper reliefs to, 
and are consistent with employments of 
every sort. They commonly go under 
the title of Poetical Amusements ; but 
these amusements have sometimes gained 
as much reputation to their authors, as 
works of a more serious nature. In 
this manner the greatest men, as well 
as the greatest orators, used either to 
exercise or amuse themselves, or ra- 
ther indeed did both. It is surprising 
how much the mind is entertained and 
enlivened by these little poetical com- 
positions, as they turn upon subjects 
of gallantry, satire, tenderness, polite- 
ness, and every thing, in short, that 
concerns life and the affairs of the 
world. Besides, the same advantage 
attends these, as every other sort of 
poems, that we turn from them to 
prose with so much the more plea- 
sure, after having experienced the dif- 
ficulty of being constrained and fet- 
tered by numbers. And now, perhaps, 
I have troubled you upon this subject 
longer than you desired ; however, there 
is one thing which I have omitted, I 
have not told you what kind of authors 
you shoidd read, though indeed that 
was sufficiently implied when I men- 
tioned what subjects I would recom- 
mend for your compositions. You will 



74 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book L 



remember, that the most approved 
writers of each sort are to be carefully 
chosen ; for, as it has been well observed, 
" thoug-h we should read much, we 
should not read many books*." Who 
those authors are is so clearly settled, 
and so generally knov/n, that I need not 
point them out to you : besides, I have 
already extended this letter to such an 
immoderate length, that I have inter- 
rupted, I fear, too long those studies I 
have been recommending. I will here 
resign you therefore to your papers, 
which you will now resume : and either 
pursue the studies you were before en- 
gaged in, or enter upon some of those 
Avhich I have advised. Farewell. 

LETTER LVL 

To Prisons. 

I AM deeply affected at the ill state of 
health of my friend Fannia, which she 
contracted during her attendance on 
Junia, one of the Vestal virgins. She 
engaged in this good office at first vo- 
luntarily, Junia being her relation ; as 
she was afterwards appointed to do it 
by an order from the college of priests : 
for these virgins, when any indisposition 
makes it necessary to remove them from 
the temple of Vesta, are always delivered 

* Thus the noble and polite moralist, speak- 
ing of the influence which our reading has upon 
our taste and manners, thinks it improper "to 
call a man well read, who reads many authors; 
since he must of necessity have more ill models 
than good ; and be more stuffed with bombast, 
ill fancy, and wry thought, than filled with solid 
sense and just imagination." [Character, v. 1. 
142.] When the Goths overran Greece, the li- 
braries escaped their destruction, by a notion 
which some of their leaders industriously pro- 
pagated among them, that it would be more 
for theirinterest to leave those spoils untouched 
to their enemies; as being proper to enervate 
their minds, and amuse them with vain and idle 
speculations. Truth, perhaps, has been less a 
gainerby this multiplicity of books, than error : 
and it may be a question, whether the excellent 
models which have been delivered down to us 
from antiquity, together with those few which 
modern times liave produced, by any means ba- 
lance the immoderate weight which must be 
thrown into the opposite scale of writers. The 
truth is, though we may be learned by other 
men's reflections, wise we can only be by our 
own : and the maxim here recommended by 
Pliny would well deserve the attention of the 
studious, though no other inconvenience at- 
tended the reading of many books, than that 
which Sir William Temple apprehends from it; 
the lessening the force and growth of a man's 
own genius. 



to the care and custody of some venera- 
ble matron. It was her assiduity in the 
execution of this charge that occasioned 
her present disorder, which is a continual 
fever, attended with a cough that in- 
creases daily. She is extremely emaci- 
ated, and seems in a total decay of every 
thing but spirits ; those indeed she pre- 
serves in their full vigour ; and in a 
manner worthy the wife of Helvidius, 
and the daughter of Thrasea. In all 
the rest she is so greatly impaired, that 
I am more than apprehensive upon her 
account ; I am deeply afflicted. I grieve, 
my friend, that so excellent a woman is 
going to be removed from the eyes of 
the world, which will never, perhaps, 
again behold her equal. How consum- 
mate is her virtue, her piety, her wisdom, 
her courage ! She twice followed her 
husband into exile, and once was ba- 
nished herself upon his account. For 
Senecio, when he was tried for writing 
the life of Helvidius, having said in his 
defence that he composed that work at 
the request of Fannia ; Metius Carus, 
with a stern and threatening air, asked 
her whether it was true ? She acknow- 
ledged it was : and when her father 
questioned her, whether she supplied 
him likewise with materials for that 
purpose, and whether her mother was 
privy to that transaction? she boldly 
confessed the former, but absolutely de- 
nied the latter. In short, throughout 
her whole examination not a word es- 
caped her that betrayed the least emotion 
of fear. On the contrary, she had the 
courage to preserve a copy of those very 
books, which the senate, overawed by 
the tyranny of the times, had ordered to 
be suppressed, and at the same time the 
effects of the author to be confiscated ; 
and took with her as the companions of 
her exile, what had been the cause of it. 
How pleasing is her conversation, how 
polite her address, and (which' seldom 
unites in the same character) how vene- 
rable is she as well as amiable ! She will 
hereafter, I am well persuaded, be point- 
ed out as a model to all wives ; and per- 
haps be esteemed worthy to be set forth 
as an example of fortitude even to our 
sex ; since, while yet we have the plea- 
sure of seeing and conversing with her, 
we contemplate her with the same ad- 
miration as those heroines who are cele- 
brated in ancient history. For myself, 
I confess I cannot but tremble for this 



Sect. II. 



PLINY. 



75 



illustrious house, which seems shaken to 
its very foundations, and ready to fall 
into ruins with her : for though she will 
leave descendants behind her, yet what a 
height of virtue must they attain, what 
glorious actions must they perform, ere 
the world will be persuaded that this ex- 
cellent woman was not the last of her 
family ! It is an aggravating circum- 
stance of affliction to me, that by her 
death I seem to lose a second time her 
mother ; that wiorthy mother (and what 
can I say higher in her praise ?) of so 
amiable a person ! who, as she was re- 
stored to me in her daughter, so she will 
now again be taken from me, and the 
loss of Fannia will thus pierce my heart 
at once with a fresh stab, and at the same 
time tear open a former wound. I loved 
and honoured them both so highly, that 
I knew not which had the greatest share 
of my esteem and affection ; a point they 
desired might ever remain undetermined. 
In their prosperity and their adversity I 
did them every good office in my power, 
and was their comforter in exile, as well 
as their avenger at their return. But I 
have not yet paid them what I owe, and 
am so much the more solicitous for the 
recovery of this lady, that I may have 
time to acquit what is due from me to 
her. Such is the anxiety under which I 
write this letter ! But if some friendly 
power should happily give me occasion 
to exchange it for sentiments of joy, I 
shall not complain of the alarms I now 
suffer. Farewell. 

LETTER LVII. 

To Rufus, 

What numbers of learned men does 
modesty conceal, or love of ease with- 
draw from the notice of the world ! and 
yet when we are going to speak or recite 
in public, it is the judgment only of os- 
tentatious talents which we stand in awe 
of : whereas in truth, those who silently 
cultivate the sciences have so much a 
higher claim to regard, as they pay a 
calm veneration to whatever is great in 
works of genius : an observation which 
I give you upon experience. Terentius 
Junior, having passed through the mili- 
tary offices suitable to a person of 
equestrian rank, and executed with 
great integrity the post of receiver- 
general of the revenues in Narbonensian 



Gaul*, retired to his estate, preferring 
the enjoyment of an uninterrupted tran- 
quillity, to those honours which his ser- 
vices had merited. He invited me lately 
to his house, where, looking upon him 
only as a worthy master of a family, and 
an industrious farmer, I started such 
topics of conversation in which I ima- 
gined he was most versed. But he 
soon turned the discourse, and with a 
great fund of knowledge entered upon 
points of literature. With what ele- 
gance did he express himself in Latin 
and Greek ; for he is so perfectly well 
skilled in both, that whichever he uses, 
seems to be the language v/herein he 
particularly excels. How extensive is 
his reading ! how tenacious his memory ! 
You would not imagine him the inha- 
bitant of a country village, but of polite 
Athens herself. In short, his conversa- 
tion has increased my solicitude con- 
cerning my works, and taught me to 
fear the judgment of those refined 
country gentlemen, as much as of those 
of more known a;nd conspicuous learn- 
ing. And let' me persuade you to con- 
sider them in the same light : for, be- 
lieve me, upon a careful observation, you 
will often find in the literary as well as 
military world, most formidable abilities 
concealed under a very unpromising 
appearance. Farewell. 

LETTER LVIII. 

To Maximus. 

The lingering disorder of a friend of 
mine gave me occasion lately to reflect 
that we are never so virtuous as when 
oppressed with sickness. Where is the 
man who under the pain of any distem- 
per is either solicited by avarice or in- 
flamed with lust ? At such a season he 
is neither a slave of love, nor the fool 
of ambition : he looks with indifference 
upon the charms of wealth, and is con- 
tented with ever so small a portion of 
it, as being upon the point of leaving 
even that little. It is then he recollects 
there are gods, and that he himself is 
but a man : no mortal is then the object 
of his envy, his admiration, or his con- 

* One of the four principal divisions of an- 
cient Gaul ; it extended from the Pyrena?an 
mountain?, which separate France from Spain, 
to the Alps, which divide it from Italy, and 
comprehended Langucdoc, Provence, Dau- 
l)iiiny, and Savoy. 



76 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book I. 



tempt : and the reports of slander nei- 
ther raise his attention nor feed his 
curiosity : his imagination is wholly 
employed upon baths and fountains*. 
These are the subjects of his cares and 
wishes, while he resolves, if he should 
recover, to pass the remainder of his 
days in ease and tranquillity, that is, in 
innocence and happiness. I may there- 
fore lay down to you and myself a short 
rule, wliicli the philosophers have endea- 
voured to inculcate at the expense of 
many words, and even many volumes ; 
that " we should practise in health 
those resolutions we form in sickness." 
Farewell. 



LETTER LIX. 

To Genitor. 

1 AM extremely concerned that you have 
lost your pupil, a youth, as your letter 
assures me, of such great hopes. Can I 
want to be informed, that his sickness 
and death must have interrupted your 
studies, knowing, as I do, with what ex- 
actness you fill up every duty of life, and 
how unlimited your affection is to all 
those to whom you give your esteem? 
As for myself, business pursues me even 
hither, and I am not out of the reach of 
people who oblige me to act either as 
their judge or their arbitrator. To this 
I must add, not only the continual com- 
plaints of the farmers, who claim a sort 
of prescription to try my patience as 
they please ; but the necessity of letting 
out my farms : an affair which gives me 
much trouble, as it is exceedingly diffi- 
cult to find out proper tenants. For 
these reasons I can only study by 
snatches ; still, however, I study. I 
sometimes read, and sometimes I com- 
pose ; but my reading teaches me, by a 
very mortifying comparison, with what 
ill success I attempt to be an author 
myself. Though indeed you give me 
great encouragement, when you com- 
pare the piece I wrote in vindication of 
Helvidius, to the oration of Demos- 
thenes against Midias. I confess I had 
that harangue in my view when I com- 
posed mine ; not that I pretend to rival 
it (that would be an absurd and mad at- 

* It is probable that fevers were the peculiar 
distemper of Rome, as Pliny, in his general al- 
lusions to disorders of the l)ody, seems always 
to consider them of the inflammatory kind. 



tempt indeed), but I endeavoured, I 
own, to imitate it, as far as the differ- 
ence of our subjects would admit, and 
as nearly as a genius of the lowest 
rank can copy one of the highest. 
Farewell. 

LETTER LX. 

To Geminius. 

Our friend Macrinus is pierced with 
the severest affliction. He has lost his 
wife ! a lady whose uncommon virtues 
would have rendered her an ornament 
even to ancient times. He lived with 
her thirty-nine years in the most unin- 
terrupted harmony. How respectful 
was her behaviour to him ! and how did 
she herself deserve the highest venera- 
tion, as she blended and united in her 
character all those amiable virtues that 
adorn and distinguish the different 
periods of female life ! It should, me- 
thinks, afford great consolation to Ma- 
crinus, that he has thus long enjoyed so 
exquisite a blessing ; but that reflection 
seems only so much the more to im- 
bitter his loss ; as indeed the pain of 
parting with our happines still rises in 
proportion to the length of its continu- 
ance. I cannot therefore but be greatly 
anxious for so valuable a friend, till 
this wound to his peace shall be in a 
condition to admit of proper applica- 
tions. Time, however, together with 
the necessity of the thing, and even a 
satiety of grief itself, will best effect his 
cure. Farewell. 



LETTER LXI. 

To Romanus. 

Have you ever seen the source of the 
river Clitumnus f ? as I never heard you 
mention it, I imagine not ; let me 
therefore advise you to do so imme- 
diately. It is but lately indeed I had 
that pleasure, and I condemn myself 
for not having seen it sooner. At the 
foot of a little hill, covered with vene- 
rable and shady cypress-trees, a spring 

f Now called Clitumno: it rises a little be- 
low the village of Campello in Ombria. The 
inhabitants near this river still retain a notion 
that its waters are attended with a supernatural 
property, imagining it makes the cattle white 
that drink of it : a quality for which it is like- 
v/ise celebrated by many of the Latin poets. 
See Addison's Travels. 



Sect. II. 



PLINY 



77 



issues out, which, gushing in different 
and unequal streams, forms itself, after 
several windings, into a spacious bason, 
so extremely clear that you may see the 
pebbles and the little pieces of money 
which are thrown into it*, as they lie 
at the bottom. From thence it is carried 
off not so much by the declivity of the 
ground, as by its own strength and 
fulness. It is navigable almost as soon 
as it has quitted its source, and wide 
enough to admit a free passage for 
vessels to pass by each other, as they sail 
with or against the stream. The cur- 
rent runs so strong, though the ground 
is level, that the large barges which go 
down the river have no occasion to 
make use of their oars ; while those 
which ascend find it difficult to advance, 
^ven with the assistance of oars and 
poles ; and this vicissitude of labour and 
ease is exceedingly amusing when one 
sails up and down merely for pleasure. 
Tlie banks on each side are shaded with 
the verdure of great numbers of ash 
and poplar trees, as clearly and distinct- 
ly seen in the stream, as if they were ac- 
tually sunk in it. The water is cold as 
snow, and as white too. Near it stands 
an ancient and venerable temple, where- 
in is placed the river-god Clitumnus, 
clothed in a robe, whose immediate pre- 
sence the prophetic oracles here deliver- 
ed sufficiently testify. Severval little cha- 
pels are scattered round, dedicated to 
particular gods, distinguished by diffe- 
rent names, and some of them too pre- 
siding over different fountains. For, 
besides the principal one, which is as it 
were the parent of all the rest, there are 
several other lesser streams, which, tak- 
ing their rise from various sources, lose 
themselves in the river : over v/hich a 
bridge is built, that separates the sacred 

* The heads of considerable rivers, hot 
springs, large bodies of standing water, &e. 
were esteemed holy among the Romans, and 
cultivated with religious ceremonies. " Mag- 
norum fluminum," says Seneca, " capita re- 
veremur; subita et ex abdito vasti amnis 
eruptio aras habet^ coluntur aquaram calen- 
tium fontes, et stagna quaedara, vel opacitas, 
vel immensa altitude sacravit." Ep. 41. It 
was customary to throw little pieces of money 
into those fountains, lakes, &c., which had the 
reputation of being sacred, as a mark of vene- 
ration for those places, and to render the pre- 
siding deities propitious. Suetonius mentions 
this practice in the annual vows which he says 
the Roman people made for the health of 
Augustus. 



part from that which lies open to com- 
mon use. Vessels are allowed to come 
above this bridge, but no person is per- 
mitted to swim except below itf. The 
Hispalletes|, to whom Augustus gave 
this place, furnish a public bath, and 
likewise entertain ail strangers at their 
own expense. Several villas, attracted 
by the beauty of this river, are situated 
upon its borders. In short, every object 
that presents itself will afford you en- 
tertainment. You may also amuse 
yourself with numberless inscriptions, 
that are fixed upon the pillars and walls 
by different persons, celebrating the 
virtues of the fountain, and the divinity 
that presides over it. There are many 
of them you will greatly admire, as 
there are some that will make you 
laugh ; but I must correct myself 
when I say so : you are too humane, I 
know, to laugh upon such an occasion. 
Farewell. 

LETTER LXII. 

To Ursus. 

It is long since I have taken either a 
book or pen in my hand. It is long 
since I have known the sweets of leisure 
and repose ; since I have known, in 
short, that indolent but agreeable situa- 
tion of doing nothing, and being no- 
thing ; so much have the affairs of my 
friends engaged me, and prevented me 
from enjoying the pleasures of retire- 
ment and contemplation. There is no 
sort of studies, however, of consequence 
enough to supersede the duty of friend- 
ship : on the contrary, it is a sacred tie 
which they themselves teach us most 
religiously to preserve. Farewell. 

LETTER LXIII. 

To Fabatus^. 

Your concern to hear of my wife's 
miscarriage will be equal, I know, to 
the earnest desire you have that we 
should make you a great-grandfather. 
The inexperience of her youth rendered 
her ignorant that she was breeding ; so 
that she not only neglected the proper 
precautions, but managed herself in a 

f The touch of a naked body was thought to 
pollute these consecrated waters, as appears 
from a passage in Tacitus, 1. 14. an. c. '22. 

X Inhabitants of a town in Ombria, now 
called Spello. 

§ His wife's grandfather. 



IS 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book L 



way extremely unsuitable to a person in 
her circumstances. But she has severely 
atoned for her mistake by the utmost 
hazard of her life. Though you should 
(as most certainly you will) be afflicted 
to see yourself thus disappointed in your 
old age, of the immediate hopes of leav- 
ing- a family behind you ; yet it deserves 
your gratitude to the gods, that in the 
preservation of your grand -daughter, 
you have still reason to expect that bless- 
ing ; an expectation so much the more 
certain, as she has given this proof, 
though an unhappy one indeed, of her be- 
ing capable of bearing children. These, 
at least, are the reflections by which I 
endeavour to confirm my own hopes, 
and comfort myself under my present 
disappointment. You cannot more ar- 
dently wish to have great-grandchildren 
than I do to have children, as the dignity 
of both our families seems to open to 
them a sure road to honours, and we 
shall leave them the glory of descending 
from a long race of ancestors, whose 
fame is as extensive as their nobility is 
ancient. May we but Lave the pleasure 
of seeing them born, it will make us 
amends for the present disappointment. 
Farewell. 



LETTER LXIV. 

To Hispulla''^ . 

When I consider that you love your 
niece even more tenderly than if she 
were your own daughter, I ought in the 
first place to inform you of her recovery 
before I tell you she has been ill ; that 
the sentiments of joy at the one may 
leave you no leisure to be afilicted at 
the other ; though I fear indeed, after 
your first transports of gratulation are 
over, you will feel some concern, and in 
the midst of your joy for the danger she 
has escaped, will tremble at the thought 
of that which she has undergone. She 
is now, however, in good spirits, and 
again restored to herself and to me, as 
she is making the same progress in the 
recovery of her strength and health that 
she did in the loss of them. To say the 
truth (and I may now safely tell it you), 
she was in the utmost hazard of her life ; 
not indeed from any fault of her own, but 
a little from the inexperience of her 

■•*'• fJis wife's aunt. 



youth. To this must be imputed the 
cause of her miscarriage, and the sad 
experience she has had of the conse- 
quence of not knowing she was breed- 
ing. But though this misfortune has 
deprived you of the consolation of a 
nephew, or neice, to supply the loss of 
your brother ; you must remember that 
blessing seems rather to be deferred 
than denied, since her life is preserved 
from whom that happiness is to be ex- 
pected. I entreat you then to repre- 
sent this accident to your father f 
in the most favourable light : as your 
sex are the best advocates in cases of 
this kind. Farewell. 

LETTER LXV. 

To Minutianus. 
I BEG you would excuse me this one 
day : Titinius Capito is to recite a per- 
formance of his, and I know not whether 
it is most my inclination or my duty to 
attend him. He is a man of a most 
amiable disposition, and justly to be num- 
bered among the brightest ornaments of 
our age : he studiously cultivates the po- 
lite arts himself, and generously admires 
and encourages them in others. To se- 
veral who have distinguished themselves 
by their compositions, he has been the 
defence, the refuge, and the reward ; as 
he affords a glorious model and example 
to all in general. In a word, he is the 
restorer and reformer of learning, now, 
alas ! well nigh grown obsolete and de- 
cayed. His house is open to every man 
of genius who has any works to rehearse ; 
and it is not there alone that he attends 
these assemblies with the most obliging 
good-nature. I am sure, at least,' he 
never once excused himself from mine, 
if he happened to be at Rome. I should 
therefore with a more than ordinary jll 
grace refuse to return him the same fa- 
vour, as the occasion of doing it is pe- 
culiarly glorious. Should not I think 
myself obliged to a man, who, if I were 
engaged in any law-suit, generously at- 
tended the cause in which I was interest- 
ed? And am I less indebted, now that 
my whole care and business is of the 
literary kind, for his assiduity in my con- 
cerns of this sort? A point which, if not 
the only, is however the principal in- 



f Fabatns, grandfathci 
Pliny's wife. 



to Calphurnia, 



Sect. II, 



PLINY. 



79 



stance wherein I can be obliged. But 
though I owed him no return of this 
nature ; though I were not engaged to 
him by the reciprocal tie of the same 
good offices he has done me ; yet not 
only the beauty of his extensive genius, 
as polite as it is severely correct, but 
the dignity of his subject would strongly 
incite me to be of his audience. He 
has written an account of the deaths of 
several illustrious persons, some of 
which were my particular friends. It 
is a pious office then, it should seem, as 
I could not be present at their obse- 
quies, to attend, at least, this (as I may 
call it) their funeral oration ; which, 
though a late, is, however, for that rea- 
son, a more unsuspected tribute to their 
memories. Farewell. 



LETTER LXVI. 

To Sabinicmus. 

Your freed-man, whom you lately men- 
tioned to me with displeasure, has been 
with me, and threw himself at my feet 
with as much submission as he could 
have done at yours. He earnestly re- 
quested me with many tears, and even 
with all the eloquence of silent sorrow, 
to intercede for him ; in short, he con- 
vinced me by his whole behaviour, that 
he sincerely repents of his fault. And I 
am persuaded he is thoroughly reform- 
ed, because he seems entirely sensible 
of his guilt. I know you are angry 
with him, and I know too it is not 
without reason ; but clemency can never 
exert itself with more applause, than 
when there is the justest cause for re- 
sentment. You once had an affection 
for this man, and, I hope, will have 
again : in the mean while, let me only 
prevail with you to pardon him. If he 
should incur your displeasure hereafter, 
you will have so much the stronger plea 
in excuse for your anger, as you shew 
yourself more exorable to him now. 
Allow something to his youth, to his 
tears, and to your own natural mildness 
of temper : do not make him uneasy any 
longer, and I will add too, do not make 
yourself so : for a man of your benevo- 
lence of heart cannot be angry without 
feeling great regret. I am afraid, Avere 
I to join my intreaties with his, I should 
seem rather to compel, than request you 
to forgive him. Yet I will not scruple 



to do it : and in so much the stronger 
terms, as I have very sharply and se- 
verely reproved him, positively threat- 
ening never to interpose again in his 
behalf. But though it was proper to 
say this to him, in order to make him 
more fearful of offending, I do not say so 
to you. I may, perhaps, again have oc- 
casion to intreat you upon his account, 
and again obtain your forgiveness ; 
supposing, I mean, his error should be 
such as may become me to intercede 
for, and you to pardon. Farewell. 

LETTER LXVII. 

To the same. 

I GREATLY approve of your having, in 
compliance with my letter, received 
again into your family and favour, a 
freed-man, whom you once admitted 
into a share of your affection. It will 
afford you, I doubt not, great satisfac- 
tion. It certainly, at least, has me, 
both as it is a proof that you are capa- 
ble of being governed in your passion, 
and as it is an instance of your paying 
so much regard to me, as either to yield 
to my authority, or to comply with my 
request. You will accept, therefore, 
at once, both of my applause and my 
thanks. At the same ti^iie I must ad- 
vise you to be disposed for the future 
to pardon the errors of your people, 
though there should be none to inter- 
pose in their behalf. Farewell. 

LETTER LXVIII. 

To Fuscus. 

You desire to know in what manner I 
dispose of my time in my summer viUa 
at Tuscum. I rise just when I find 
myself in the humour, though generally 
with the sun ; sometimes indeed sooner, 
but seldom later. When 1 am up, I 
continue to keep the shutters of my 
chamber-windov/s closed, as darkness 
and silence wonderfully promote me- 
ditation. Thus free and abstracted 
from those outward objects which dissi- 
pate attention, I am left to my own 
thoughts ; nor suffer my mind to wan- 
der with my eyes, but keep my eyes 
in subjection to my mind, which, when 
they are not distracted by a multiplicity 
of external objects, see nothing but what 
the imagination represents to them. 



80 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book L 



If I have any composition upon my 
hands, this is the time I choose to con- 
sider it, not only with respect to the 
general plan, but even the style and ex- 
pression, which I settle and correct as 
if I were actually writing. In this man- 
ner I compose more or less as the sub- 
ject is more or less difficult, and I find 
myself able to retain it. Then I call 
my secretary, and, opening the shutters, 
I dictate to him what I have composed, 
after which I dismiss him for a little 
while, and then call him in again. 
About ten or eleven of the clock (for I 
do not observe one fixed hour), accord- 
ing as the weather proves, I either walk 
upon my terrace, or in the covered por- 
tico, and there I continue to meditate 
or dictate what remains upon the sub- 
ject in which I am engaged. From 
thence I get into my chariot, where I 
employ myself as before, vdien I was 
walking or in my study ; and find this 
changing of the scene preserves and 
enlivens my attention. At my return 
home, I repose myself; then I take a 
walk ; and after that, x'epeat aloud some 
Greek or Latin oration, not so much 
for the sake of strengthening my elo- 
cution, as my digestion ; though indeed 
the voice at the same time finds its ac- 
count in this practice. Then I walk 
again, am anointed, take my exercises, 
and go into the bath. At supper, if I 
have only my wife or a few friends with 
me, some author is read to us ; and after 
supper we are entertained either with 
music or an interlude. When that is 
finished, I take my walk with my family, 
in the number of which I am not with- 
out some persons of literature. Thus 
we pass our evenings in various conver- 
sation ; and the day, even when it is at 
the longest, steals away imperceptibly. 
Upon some occasions, I change the 
order in certain of the articles above- 
mentioned. For instance, if I have 



studied longer or walked more than 
usual, after my second sleep and read- 
ing an oration or two aloud, instead of 
using my chariot I get on horseback ; 
by which means I take as much exercise 
and lose less time. The visits of my 
friends from the neighbouring villages 
claim some part of the day ; and some- 
times, by an agreeable interruption, 
they come in very seasonably to relieve 
me when I am fatigued. I now and 
then amuse myself with sporting, but 
always take my tablets into the field, 
that though I shoidd not meet with 
game, I may at least bring home some- 
thing. Part of my time too (though 
not so much as they desire) is allotted 
to my tenants ; and I find their rustic 
complaints give a zest to my studies and 
engagements of the politer kind. Fare- 
well. 

LETTER LXIX. 

To the same. 

You are much pleased, I find, with the 
account I gave you in my former letter, 
of the manner in v.^hicli I spend the 
summer season at Tuscum ; and desire 
to know what alteration I make in my 
method, when I am at Laurentinum in 
the winter. None at all, except abridg- 
ing myself of my sleep at noon, and em- 
ploying part of the night in study : and 
if any cause requires my attendance at 
Rome (which in winter very frequently 
happens), instead of having interludes 
or music after supper, I meditate upon 
what I have dictated, and by often re- 
vising it in my own mind, fix it in my 
memory. Thus I have given you my 
scheme of life in summer and winter ; 
to which you may add the intermediate 
seasons of spring and autumn. As at 
those times I lose nothing of the day, so 
I study but little in the night. Farewell. 



BOOK THE SECOND. 

MODERN AND MISCELLANEOUS, 

OF EARLY DATE. 



SECTION I. 



LETTER I. 



Mueen Anne Bullen to King Henry, 

Sir, 
Your grace's displeasure and my im- 
prisonment are tilings so strange unto 
me, as what to write, or what to excuse, 
I am altogether ignorant. Wliereas you 
send unto me (willing me to confess a 
truth, and so obtain your favour) by such 
an one whom you know to be mine an- 
cient professed enemy, I no sooner re- 
ceived this message by him, than I 
rightly conceived your meaning ; and if, 
as you say, confessing a truth, indeed, 
may procure my safety, I shall, with all 
willingness and duty, perform your com- 
mand. 

But let not your gi'ace ever imagine, 
that your poor wife will ever be brought 
to acknowledge a fault, where not so 
much as a thought thereof preceded. 
And, to speak a truth, never prince had 
wife more loyal in all duty, and in all 
true affection, than you have ever found 
in Anne Bullen ; with which name and 
place I could willingly have contented 
myself, if God and your grace's pleasure 
had been so pleased. Neither did I at 
any time so far forget myself in my ex- 
altation, or received queenship, but that 
I always looked for such an alteration as 
now I find ; for the ground of my pre- 
ferment being on no surer foundation 
ton your grace's fancy, the least alter- 



ation, I know, was fit and sufficient to 
draw that fancy to some other subject. 
You have chosen me from a low estate to 
be your queen and companion, far be- 
yond my desert and desire. If then you 
found me worthy of such honour, good 
your grace let not any light fancy, or 
bad counsel of mine enemies, withdraw 
your princely favour from me ; neither 
let that stain, that unworthy stain, of a 
disloyal heart towards your good grace, 
ever cast so foul a blot on your most du- 
tiful wife, and the infant princess, your 
daughter. Try me, good king, but let 
me have a lawful trial ; and let not my 
sworn enemies sit as my accusers and 
judges ; yea, let me receive an open trial 
(for my truth shall fear no open shame) ; 
then shall you see either mine innocence 
cleared, your suspicion and conscience 
satisfied, the ignominy and slander of 
the world stopped, or my guilt openly 
declared. So that whatsoever God or 
you may determine of me, your grace 
may be freed from an open censure, and 
mine offence being so lawfully proved, 
your grace is at liberty, both before God 
and man, not only to execute worthy 
punishment on me, as an unlawful wife, 
but to follow yoiu* affection, already 
settled on that party, for whose sake I 
am now as I am, whose name I could 
some good while since have pointed unto 
your grace, being not ignorant of my 
suspicion therein. But if you have al- 
ready determined of me, and that not 
only my death, but an infamous slander 
G 



82 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book II. 



must bring you the enjoying of your de- 
sired happiness, then I desire of God 
that he will pardon your great sin there- 
in, and likewise mine enemies the in- 
struments thereof : and that he will not 
call you to a strict account for your un- 
princely and cruel usage of me, at his 
general judgment-seat, where both you 
and myself must shortly appear, and in 
whose judgment, I doubt not (what- 
soever the world may think of me), 
mine innocence shall be openly known 
and sufficiently cleared. My last and 
oidy request shall be, that myself may 
only bear the burthen of your grace's 
displeasure, and that it may not touch 
the innocent souls of those poor gentle- 
men, who, as I understand, are likewise 
in strait imprisonment for my sake. If 
ever I found favour in your sight, if ever 
the name of Anne Bullen hath been 
pleasing in your ears, then let me obtain 
this request ; and I will so leave to 
trouble your grace any farther, with my 
earnest prayers to the Trinity to have 
your grace in his good keeping, and to 
direct you in all your actions. From my 
doleful prison in the Tower, the 6th of 
May. Your most loyal and ever faithful 
wife. 

LETTER II. 

A Letter from Lady More to Mr. Secre- 
tary Cromwell. 

Right honourable and my especial good 
master secretary : in my most humble 
wise I recommend me unto your good 
mastership, acknowledging myself to be 
most deeply bound to your good master- 
ship for your manifold goodness and 
loving favour, both before this time and 
yet daily, now also shewn towards my 
poor husband and me. I pray Almighty 
God continue your goodness so still, 
for thereupon hangeth the greatest part 
of ray poor husband's comfort and mine. 
The cause of my writing at this time is 
to certify your especial good mastership 
of my great and extreme necessity ; 
which, on and besides the charge of 
mine own house, do pay weekly fifteen 
shillings for the board wages of my poor 
husband and his servant ; for the main- 
taining whereof I have been compelled, 
of very necessity, to sell part of my ap- 
parel, for lack of other substance to 
make money of. Wherefore my most 



humble petition and suit to your mas- 
tership at this time is, to desire your 
mastership's favourable advice and coun- 
sel, whether I may be so bold to attend 
upon the king's most gracious highness. 
I trust there is no doubt in the cause of 
my impediment ; for the young man 
being a ploughman, had been diseased 
with the ague by the space of three 
years before that he departed. And 
besides this, it is now five weeks since 
he departed, and no other person dis- 
eased in the house since that time ; 
wherefore I most humbly beseech your 
especial good mastership (as my only 
trust is, and else know not what to do, 
but utterly in this world to be undone) 
for the love of God to consider the pre- 
mises, and thereupon, of your most 
abundant goodness, to shew your most I 
favourable help to the comforting of my ■ 
poor husband and me, in this our great 
heaviness, extreme age, and necessity. 
And thus we and all ours shall daily, 
during our lives, pray to God for the 
prosperous success of your right honour- 
able dignity. By your poor continual 
oratrix. 

LETTER III. 

Lady Stafford to Mr. Secretary Crom- 
well. 



Master secretary, after my poor re- 
commendations, which are little to be 
regarded of me that am a poor banished 
creature, this shall be to desire you to 
be good to my poor husband and to me. 
I am sure it is not unknown to you the 
high displeasure that both he and I 
have both of the king's highness and the 
queen's grace, by the reason of our mar- 
riage without their knowledge, wherein 
we both do yield ourselves faulty, and 
do acknowledge that we did not well 
to be so hasty or so bold without their 
knowledge. But one thing, good master 
secretary, consider, that he was young, 
and love overcame reason ; and for my 
part, I saw so much honesty in him 
that I loved him as well as he did me, 
and was in bondage, and glad I was to 
be at liberty : so that for my part, I 
saw that all the world did set so little 
by me, and he so much, that I thought 
I could take no better way but to take 
him and to forsake ail other ways, and 
live a poor honest life with him ; and 



Sect, 1. 



MODERN, OF EARLY DATE. 



83 



so I do put no doubts but v^e should, if 
■we might once be so happy to recover the 
king's gracious favour and the queen's. 
For well I riiight liave had a greater 
man of birth, and a higher ; but I as- 
sure you I could never have had one 
that should have loved me so well, nor a 
more honest man. And besides that, he 
is both come of an ancient stock, and 
again as meet (if it was his grace's plea- 
sure) to do the king service as any 
young gentleman in his court. There- 
fore, good master secretary, this shall be 
my suit to you, that for the love that 
well I know you do bear to all my blood, 
though for my part I have not deserved 
it but little, by the reason of my vile con- 
ditions, as to put my husband to the 
king's grace, that he may do his duty 
as all other gentlemen do. And, good 
master secretary, sue for us to the king's 
highness, and beseech his highness, 
which ever was wont to take pity, to 
have pity on us : and that it would 
please his grace of his goodness, to 
speak to the queen's grace for us ; for 
as far as I can perceive, her grace is so 
highly displeased with us both, that 
without the king be so good lord to us 
as to withdraw his rigour and sue for 
us, we are never like to recover her 
grace's favour, which is too heavy to 
bear. And seeing there is no remedy, 
for God's sake help us, for we have been 
now a quarter of a year married, I thank 
God, and too late now to call that again ; 
wherefore there is the more need to help. 
But if I were at my liberty, and might 
choose, I assure you, master secretary, 
for my little time, 1 have tried so much 
honesty to be in him, that I would rather 
beg my bread with him than to be the 
greatest queen christened ; and 1 believe 
verily he is in the same case with me, 
for I believe verily he would not forsake 
me to be a king; therefore, good master 
secretary, being we are so well together, 
and do intend to live so honest a life, 
though it be but poor, shew part of your 
goodness to us, as well as you do to all 
the world besides ; for I promise you ye 
have the name to help all them that have 
need ; and amongst all your suitors, I 
dare be bold to say that you have no 
matter more to be pitied than ours ; and 
therefore for God's sake be good to us, 
for in you is all our trust ; and I be- 
seech you, good master secretary, pray 
my lord my father, and my lady, to be 



good to us, and to let me have their 
blessings, and my husband their good 
will, and 1 will never desire more of 
them. Also I pray you desire my lord 
of Norfolk, and my lord my brother to 
be good to us ; I dare not write to them, 
they are so cruel against us ; but if with 
any pain that I could take with my life, 
I might win their good wills, I promise 
you there is no child living would ven- 
ture more than I ; and so I pray you to 
report by me, and you shall find my 
writing true ; and in all points which I 
may please them in, I shall be ready to 
obey them nearest my husband, whom. I 
am most bound to, to whom I most hear- 
tily beseech you to be good unto, which 
for my sake is a poor banished man, for 
an honest and a godly cause ; and being 
that I have read in old books that some 
for as just causes have by kings and 
queens been pardoned by the suit of good 
folks, I trust it shall be our chance, 
through your good help, to come to the 
same, as knoweth the God who sendeth 
you health and heart's ease. Scribbled 
with her ill hand, who is your poor 
humble suitor always to command. 

LETTER IV. 

Earl of Essex to 2,ueen Elizaheth. 

From a mind delighting in sorrow, from 
spirits wasted in passion, from a heart 
torn in pieces with care, grief, and travel, 
from a man that hateth himself and all 
things that keepeth him alive, what ser- 
vice can your majesty expect, since your 
service past deserves no more than ba- 
nishment or prescription in the cursedest 
of all other countries ? Nay, nay, it is 
your rebels' pride and success that must 
give me leave to ransom my life out of 
this hateful prison of ray loathed body ; 
which if it happen so, your majesty shall 
have no cause to mislike the fashion of 
my death, since the course of my life 
could never please you. Your majesty's 
exiled servant. 

LETTER V. 

Lord Chancellor Egerton to the Earl of 

Essex. 

It is often seen, that he that stands by 
seeth more than he that playeth the 
game ; and, for the most part, every one 
in his OAvn cause standetli in his own 
lisfht, and seeth not so clearly as. he 
G 2 



84 



ELEGANT EPISTLEiS. 



Book If, 



should. Your lordship hath dealt in 
other men's causes, and in great and 
weighty affairs, with great wisdom and 
judgment ; now your own is in hand, 
you are not to contemn or refuse the 
advice of any that love you, how simple 
soever. In this order I rank myself 
amon^ others that love you, none more 
simple, and none that love you with 
more true and honest affection ; which 
shall plead my excuse if you shall either 
mistake or mistrust my words or mean- 
ing. But, in your lordship's honourable 
wisdom, I neither doubt nor suspect the 
one nor the other. I will not presume 
to advise you, but shoot my bolt and 
tell you what I think. The beginning 
and long continuance of this so unsea- 
sonable discontentment you have seen 
and proved, by which you aim at the 
end ; if you hold still this course, which 
hitherto you find to be worse and worse 
(and the longer you go the further you 
go out of the way), there is little hope 
or likelihood the end will be better : you 
are not yet gone so far but that you may 
well return : the return is safe, but the 
progress is dangerous and desperate in 
this course you hold. If you have any 
enemies, you do that for them which 
they could never do for themselves. 
Your friends you leave to scorn and con- 
tempt : you forsake yourself and over- 
throw your fortunes, and ruin your ho- 
nour and reputation : you give that com- 
fort and courage to the foreign enemies, 
as greater they cannot have ; for what 
can be more welcome and pleasing news 
than to hear that her majesty and the 
realm are maimed of so worthy a mem- 
ber, who hath so often and so valiantly 
quelled and daunted them ? You forsake 
your country when it hath most need of 
your counsel and aid ; and, lastly, you 
fail in your indissoluble duty which you 
owe unto your most gracious sovereign, 
a duty imposed upon you not by nature 
and policy only, but by the religious and 
sacred bond wherein the divine majesty 
of Almighty God hath by the rule of 
Christianity obliged you. 

For the four first, your constant reso- 
lution may perhaps move you to esteem 
them as light ; but being well Aveighed, 
they are not light, nor lightly to be re- 
garded. And for the four last, it may 
be that the clearness of your own con- 
science may seem to content yourself; 
but that is not enough ; for these duties 



stand not only in contemplation or in- 
ward meditation, and cannot be per- 
formed but by external actions, and 
where that faileth the substance also 
faileth. This being your present state 
and condition, what is to be done ? What 
is the remedy, my good lord? I lack 
judgment and wisdom to advise you, but 
I will never want an honest true heart 
to wish you well ; nor, being warranted 
by a good conscience, will fear to speak 
that I think. I have begun plainly, be 
not offended if I proceed so. Bene 
credit qui cedii tempori : and Seneca 
saith, Cedendum est fortunce. The me- 
dicine and remedy is liot to contend and 
strive, but humbly to yield and submit. 
Have you given cause, and ye take a 
scandal unto ydu? then all you can do is 
too little to make satisfaction. Is cause 
of scandal given unto you ? Yet policy, 
duty, and religion enforce you to sue, 
yield, and submit to our sovereign, be- 
tween whom and you there can be no 
equal proportion of duty, where God re- 
quires it as a principal duty and care to 
himself, and when it is evident that great 
good may ensue of it to your friends, 
yourself, your country, and your sove- 
reign, and extreme harm by the contrary. 
There can be no dishonour to yield ; but 
in denying, dishonour and impiety. The 
difficulty, my good lord, is to conquer 
yourself, vdiich is the height of true 
valour and fortitude, whereunto all your 
honourable actions have tended. Do 
it in this, and God will be pleased, her 
majesty (no doubt) well satisfied, your 
country will take good, and your friends 
comfort by it ; and yourself (I mention 
you last, for that of all these you es- 
teem yourself least) shall receive ho- 
nour ; and your enemies (if you have 
any) shall be disappointed of their bitter 
sweet hope. 

I have delivered what I think simply 
and plainly : I leave you to determine 
according to your own wisdom. If I have 
erred, it is error amor is, and not amor 
erroris. Construe and accept it, I be- 
seech you, as I meant it ; not as an ad- 
vice, but as an opinion to be allowed or 
cancelled at your pleasure. If I might 
conveniently have conferred with your- 
self in person, I would not have troubled 
you with so many idle blots. Whatso- 
ever yon judge of this my opinion, yet be 
assured my desire is to further all good 
means that may tend to your lordship's 



Sect. 1. 



MODERN, OF EARLY DATE. 



85 



good. And so wishing you all happiness 
and jionour, I cease. Your lordship's 
most ready and faithful, though unable 
poor friend. 

LETTER VL 

The EarVs Answer. 

My very good lord, thougli there is not 
that man this day living whom I would 
sooner make judge of any question that 
might concern me than yourself ; yet 
you must give me leave to tell you, that 
in some cases I must appeal from all 
eartlily judges ; and if in any, then surely 
in this, when the highest judge on earth 
hath imposed upon me the heaviest pu- 
nishment, without trial or hearing. Since 
then I must either answer your lordship's 
arguments, or else forsake mine own just 
defence, I will force mine aking head to 
do me service for an hour. I must first 
deny my discontentment (which was 
forced to he an humorous discontent) ; 
and in that it was unseasonable, or is so 
long continuing, your lordship should ra- 
ther condole with me than expostulate : 
natural seasons are expected here below, 
but violent and unseasonable storms come 
from above ; there is no tempest to the 
passionate indignation of a prince, nor 
yet at any time so unseasonable as when 
it lighteth on those that might expect an 
harvest of their careful and painful la- 
bours. He that is once wounded must 
needs feel smart till his hurt be cured, or 
the part hurt become senseless. But cure 
I expect none, her majesty's heart being 
obdurate ; and be without sense I cannot, 
being of flesh and blood. But you may 
say, I aim at the end ; I do more than 
aim, for I see an end of all my fortunes, 
I have set an end to all my desires. In 
this course do I any thing for mine ene- 
mies ? When I was present I found them 
absolute, and therefore I had rather they 
should triumph alone, than have me at- 
tendant upon their chariots. Or do I 
leave my friends ? When I was a courtier 
I could sell them no fruit of my love, and 
now that I am an hermit, they shall bear 
no envy for their love to me. Or do I 
forsake myself, because I do not enjoy 
myself? Or do I overthrow my fortunes, 
because I build not a fortune of paper 
walls, which every puff of wind bloweth 
down? Or do I ruinate mine honour, 



because i leave following' the pursuit, or 
wearing the false mark or the shadow of 
honour ? Do I give courage or comfort 
to the enemies, because I neglect myself 
to encounter them, or because I keep my 
heart from business, though I cannot keep 
my fortune from declining? No, no, I 
give every one of those considerations his 
due right, and the more 1 weigh them, 
the more I find myself justified from of- 
fending in any of them. As for the two 
last objections, that I forsake my country 
when it hath most need of me, and fail 
in that indissoluble duty which I owe to 
my sovereign ; I answer. That if my 
country had at this time any need of my 
public service, her majesty that governetli 
it v/ould not have driven me to a private 
life. I am tied to my country by tAvo 
bonds ; one public, to discharge carefully 
and industriously that trust which is com- 
mitted to me ; the other private, to sa- 
crifice for it my life and carcass, which 
hath been nourished in it. Of the first I 
am free, being dismissed by her majesty : 
of the other, nothing can free me but 
death, and therefore no occasion of per- 
formance shall sooner offer itself, but I 
will meet it half way. The indissoluble 
duty I owe unto her majesty, the service 
of an earl and of marshal of England, 
and I have been content to do her the 
service of a clerk, but I can never serve 
her as a villain or a slave. But you say 
I must give way to time. So I do ; for 
now that I see the storm come, I have 
put myself into harbour. Seneca saitli. 
We must give way to fortune : I know 
that fortune is both blind and strong, and 
therefore I go as far as I can out of the 
way. You say the remedy is not to strive : 
I neither strive nor seek for remedy. But 
you say, I must yield and submit : I can 
neither yield myself to be guilty, nor this 
my imprisonment, lately laid upon me, to 
be just : I ow^e so much to the Author of 
truth, as I can never yield truth to be 
falsehood , nor falsehood to be truth. Have 
I given cause, you ask, and yet take a 
scandal? No, I gave no cause to take up 
vso much as Fimbria his complaint : for I 
did totuin telum corpore accipere ; I pa- 
tiently bear and sensibly feel all that I 
then received when this scandal was given 
me. Nay, when the vilpst of all indig- 
nities are done unto me, doth religion en- 
force me to sue? Doth God require it? 
Is it impiety not to ^0 it ? Why ? Can- 
not princes err? Cannot subjects receive 



m 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book II. 



wrong ? Is an earthly power infinite ? 
Pardon me, pardon me, my lord, I can 
never subscribe to these principles. Let 
Solomon's fool laugh when he is stricken ; 
let those that mean to make their profit 
of princes, shew to have no sense of 
princes' injuries ; let them acknowledge 
an infinite absoluteness on earth, that do 
not believe an absolute infiniteness in 
heaven. Asforme, I have received wrong, 
I feel it ; my cause is good, I know it ; 
and whatsoever comes, all the powers on 
earth can never shew more strength or 
constancy in oppressing, than I can shew 
in suffering whatsoever can or shall be 
imposed upon me. Your lordship in the 
beginning of your letter makes me a 
player, and yourself a looker-on ; and me 
a player of my own game, so you may see 
more than I ; but give me leave to tell 
you, that since you do but see, and I do 
suffer, I must of necessity feel more than 
you. I must crave your lordship's pa- 
tience to give him that hath a crabbed 
fortune leave to use a crooked style. 
But whatsoever my style is, there is no 
heart more humble, nor more affected, 
towards your lordship, than that of your 
lordship's poor friend. 

LETTER VII. 

Sii' Henri/ Sidney to his son Philip Sid- 
ney, at school at Shrewsbury, an. 1566, 
9 Eliz. then being of the age of twelve 
years. 

I HAVE received two letters from you, 
one written in Latin, the other in French, 
which I take in good part, and will you 
to exercise that practice of learning 
often ; for that will stand you in most 
stead, in that profession of life that you 
are born to live in. And, since this is 
my first letter that ever I did write to 
you, I v/ill not, that it be all empty of 
some advices, which my natural care of 
you provoketh me to wish you to folio v/, 
as documents to you in this your tender 
age. Let your first action be, the lifting 
up of your mind to Almighty God, by 
hearty prayer, and feelingly digest the 
words you speak in prayer with con- 
tinual meditation, and thinking of him 
to whom you pray, and of the matter for 
whicli you pray. And use this as an 
ordinary, at, and at an ordinary hour. 
Whereby the time itself will put you in 



remembrance to do that which you are 
accustomed to do. In that time apply 
your study to such hours as your discreet 
master doth assign you earnestly ; and 
the time (I know) he will so limit, as 
shall be both sufficient for your learning, 
and safe for your health. And mark the 
sense and the matter of that you read, 
as well as the words. So shall you both 
enrich your tongue with words and your 
wit with matter ; and judgment will grow 
as years groweth in you. Be humble and 
obedient to your master, for unless you 
frame yourself to obey others, yea, and 
feel in yourself what obedience is, you 
shall never be able to teach others how 
to obey you. Be courteous of gesture, 
and affable to all men, with diversity of 
reverence, according to the dignity of the 
person. There is nothing that winneth 
so much with so little cost. Use mo- 
derate diet, so as, after your meat, you 
may find your wit fresher, and not duller, 
and your body more lively, and not more 
heavy. Seldom drink wine, and yet some- 
time do, lest being enforced to drink 
upon the sudden, you should find your- 
self inflamed. Use exercise of body, but 
such as is without perU of your joints or 
bones. It will increase your force, and 
enlarge your breath. Delight to be 
cleanly, as well in all parts of your body 
as in your garments. It shall make you 
grateful in each company, and otherwise 
loathsome. Give yourself to be merry, 
for you degenerate from your father, if 
you find not yourself most able in wit and 
body, to do any thing, when you be most 
merry ; but let your mirth be ever void 
of aU scurrility, and biting words to any 
man, for a wound given by a word is 
oftentimes harder to be cured, than that 
which is given with the sword. Be you 
rather a hearer and bearer away of other 
men's talk than a beginner or procurer 
of speech, otherwise you shall be counted 
to delight to hear yourself speak. If 
you hear a wise sentence, or an apt 
phrase, commit it to your memory, with 
respect of the circumstance, when you 
shall speak it. Lei never oath be heard 
to come out of your mouth, nor words 
of ribaldry : detest it in others, so shall 
custom make to yourself a law against it 
in yourself. Be modest in each assembly, 
and rather be rebuked of light fellows, 
for maiden-like shamefacedness, than of 
your sad friends for pert boldness. Think 
upon every word that you will speak^ 



I 



Sect. I. 



MODERN, OF EARLY DATE. 



87 



before you utter it, and remember how 
nature liatli rampired up (as it were) the 
tongue with teeth, lips, yea, and hair 
without the lips, and all betokening' reins, 
or bridles, for the loose use of that mem- 
ber. Above all things tell no untruth, 
no not in trifles. The custom of it is 
nauglity ; and let it not satisfy you, that, 
for a time, the hearers take it for a truth, 
for after it will be known as it is , to your 
shame ; for there cannot be a greater 
reproach to a gentleman than to be ac- 
counted a liar. Study and endeavour 
yourself to be virtuously occupied. So 
shall you make such an habit of well 
doing in you, that you shall not know 
how to do evil, though you would. Re- 
member, my son, the noble blood you 
are descended of, by your mother's side ; 
and think, that only by virtuous life and 
good action you may be an ornament to 
that illustrious family ; and otherwise, 
through vice and sloth, you shall be 
counted lahes generis, one of the greatest 
curses that can happen to man. Well 
(my little Philip), this is enough for me, 
and too much 1 fear for you. But if I 
shall find that this light meal of digestion 
nourish any thing the weak stomach of 
your young capacity, I will, as I find the 
same grow stronger, feed it with tougher 
food. Your loving father, so long as 
you live in the fear of God. 



LETTER VIIL 

Sir Henry Sidney to Robert Dudley, Earl 
of Leicester. 

My dearest lord. 
Since this gentleman, sir Nicholas Ar- 
nold, doth now repair into England to 
render account of his long and painful 
service, lest my silence might be an ar- 
gument of my condemnation of him, I 
thought good to accompany him with 
these my letters, certifying your lordship, 
by the same, that I find he hath been a 
marvellous painful man, and very diligent 
in inquiry for the queen's advantage, and 
in proceeding in the same more severe 
than I would have wished him, or would 
have been myself in semblable service ; 
but he saitli he followed his instructions. 
Doubtless the things which he did deal 
in are very dark and intricate, by reason 
of the long time passed without account ; 
and he greatly impeadied, for lack of 



an auditor, as I take it. In truth, what 
will fall out of it, I cannot say ; but I 
fear he hath written too affirmatively 
upon Birmingham's information : it is 
reported by some of his adversaries, that 
he should triumph greatly upon a letter, 
supposed to be sent him lately from your 
lordship, as though, by the same, he 
should be encouraged to proceed more 
vehemently against the earl of Sussex, 
and to make his abode longer here than 
else he would. And that he should use 
this bravery, either by shewing this let- 
ter, or by speech to me and to others. 
My lord, I believe the whole of this to 
be untrue ; and, for so much as con- 
cernetli myself, I assure your lordship is 
a stark lie ; for albeit he hath shewed me, 
as I believe, all the letters your lordship 
hath sent him, since my arrival here, and 
a good many sent before, yet in none of 
them is there any such matter contained ; 
neither yet did he to me, or to my know- 
ledge to any other, of any letter sent by 
your lordship, make any such bravery, 
or like construction, as is reported. 

My dearest lord and brother, without 
any respect of me, or any brotherlike 
love borne me by you, but even for our 
natural country's cause (whereunto, of 
late, not a little to your far spreading 
fame, you shew yourself most willingly 
to put your indefatigable and much help- 
ing hand), help to revoke me from this 
regiment, for being not credited, this 
realm will ruin under my rule, perhaps 
to my shame, but undovibtedly to Eng- 
land's harm : yea, and will under any 
man whom the queen shall send, though 
he have the force of Hercules, the mag- 
nanimity of Caesar, the diligence of Alex- 
ander, and the eloquence of TuUy ; her 
highness withdrawing her gracious coun- 
tenance. Yea if it be but thought that 
her highness hath not a resolute and un- 
removeable liking of him ; as for no tale 
she will direct him to sail by any other 
compass than his own ; his ship of re- 
giment, whosoever he be, ghall sooner 
rush on a rock, than rest in a haven. I 
write not this, as tliough I tliought go- 
vernors here could not err, and so err, as 
they should be revoked. For I know and 
confess, that any one may so err, yea, 
without any evil intent to her highness's 
crown or country, as it shall be conve- 
nient and necessary to revoke him ; but 
let it be done then with speed. Yet if it be 
but conceived, that he be insufficient to 



ELEOANT EPISTLES. 



Book IL 



govern here, I mean of the sovereign, 
or magistrates, retire him, and send a 
new man to the helm. Episcopatum 
ejus accipiat alter: so as my counsel is 
(and you shall find it the soundest) that 
the governor's continuance here, and his 
continuance there, be concurrent and 
correlative. For while her highness wiU 
employ any man here, all the counte- 
nance, all the credit, all the commenda- 
tion, yea, and most absolute trust that 
may be, is little enough. Cause once 
appearing to withdraw that opinion, 
withdraw him, too, if it be possible, even 
in that instant. Of this I would write 
more largely and more particularly, and 
to the queen's majesty, and to aU my 
lords, were it not that my many letters 
in this form already written, together 
with sundry arguments of my crazy 
credit there, did put me in hope of a 
speedy redemption fi*om this my miserable 
thraldom. A resolution of which my 
hope, my dearest lord, procure me with 
speed : I have no more, but sub umhra 
alarum tuarum protegaf me Deus. In 
haste I take my leave of youF lordship, 
wishing to the hame present, increasing, 
and immortal felicity. From Kilmain- 
ham, the 28th of June, 1566. Your 
lordship's bounden, fast, and obedient 
brother. 

P. S. I assure your lordship I do know 
that sir Nicholas Arnold hath spent, 
above all his entertainment, 500^. ster- 
ling in this realm. I mean he hath spent 
so much in this realm. 



LETTER IX. 

Tlie Right Honourable Thomas Sackvil, 
Lord Buckhurst, to Sir Henry Sidney. 

My lord, 
I TRUST your lordsbip nill pardon me, 
in that I have not (as indeed possibly I 
could not) attend to make a meeting, 
for the end of this variance betwixt your 
lordship and me ; and now being this 
day also so wrapt in business that I can- 
not by any means be a suretyer, I thought 
to write these few to your lordship, and 
therein to ascertain you, that, because 
our meeting with the master of the rolls, 
and Mr. Hensias meeting, will be so un- 
certain, that, therefore, what time so- 
ever you shall like to appoint I will come 
to the rolls, and there your lordship and 
I, as good neighbours and friends, will, 



if we can, compound the cause of our- 
selves. If we cannot, we will both pray 
the master of the rolls, as indifferent, 
as I know he is, to persuade him to the 
right, that stands in the wrong. And 
thus, I doubt not, but there shall be a 
good end to both our contentions : your 
lordship not seeking that which is not 
yours ; nor I, in any sort, meaning to 
detain from you your own. This 23d 
May, 1574. All yours to command. 

LETTER X. 

Sir Henry Sidney to Robert Dudley, Earl 
of Leicester, 

My dearest lord, 
I RECEIVED not your letter of the 25th 
of November until the 24th of this 
January, by James Prescot, who was 
seven times at tlie sea, and put back 
again, before he coidd recover this coast. 

I trust I have satisfied your lordship 
with my wi'iting, and others by my pro- 
curement, sent by Pakenham, touching 
the false and malicious bruit of the earl 
of Essex's poisoning. If not, what you 
will have more done, shall be done. I 
am sorry I hear not how you like of that 
I have done, and the more, for that I 
ajn advertised of Pagnaney's arrival there. 
I would not have doubted to have made 
Knell to have retracted his inconsiderate 
and foolish speech and writing ; but God 
hath prevented me by taking him away, 
dying of the same disease that the earl 
died, which, most certainly, was free 
from any poison, and a mere flux ; a dis- 
ease appropriated to this country, and 
whereof there died many in the latter 
part of the last year, and some out of 
mine own household ; and yet free from 
any suspicion of poison. 

And for my lord of Ormond's causes, 
I humbly beseech your lordship be my 
pawn, that I will to him justice as in- 
differently and speedily as I will to any 
man, considering the cause and necessary 
circumstances incident to the same ; but 
for love and loving offices, I will do as 
I find cause » I crave nothing at his 
hand, but that which he oweth to the 
queen, and that which her gi'eat libera- 
lity, beside natural duty, bindeth him to. 
And if he wiU have of me that I owe him 
not, as he hath had, he cannot win it by 
crossing me, as I hear lie doth in the 
court ; and as I have cause to deem be 



Sect. I 



M O D E R N, O F EARLY DATE. 



80 



doth in this country. In fine, my lord, 
I am ready to accord with him ; but, my 
most dear lord and brother, be you upon 
your keeping for him, for if Essex had 
lived, you should have found him as 
violent an enemy, as his heart, power, 
and cunning, would have served him to 
have been ; and for that their malice, I 
take God to record, I could brook no- 
thing of them both. 

Your lordship's latter written letter I 
received the same day I did the first, 
together with one from my lord of Pem- 
broke to your lordship ; by both which 
I find, to my exceeding great comfort, 
the likelihood of a marriage between his 
lordship and my daughter, which great 
honour to me, my mean lineage and kin, 
I attribute to my match in your noble 
house ; for which I acknowledge myself 
bound to honour and serve the same, to 
the uttermost of my power ; yea, so 
joyfully have I at heart, that my dear 
child's so happy an advancement as this 
is, as, in truth, I would lie a year in 
close prison rather than it should break. 
But, alas ! my dearest lord, mine ability 
answereth not my hearty desire. I am 
poor ; mine estate, as well in livelihood 
and moveable, is not unknown to your 
lordship, which wanteth much to make 
me able to equal that, which I know my 
lord of Pembroke may have. Two thou- 
sand pounds I confess I have bequeathed 
her, which your lordship knoweth 1 
might better spare her when I were 
dead, than one thousand living ; and in 
truth, my lord, I have it not, but bor- 
row it I must, and so I will : and if your 
lordship will get me leave, that I may 
feed my eyes with that joyful sight of 
their coupling, I will give her a cup 
worth five hundred pounds. Good my 
lord, bear with my poverty, for if I had 
it, little would I regard any sum of mo- 
ney, but willingly woidd give it, pro- 
testing before the Almighty God, that 
if he, and all the powers on earth, would 
give me my choice for a husband for her, 
I would choose the earl of Pembroke. I 
writ to my lord of Pembroke, which 
herewith I send your lordship ; and thus 
I end, in answering your most welcome 
and honourable letter, with my hearty 
prayer to Almighty God to perfect your 
lordship's good work, and requite you 
for the same, for I am not able. For 
myself, I am in great despair to obtain 
the fee farm of mv small leases, which 



grieveth me more for the discredit, dur- 
ing mine own time, than the lack of the 
gain to my succession, be it as God will. 
I find, by divers means, that there is 
great expectation of my wishing her ma- 
jesty's treasure appointed for the service 
of this country ; and, in truth, no man 
living would fainer nourish it than I ; 
and, in proof thereof, I will abate one 
thousand pounds of the quarterage due 
the last of March, so as L may have the 
other four thousand due, then delivered 
to the treasurer's assign, together with 
that due the last of December last ; and, 
if I can, I will abate every quarter one 
thousand pounds. The actual rebellion 
of the Clanricardines, the O'Connors, 
and O'Mores, the sums of money de- 
livered in discharge of those soldiers 
which were of my lord of Essex's regi- 
ment, and the great sums imprested in 
the beginning of my charge, well con- 
sidered ; it may and will appear a good 
offer ; and, I pray your lordship, let it 
have your favourable recommendation. 

Now, my dearest lord, I have a suit 
unto you for a necessary and honest ser- 
vant of mine, Hercules Rainsford, whose 
father, and whole lineage, are devout 
followers to your lordship and family. 
My suit is, that whereas by composition 
with James Wingfield, he is constable of 
the castle of Dublin, and therein both 
painfully and carefully serveth, that it 
would please your lordship to obtain it 
for him during his life. Truly, my lord, 
like as you should bind the poor gen- 
tleman, and all his honest friends, always 
to serve you, for your bounty done to 
him ; so shall I take it as a great mercy 
done to myself ; for truly I have found 
him a faithful aiid profitable servant, 
and beside, he hath married a good and 
old servant of my wife's. Good my lord, 
send Philip to me ; there was never father 
had more need of his son, than I have of 
him. Once again, good my lord, let me 
have him. 

For the state of this country, it may 
please you to give credit to Prescot. 

I am now, even now, deadly weary of 
writing, and therefore I end, praying to 
the Almighty to bless you with all your 
noble heart's desires. From Dundalk, 
this 4tli of February, 1576. Your most 
assured brother at commandment. 



90 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IL 



LETTER XL 

Sir Henry Sidney to Sueen Elizabeth. 

May it please your most excellent ma- 
jesty, 
To understand, that of late it hath 
pleased Almighty God to caU to his 
mercy the hishop of Ossory, and so the 
room of that see is become void, and to 
be now by your highness conferred. I 
have therefore thought it my duty, moved 
in zeal for the reformation of the coun- 
try and good of the people, humbly to 
beseech your majesty, that good care 
were had, that the church might be sup- 
plied with a fit man, and such a person as 
is acquainted with the language and man- 
ners of this country people might be 
promoted to succeed in the place ; of 
which number I humbly recommend 
unto your excellent majesty Mr. Davy 
Cleere, one that hath been long bred 
and brought up in the University of Ox- 
ford, a master of arts of good continu- 
ance, a man esteemed not meanly learned, 
besides well given in religion, and of a 
modest discreet government, and com- 
mendable conversation, being a man spe- 
cially noted unto me, by the good report 
of the lord archbishop of Dublin, for his 
sufficiency to the place, with a very 
earnest desire that (the same being the 
place of a suffragan under him) the said 
Cleere might be preferred unto it. The 
bishopric is but a mean living, yet a suf- 
ficient finding for an honest man. And 
because the sooner the place shall be 
full of an able man (such a one for his 
integrity as this man is esteemed), the 
greater fruit will thereby grow to the 
church, honour to your majesty, and no 
small hope to be conceived of good to 
the people ; whereof, as it becometh me 
(having the principal charge of this 
realm under your majesty), I have a 
special care. I write not only to your 
majesty in this case, by a report of 
others, but partly by knovv^ledge and 
experience I have had of the man my- 
self. And therefore am the more desirous 
that your majesty should graciously al- 
low of my commendation and choice, 
and give order for his admission and 
consecration, when it shall be your ma- 
jesty's pleasure to signify the same. 
And even so, with my most earnest and 
humble hearty prayer to the Almighty, 
long and happily to preserve your high- 
ness to reign over us, your majesty's 



humble and obedient subjects, to our in- 
estimable comforts, 1 humbly take my 
leave. From your majesty's castle of 
Athlone, the 4th of September, 1576. 
Your majesty's most humble, faithful, 
and obedient servant. 



LETTER XII. 

Sir Henry Sidney to Mr. Secretary Wal- 
singham, concerning the reports of the 
Earl of Essex's death. 

Sir, 
Immediately upon my return out of 
Connaught to this city, which was the 
13th of this present October, and know- 
ing of the death of the earl of Essex, 
which I did not certainly till I came 
within thirty miles of this town, and that 
his body was gone to be buried at Car- 
marthen, and hearing besides, that let- 
ters had been sent over, as well before his 
death as after, that he died of poison, 1 
thought good to examine the matter as 
far as I could learn, and certify you, to 
the end you might impart the same to the 
lords, and both satisfy them therein, 
and all others, whom it might please you 
to participate the same unto, and would 
believe the truth. For, in truth, there 
was no appearance or cause of suspicion 
that could be gathered that he died of 
poison. For the manner of his disease 
was this ; a flux took him on the Thurs- 
day at night, being the 30th of August 
last past, in his own house, where he had 
that day both supped and dined ; the day 
following he rode to the archbishop of 
Dublin's, and there supped and lodged ; 
the next morning following he rode to 
the viscount of Baltinglass, and there did 
lie one night, and from thence returned 
back to this city ; all these days he tra- 
velled hastily, fed three times a day, with- 
out finding any fault, either through in- 
flammation of his body or alteration of 
taste ; but often he would complain of 
grief in his belly, and sometimes say, that 
he had never hearty grief of mind, but 
that a flux would accompany the same. 
After he returned from this journey he 
grew from day to day sicker and sicker, 
and having an Irish physician sent to him 
by the earl of Ormond, doctor Trevor, 
an Oxford man, and my physician, Mr. 
Chaloner, secretary of this state, and not 
unlearned in physic, and one that often, 
for good will, giveth counsel to his friends 



Sect. I. 



MODERN, OF EARLY DATE. 



yi 



in cases of sickness, and one Mr. Knell, 
an honest preacher in this city, and a 
chaplain of his own, and a professor of 
physic, continually with him, they never 
ministered any thing to him against 
poison. The Irish physician affirmed be- 
fore good mtnesses that he was not 
poisoned ; what the others do say of that 
matter, by their own writings, which 
herewith I send you, you shall perceive. 
And drawing towards his end, being 
especially asked by the archbishop of 
Dublin whether he thought that he was 
poisoned or no, constantly affirmed that 
he thought he was not ; nor that he felt 
in himself any cause why he should con- 
jecture so to be : in his sickness his 
colour rather bettered than impaired ; 
no hair of his body shed, no nail altered, 
nor tooth loosed, nor any part of his 
skin blemished. And when he was 
opened it could not appear that any 
intrail within his body, at any time, had 
been infected with any poison. And yet 
I find a bruit there was that he was 
poisoned ; and that arose by some words 
spoken by himself, and yet not originally 
at the first conceived of himself, as it is 
thought by the wisest here, and those 
that were continually about him; but 
one that was very near him at that time, 
and whom he entirely trusted, seeing 
him in extreme pain with flux and 
gripings in his belly, by reason of the 
same, said to him, By the mass, my 
lord, you are poisoned ; whereupon the 
yeoman of his cellar was presently sent 
for to him, and mildly and lovingly he 
questioned with him, saying, that he 
sent not for him to burden him, but to 
excuse him. The fellow constantly an- 
swered, that if he had taken any hurt 
by his wine he was gviilty of it ; for, my 
lord (saith he), since you gave me warn- 
ing in England to be careful of your 
drink, you have drank none but it passed 
my hands. Then it was bruited, that 
the boiled water which he continually 
drank with his wine should be made of 
water wherein flax or hemp should be 
steeped, which the yeoman of his cellar 
flatly denied, affirming the water which 
he always boiled for him was perfect good. 
Then it was imputed to the sugar ; he 
answered, he could get no better at the 
steward's hands, and fair though it were 
not, yet wholesome enough, or else it had 
been likely that a great many should 
have had a shrewd turn ; for my house- 



hold and many more have occupied of 
the same almost these twelve months. 
The physicians were asked what they 
thought, that they spoke doubtfully, 
saying it might be that he was poisoned, 
alleging that this thing or that thing 
might poison him, since they never gave 
him medicine for it ; they constantly 
affirm that they never thought it but for 
argument's sake, and partly to please the 
earl. He had two gentlewomen that 
night at supper with him that the disease 
took him, and they coming after to visit 
him, and he hearing- that they were 
troubled with some looseness, said that 
he feared that they and he had tasted of 
one drug, and his page (who was gone 
with his body over before I returned). 
The women upon his words were afraid, 
but never sick, and are in as good a state 
of health as they were before they supped 
with him. Upon suspicion of his being 
poisoned, Mr. Knell (as it was told me) 
gave him sundry times of unicorn's 
horns, upon which sometimes he vomited, 
as at other times he did, when he took 
it not. Thus I have delivered unto 
you as much as I can learn of the sick- 
ness and death of this noble peer, whom 
I left when I left Dublin, in all appear- 
ance a lusty, strong, and pleasant man ; 
and before I returned his breath was out 
of his body, and his body out of this 
country, and undoubtedly his soul in 
heaven ; for in my life I never heard of 
a man to die in such perfectness ; he 
was sick twenty or twenty-one days, and 
most of those days tormented with pangs 
intolerable ; but in all that time, and all 
that torture, he was never heard speak 
an idle or angry word : after he yielded 
to die, he desired much to have his 
friends come to him, and to abide with 
him, which they did of sundry sorts, 
unto v/hom he shewed such arguments 
of hearty repentance of his life passed, so 
sound charity with all the world, such 
assurance to be partaker of the joys of 
heaven through the merits of Christ's 
passion, such a joyful desire, speedily to 
be dissolved, and to enjoy the same, 
which he would sometimes say. That it 
pleased the Almighty to reveal unto him 
that he should be partaker of (as was to 
the exceeding admiration of all that 
heard it). He had continually about 
him folks of sundry degrees, as men of 
the clergy, gentlemen, gentlewomen, 
citizens, and servants, unto all which 



92 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IL 



lie would use so g'odly exhortations and 
grave admonitions, and that so aptly for 
the persons he spake unto, as in all his 
life he never seemed to be half so wise, 
learned, nor eloquent, nor of so good 
memory as at his death. He forgot not 
to send weighty warnings to some of his 
absent friends by message. Oft-times, 
when grievous pangs had driven him out 
of slumbers, he would make such shew of 
comfort in spirit, and express it with such 
words, as many about him thought he 
saw and heard some heavenly voice and 
vision. Many times after bitter pangs he 
would with cheerful countenance cry. 
Courage ! courage ! I have fought a good 
fight, and thus ought every true soldier 
to do, that fighteth under the standard 
of his captain and patron Jesus Christ. 
About eleven of the clock before noon, on 
the 22d of September, with the name of 
Jesus issuing out of his mouth, he left to 
speak any more, and shortly after lifting 
up his hand to the name of Jesus, when 
he could not speak it himself; he ceased 
to move any more, but sweetly and mildly 
his ghost departed, by all Christians to 
be hoped into heavenly bliss. The Al- 
mighty grant that all professing Christ 
in their life, may at their death make such 
testimony of Christianity as this noble 
earl did. ilnd thus ending my tedious 
letter, with the doleful (and yet com- 
fortable) end of this noble man, I wish 
you from the bottom of my heart, good 
life and long ; and the joy of heaven at 
the end. From the castle of Dublin this 
20th of October, 1576. Your assured 
loving friend. 



LETTER XIIL 

Sir Henry Sidney to the Lords of the 
Council. 

My very good lords. 
My humble duty remembered to your 
honourable lordships : after I was come 
liither to deal in causes of the north, I 
received letters sent unto me by an ex- 
press messenger from the archbishop of 
Dublin, to desire license of me to repair 
into England with some note and testi- 
mony from me, what I had found of him 
here. And albeit the motion seemed to 
me at the first to be very sudden ; yet 
considering the manner of his writing, 
and the conveying of his moaning, pro- 



ceeded from some deep conceit of a per- 
plexed mind and a sorrowful heart, for 
some matter that touched him near (as it 
seemed), I could not deny him so reason- 
able a request, but granted him leave to 
depart, with this testimony, that I have 
found him ready to come to me at all 
times, when I had occasion to use his 
assistance for her majesty's service, and 
very willing to set forward any thing 
that might either concern the public be- 
nefit or quiet of the country, or her ma- 
jesty's honour or profit ; besides, a man 
well given, and zealous in religion, dili- 
gent in preaching, and no niggard in hos- 
pitality, but a great reliever of his poor 
neighbours, and by his good behaviour 
and dealing gained both love and credit 
amongst those v/ith whom he hath been 
conversant ; and carried himself in that 
reputation in the world, as I have not 
known him at any time either detected or 
suspected of any notorious or public 
crime. And thus much I thought good 
to declare to your lordships of him, and 
that I have not had cause at any time to 
think otherwise of him, but as of a spund 
counsellor to the queen, and good mi- 
nister to this country and commonwealth. 
And even so, beseeching your lordships' 
favourable acceptation of him, and in his 
petitions (if he have any) to stand his 
good lords, I humbly take my leave. 
From the Newry, the 12th of February, 
1576. Your good lordships' assured 
loving friend to command. 



LETTER XIV. 

Sir Henry Sidney to his son Robert Sidney, 
afterwards Earl of Leicester. 

Robin, 
Your several letters of the 17th of Sep- 
tember and 9th of November I have re- 
ceived ; but that sent by Carolus Clu- 
sius I have not yet heard of. Your let- 
ters are most heartily welcome to me ; 
but the universal testimony that is made 
of you, of the virtuous course you hold 
in this your juvenile age, and how much 
you profit in the same, and what excel- 
lent parts God hath already planted in 
you, doth so rejoice me, that the sight 
of no earthly thing is more, or can be 
more, to my comfort, than hearing in 
this sort from, and of you. Our Lord 
bless you, my sweet boy. Verge, perge, 
my Robin, in the filial fear of God, and 



Sect. I. 



MODERN, OF EARLY DATE. 



93 



in the meanest imag^mation of yourself, 
and to tile loving direction of your most 
loving- brother. 

I like very well of your being- at Prague, 
and of your intention to go to Vienna. 
1 wish you should curiously look upon 
the fortification of that ; and considering 
the state of Christendom, I cannot teU 
how to design your travel into Italy. I 
would not have you to go specially, for 
that there is perpetual war between the 
pope and us. I think the princes and 
potentates of that region are confederated 
with him ; and for some other respects, I 
would not have you go thither. Yet 
from Spain we are as it were under an 
inhibition ; France in endless troubles ; 
the LoAv Country in irrecoverable misery. 
So 1 leave it to your brother and your- 
self, whether Vienna being seen, you 
will return into England , or spend the 
next summer in those parts ; which if you 
do, I think best (you being satisfied with 
Vienna) you see the principal cities of 
Moravia and Silesia, and so to Cracow ; 
and if you can have any commodity, to see 
the court of the king of that realm : and 
from thence through Saxony, to Hoist, 
and Pomerland, seeing the princes' courts 
by the way ; and then into Denmark and 
Sweden, and see those kings' courts. 
Acquaint you somewhat with the estate 
of the free States ; and so at Hamburgh 
to embark, and to winter with me. But 
what do I blunder at these things ? follow 
the direction of your most loving brother, 
who in loving you is comparable with 
me, or exceedeth me. Imitate his vir- 
tues, exercises, studies, and actions; he 
is a rare ornament of this age, the very 
formular that all well-disposed young 
gentlemen of our court do form also their 
manners and life by. In truth, I speak it 
without flattery of him, or of myself, he 
hath the most rare virtues that ever I 
found in any man. I saw him not these 
six months, little to my comfort. You 
may hear from him Avith more ease than 
from me. In your travels these docu- 
ments I will give you, not as mine but 
his practices. Seek the knowledge of 
the estate of every prince, court, and city, 
that you pass through. Address your- 
self to the company, to learn this of 
the elder sort, and yet neglect not the 
younger. By the one you shall gather 
learning, wisdom, and knowledge, by the 
other acquaintance, languages, and exer- 
cise. This he effectually observed with 



great gain of understanding. Once 
again I say imitate him. I hear you 
are fallen into concert and fellowship 
with sir Harry Nevell's son and heir, 
and one Mr. Savell. I hear of singular 
virtues of them both. I am glad of your 
familiarity with them. 

The 21st of this present I received 
your letter of the 12th of the same, and 
with it a letter from Mr. Languet, who 
seemeth as yet to mislike nothing in 
you ; for which I like you a great deal 
the better ; and I hope I shall hear 
further of your commendation from him, 
which will be to my comfort. I find 
by Harry White that all your money is 
gone, which with some wonder dis- 
pleaseth me ; and if you cannot frame 
your charges according to that propor- 
tion I have appointed you, I must and 
will send for you home. I have sent 
order to Mr. Languet for one hundred 
pounds for you, which is twenty pounds 
more than I promised you ; and this I 
look and order that it shall serve you 
till the last of March, 1580. Assure 
yourself I will not enlarge one groat, 
therefore look well to your charges. 

I hope by that time you shall receive 
this letter you will be at or near Stras- 
burgh, from which resolve not to depart 
till the middle of April come twelve- 
month ; nor then I will not that you do, 
unless you so apply your study, as by that 
time you do conceive feelingly rhetoric 
and logic, and have the tongues of Latin, 
French, and Dutch ; which I know you 
may have, if you will apply your will and 
wit to it. I am sure you cannot but find 
what lack in learning you have by your 
often departing from Oxford ; and the 
like, and greater loss shall you find, if you 
resolve not to remain continually for the 
time appointed in Strasburgh. Write to 
me monthly, and of your charges parti- 
cularly ; and either in Latin or French. 
I take in good part that you have kept 
promise with me ; and on my blessing 
I charge you to write truly to me from 
time to time, whether you keep it or 
no ; and if you break it in some dark 
manner, how. 

Pray daily ; speak nothing but truly. 
Do no dishonest thing for any respect. 
Love IMr. Languet with reverence, unto 
whom in most hearty manner commend 
me ; and to Doctor Lubetius, and Mr. 
Doctor Sturmius. Farewell. If you will 
follow my counsel you shall be my sweet 



94 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IL 



boy. From Baynard's Castle in Lon- 
don, this 25th of March, 1578. Your 
loving" father. 



LETTEU XV. 

S'zV Philip Sidney to his father Sir Henry 
Sidney. 

Right honourable my singular good 
lord and father, 
So strangely and diversely goes the 
course of the world by the interchang- 
ing humours of those that govern it, that 
though it be most noble to have always 
one mind and one constancy, yet can it 
not be always directed to one point : but 
must needs sometiiiies alter his course, 
according as the force of other changes 
drives it. As now in your lordship's 
case to whom of late I wrote, wishing 
your lordship to return as soon as con- 
veniently you might, encouraged there- 
unto by the assurance the best sort had 
given me, with what honourable consi- 
derations your return should befal, par- 
ticularly to your lot : it makes me change 
my style, and write to your lordship, that 
keeping still your mind in one state of 
virtuous quietness, you will yet frame 
your course according to them. And as 
they delay your honourable rewarding, 
so you by good means do delay your re- 
turn, till either that ensue, or fitter time 
be for this. 

Her majesty's letters prescribed you a 
certain day, I think ; the day was past 
before Pagnam came unto you, and en- 
joined to do some things, the doing 
whereof must necessarily require some 
longer time. Hereupon your lords?iip 
is to write back, not as though you de- 
sired to tarry, but only shewing that un- 
willingly you must employ some days 
thereabouts ; and if it please you to add, 
that the chancellor's presence shall be 
requisite ; for by him your lordship shall 
either have honourable revocation, or 
commandment of further stay at least 
till Michaelmas, which in itself shall be a 
fitter time ; considering that then your 
term comes fully out, so that then your 
enemies cannot glory it is their procuring. 
In the mean time, your friends may la- 
bour here to bring to a better pass such 
your reasonable and honourable desires, 
which time can better bring forth than 
speed. Among which friends, before 



God there is none proceeds either so 
thoroughly or so wisely as my lady my 
mother. For mine own part I have 
had only light from her. Now rests it 
in your lordship to weigh the particula- 
rities of your own estate, which no man 
can know so well as yourself; and ac- 
cordingly to resolve. For mine own par^; 
(of which mind your best friends are 
here) this is your best way. At least 
whatsoever you resolve, I beseech you 
with all speed I may understand, and that 
if it please you with your own hand ; for 
truly, sir, I must needs impute it to some 
great dishonesty of some about you, that 
there is little v/ritten from you, or to 
you, that is not perfectly known to your 
professed enemies. And thus much I am 
very willing they should know, that I do 
write it unto you : and in that quarter you 
may, as I think, look precisely to the 
saving of some of those overplussages, or 
at least not to go any further ; and then 
the more time passes, the better it will 
be blown over. Of my being sent to the 
queen, being armed with good accounts, 
and perfect reasons for them, &c. 
25th April, 1578. 

LETTER XVL 

Sir Philip Sidney to Edward IVaterhoiise, 
Esq. Secretary of Ireland. 

My good Ned, 
Never since you went, that ever you 
wrote to me, and yet I have not failed 
to do some friendly offices for you here. 
How know I that ? say you. I cannot 
tell. But I know that no letters I have 
received from you. Thus doth unkind- 
ness make me fall to a point of kindness. 
Good Ned, either come or write. Let 
me either see thee, hear thee, or read 
thee. Your other friends that know more 
will write more fully. I, of myself, thus 
much. Always one, and in one case. 
Me solo exultans totus teres atque rotundus. 
Commend me to my lord president ; to 
the noble sir Nicholas, whom I bear spe- 
cial goodwill to ; to my cousin Harry 
Harrington, whom I long to see in health ; 
sir Nicholas Bagnol : Mr. Agarde's 
daughter ; my cousin Spikman for your 
sake ; and whosoever is mayor of Dublin 
for my sake. And even at his house 
when you think good. I bid you fare- 
well. From Court, this 28th April, 1578. 
Your very loving friend. 



Sect. I. M O D E RN, O F E A R L Y D AT E. 95 

LETTER XVII. LETTER XIX. 



Sir Philip Sidnei/ to Edward Molineux, 
Esq, Secretary to his father as Lord 
Deputy. 

Mr. Molineux, 
Few words are Lest. My letters to my 
father have come to the eyes of some. 
Neither can I condemn any hut you for 
it. If it he so, you have played the very 
knave with me ; and so I wiU make you 
know if I have good proof of it. But 
that for so much as is past. For that is 
to come, I assure you before God, that 
if ever 1 know you do so much as read 
any letter I write to my father, without 
his commandment, or my consent, I 
will thrust my dagger into you. And 
trust to it, for I speak it in earnest. In 
the mean time farewell. From Court, 
this last day of May, 1578. 



LETTER XVIII. 

Edward Molineux, Esq. to Philip Sidney, 
in answer to the ahovesaid letter. 

Sir, 
I HAVE received a letter from you, which, 
as it is the first, so the same is the 
sharpest that I ever, received from any : 
and therefore it amazeth me the more 
to receive such a one from you, since I 
have (the world can be judge) deserved 
better somewhere, howsoever it pleaseth 
you to condemn me now. But since it 
is (I protest to God) without cause, or 
yet just ground of suspicion you use me 
thus, I bear the injury more patiently 
for a time; and mine innocency, I hope, 
in the end shall try mine honesty ; and 
then I trust you will confess you have 
done me wi'ong. And since your plea- 
sure so is expressed, that I shall not 
henceforth read any of your letters ; al- 
though I must confess I have heretofore 
taken both great delight and profit in 
reading some of them : yet upon so hard 
a condition (as you seem to offer) I will 
not hereafter adventure so great a peril, 
but obey you herein. Howbeit, if it had 
pleased you, you might have commanded 
me in a far greater matter, with a far less 
penalty. From the Castle of Dublin, the 
1st of July, 1578. Yours, Avhen it shall 
please you better to conceive of me, 
humbly to command. 



Sir Henry Sidney to his son Sir Philip 
Sidney. 

Philip, 
By the letters you sent me by Sackford, 
you have discovered unto me your inten- 
tion to go over into the Low Countries, 
to accompany duke Cassimier, who hath 
with so noble offers and by so honour- 
able means invited you : which disposi- 
tion of your virtuous mind, as I must 
needs much commend in you, so when 
I enter into the consideration of mine 
own estate, and call to mind what prac- 
tices, informations, and malicious accu- 
sations, are devised against me ; and 
what an assistance in the defence of those 
causes your presence would be unto me, 
reposing myself so much both upon your 
help and judgment, I strive betwixt ho- 
nour and necessity, what allowance I may 
best give of that motion for your going : 
howbeit, if you think not my matters of 
that weight and difficulty (as I hope they 
be not), but that they may be well 
enough by myself, without your assistance 
or any other, be brought to an honour- 
able end, I will not be against your deter- 
mination. Yet would wish you, before 
your departure, that you come to me to 
the water-side * about the latter end of 
this month, to take your leave of me, 
and so from thence to depart towards 
your intended journey. You must now 
bear with me, that I write not this unto 
you with mine own hand, which I would 
have done, if the indisposition of my body 
had not been such I could not. God 
prosper you in that you shall go about, 
and send you to win much credit and ho- 
nour. And I send you my daUy blessing. 
Your very loving father. 

The 1st of August, 1578. 



LETTER XX. 

Lady Mary Sidney to Edmund Moiineux, 
Esq. 
P^Iolineux, 
I THOUGHT good to put you in remem- 
brance to move my lord chamberlain, 
in my lord's name, to have some other 
room than my chamber, for my lord to 
have his resort unto, as he was wont to 



* His house was at Baynard's Castle, by the 
water-side near St. Paul's. 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IL 



have; or else my lord will be greatly 
troubled when he shall have any matters 
of dispatch ; my lodging, you see, being 
very little, and myself continually sick, 
and not able to be much out of my bed. 
For the night time one roof, with God's 
grace, shall serve us ; for the day time 
the queen will look to have my chamber 
always in a readiness for her majesty's 
coming thither ; and though my lord 
himself can be no impediment thereto 
by his own presence, yet his lordship, 
trusting to no place else to be provided 
for him, will be, as I said before, troubled 
for want of a convenient place for the 
dispatch of such people as shall have 
occasion to come to him. Therefore I 
pray you, in my lord's own name, move 
my lord of Sussex for a room for that 
purpose, and I will have it hanged and 
lined for him with stuff from hens. I 
wish you not to be unmindful hereof : 
and so for this time I leave you to the 
Almighty. From Chiswick, this 11th of 
October 1578. Your very assured loving 
mistress and friend. 



LETTER XXI. 

Sir Henry Sidney to his son Robert Sidney, 
afterwards Earl of Leicester. 

Robin, 
I HEAR well of you, and the company 
you keep, which is of great comfort to 
me. To be of noble parentage usually 
raises an emulation to follow their great 
examples. There can be no greater love 
than of long time hath been, and yet is, 
between sir Harry Nevell and me ; and 
so will continue till our lives end. Love 
you thus we have done, and do. One 
thing I warn you of; arrogate no pre- 
cedency neither of your countrymen nor 
of strangers ; but take your place pro- 
miscuous, with others, according to your 
degree and birthright, with aliens. Fol- 
low your discreet and virtuous brother's 
rule, who with great discretion, to his 
great commendation, won love, and could 
variously ply ceremony with ceremony. 
I hear you have the Dutch tongue suffi- 
ciently, whereof I am glad. You may 
therefore save money and discharge your 
Dutchman ; and do it indeed, and send 
for Mr. White ; he is an honest young 
man, and is fairly honest, and good and 
sound to me and my friends. I send you 



now by Stephen 30/. which you call ar- 
rearages : term it as you will, it is all I 
owe you till Easter ; and 20/. of that, as 
Griffin Madox telleth me, is Harry 
White's. I will send you at or before 
Frankfort mart 60/., either to bring you 
home, or to find you abroad, as you and 
your brother shall agTee, for half a year 
ending at Michaelmas ; so Harry White 
neither hath nor shall have cause to think 
that I am offended with him ; for I can- 
not look for, nor almost wish to hear bet- 
ter of a man than I hear of him ; and 
how I intend to deal with him, you may 
see by the letter I send him. He shall 
have his 20/. yearly, and you your 100/., 
and so be as merry as you may. I thank 
you, my dear boy, for the martern skins 
you writ-e of. It is more than ever your 
elder brother sent me ; and I will thank 
you more if they come, for yet I hear not 
of them, nor ever saw Cassymyre's pic- 
ture. The messenger (of the picture I 
mean) played the knave with you and 
me ; and after that sort you may write to 
him : but if your tokens come I will send 
you such a suit of apparel as shall beseem 
your father's son to wear in any court in 
Germany. Commend me to the doctor 
Simeon's father. I love the boy well. 
I have no more ; but God bless you, my 
sweet child, in this world and for ever ; 
as I in this world find myself happy by 
my children. From Ludlow Castle, this 
28th of October 1 578. Your very loving 
father. 

LETTER XXII. 

Thomas Lord Buckhurst, to Robert Dud- 
ley Earl of Leicester, on the death of 
Sir Philip Sidney. 

My very good lord, 
With great grief do I write these lines 
unto you, being thereby forced to renew 
to your remembrance the decease of that 
noble gentleman your nephew, by whose 
death not only your lordship, and all 
other his friends and kinsfolks, but even 
her majesty and the whole realm besides 
do suffer no small loss and detriment. 
Nevertheless, it may not bring the least 
comfort unto you, that as he hath both 
lived and died in fame of honour and re- 
putation to his name, in the worthy ser- 
vice of his prince and country, and with 
as great love in his life, and with as many 
tears for his death, as ever any had ; so 



Sect. I. 



MODERN, OF EARLY DATE. 



97 



hath lie also hy his good and godly end 
so greatly testified the assurance of God's 
infinite mercy towards him, as there is no 
doubt but that he now liveth with im- 
mortality, free from the cares and cala- 
mities of mortal misery ; and in j3lace 
thereof, remaineth filled with all hea- 
venly joys and felicities, such as cannot 
be expressed : so as I doubt not, but that 
your lordship in wisdom, after you have 
yielded some while to the imperfection of 
man's nature, will yet in time remember 
how happy in truth he is, and how mi- 
serable and blind we are, that lament his 
blessed change. Her majesty seemeth 
resolute to call liome your lordship, and 
intendeth presently to think of some fit 
personage that may take your place and 
charge. And in my opinion, her ma- 
jesty had never more cause to wish you 
here than now ; I pray God send it 
speedily. I shall not need to enlarge my 
letter with any other matters, for that 
this messenger, your lordship's Avholly 
devoted, can sufficiently inform you of 
all. And so wishing all comfort and 
contentation unto your lordship, I rest 
your lordship's wholly for ever, to use 
and command as your own. From the 
Court, this 3d of November, 1586. Your 
lordship's most assured to command. 



LETTER XXIII. 

Robert Earl of Leicester, to his daughter 
JJorothi/ Countess of Sunderland, on the 
death of the Jiarl her husband, ivho lost 
his life, valiantly fighting for King 
Charles the First, at the battle of Neiu-^ 
beny, 20th September, 1643. 

My dear Doll, 
I KNOW it is no purpose to advise you 
not to grieve ; that is not my intention ; 
for such a loss as yours cannot be re- 
ceived indifferently by a nature so ten- 
der and so sensible as yours ; but though 
your affection to him whom you loved 
so dearly, and your reason in valuing 
his merit (neither of which you could 
do too much), did expose you to the 
danger of that sorrow which now op- 
presseth you ; yet if you consult with 
that affection, and with that reason, I 
am persuaded that you will see cause to 
moderate that sorrow ; for your affection 
to that worthy person may tell you, that 



even to it you cannot justify yourself, 
if you lament his being raised to a de- 
gree of happiness, far beyond any that 
he did or could enjoy upon the earth ; 
such as depends upon no uncertainties, 
nor can suffer no diminution ; and 
wherein, though he knew your suffer- 
ings, he could not be grieved at your 
afflictions. And your reason will assure 
you, that beside the vanity of bemoan- 
ing that which hath no remedy, you of- 
fend him whom you loved, if you hurt 
that person whom he loved. Remember 
how apprehensive he was of your dan- 
gers, and how sorry for any thing that 
troubled you : imagine that he sees how 
you afflict and hurt yourself; you will 
then believe, that though he looks upon 
it without any perturbation, for that 
cannot be admitted, by that blessed 
condition wherein he is, yet he may cen- 
sure you, and think you forgetful of the 
friendship that was between you, if you 
pursue not his desires, in being care- 
ful of yourself, who was so dear unto 
him. But he sees you not ; he knows 
not what you do ; well,, what then ! 
Will you do any thing that would dis- 
please him if he knew it, because he 
is where he doth not know it? I am 
sure that was never in your thoughts ; 
for the rules of your actions were, and 
must be, virtue, and affection to your 
husband, not the consideration of his ig- 
norance or knowledge of what you do ; 
that is but an accident ; neither do I 
think that his presence was at any time 
more than a circumstance, not at all ne- 
cessary to your abstaining from those 
things which might displease him. Assure 
yourself, that all the sighs and tears that 
your heart and eyes can sacrifice unto 
your grief, are not such testimonies of 
your affection as the taking care of 
those whom he loved, that is, of your- 
self and of those pledges of your mutual 
friendship and affection which he hath 
left with you ; and which, though you 
would abandon yourself, may justly chal- 
lenge of you the performance of their 
father's trust, reposed in you, to be 
careful of them. For their sakes, there- 
fore, assuage your grief; they all have 
need of you, and one, es{)ecially, whose 
life, as yet, doth absolutely depend on 
yours. I know you lived happily, and 
so as nobody but yourself could mea- 
sure the contentment of it. I rejoiced 
H 



m 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book U 



at it, and did thank God for making me 
one of the means to procure it for you. 
That now is past, and I will not flatter 
you so much as to say, I think you can 
ever he so happy in this life again : but 
this comfort you owe me, that I may 
see you bear this change and your mis- 
fortunes patiently. I shall be more 
pleased with that than with the other, 
by as much as I esteem virtue and wis- 
dom in you more than any inconstant 
benefits that fortune could bestow upon 
you. It is likely that, as many others 
do, you will use examples to authorise 
the present passion which possesseth 
you ; and you may say, that our Sa- 
viour himself did weep for the death of 
one he loved ; that is true ; but we 
must not adventure too far after his 
example in that, no more than a child 
should run into a river, because he saw 
a man wade through ; for neither his 
sorrow, nor any other passion could 
make him sin ; but it is not so with us. 
He was pleased to take our infirmities, 
but he hath not imparted to us his 
power to limit or restrain them ; for if 
we let our passions loose they will grow 
headstrong, and deprive us of the 
pov/er which we must reserve to our- 
selves, that we may recover the govern- 
ment which our reason and our religion 
ought to have above them. I doubt 
not but your eyes are full of tears, and 
not the emptier for those they shed. 
God comfort you, and let us join in 
prayer to him, that he will be pleased 
to give his grace to you, to your 
mother, and to myself, that all of us 
may resign and submit ourselves en- 
tirely and cheerfully to his pleasure. So 
nothing shall be able to make us unhap- 
py in this life, nor to hinder us from 
being happy in that which is eternal. 
Which that you may enjoy at the end 
of your days, whose number I wish as 
great as of any mortal creature ; and 
that through them all you may find such 
comforts as are best and most necessary 
for you ; it is, and shall ever be, the 
constant prayer of your father that loves 
you dearly. 

Oxford, 10th October, 16^3. 



LETTER XXIV. 

Robert Earl of Leicester to the Queen, at 
Oxford, desiring to know why he was 
dismissed from the office of Lord Lieu- 
tenant of Ireland. 

Madam, 
Suffer yourself, I beseech you, to re- 
ceive from a person, happy heretofore 
in your majesty's good opinio:*, this 
humble petition : That whereas the king 
hath conferred a great honour upon me, 
which now he hath taken from me, after 
a long and expenceful attendance for my 
dispatch ; and after his majesty had di- 
vers times signified, not only to me, but 
to my lord Percy also, his intention to 
seed me into Ireland ; since which, I 
cannot imagine what I have done, to al- 
ter his majesty's just and gracious pur- 
pose towards me. 

And whereas it hath pleased the king 
to tell me lately that he had both ac- 
quainted your majesty at the first, Mdth 
his intention to give me that employ- 
ment, and since, that he would deprive 
me of it ; I humbly conceive it to be very 
likely, that the king hath also told your 
majesty the cause that moved him to it ; 
for I presume, that upon a servant of his 
and yours, recommended to his favour 
by your majesty, he ^vould not put such 
a disgrace without teUing your majesty 
the reason why he did it ; but, as I 
could never flatter myself with any con- 
ceit that I had deserved that honour, so I 
cannot accuse myself neither of having 
deserved to be dispossessed of it in a 
manner so extraordinary, and so unusual 
to the king, to punish without shewing 
the causes of his displeasure. 

In all humility, therefore, I beseech 
your majesty to let me know my faulty 
which I am confident I shall acknow- 
ledge, as soon as I may see it ; for 
though it be too late to offer such satis- 
faction as, being graciously accepted, 
might have prevented the misfortune 
which has fallen upon me ; yet I may 
present the testimonies of my sorrow for 
having given any just cause of offence to 
either of your majesties. 

I seek not to recover my office, ma- 
dam, but your good opinion ; or to obtain 
your pardon, if my fault be but of error ; 
and that I may either have the happi- 
ness to satisfy your majesties that I have 



Sect. I. 



MODERN, OF EARLY DATE. 



99 



not offended, and so justify my first in- 
nocence, or gain repentance, wliicli I 
may call a second innocence. I must 
confess, this is a g-reat importunity ; but, 
I presume, your majesty will forgive it, 
if you please to consider how much I am 
concerned in that which brings instant 
destruction to my fortune, present dis- 
honour to myself, and the same, for ever, 
to my poor family ; for I might have 
passed away unregarded and unremem- 
bered. But now, having been raised to 
an eminent place, and dispossessed of it 
otherwise than I think any of my prede- 
cessors in that place have been, the usual 
time being not expired, no offence ob- 
jected, nor any recompence assigned ; I 
shall be transmitted to the knowledge of 
following times with a mark of distrust, 
which I cannot but think an infamy, 
full of grief to myself, and of prejudice 
to my posterity. 

For these reasons, I humbly beseech 
your majesty to make my offence to ap- 
pear, that I may undeceive myself, and 
see that it was but a false integrity 
which I have boasted and presumed up- 
on, that others may knovf that which 
yet they can but suspect ; and that I 
may no longer shelter myself under the 
vain protection of a pretended affection 
to the king and your majesty's service, 
nor imder the ext:iise of ignorance or 
infirmity : but let me bear the whole 
burden of disloyalty and ingratitude, 
which admits no protection nor excuse. 
And I humbly promise your majesty, 
that if either of those crimes be proved 
against me, I never will be so impudent 
as to importune you for my pardon. 
But if I be no otherwise guilty than a 
misinformation, or misfortune, many 
times makes men in this world ; then I 
heg leave to think still, that I have 
been a faithful subject and servant to 
the king. And though I renounce all 
other worldly contentments, whilst the 
miseries of these times endure, wherein 
the king, your majesty, and the whole 
kingdom suffer so much that it would 
be a shame for any private man to be 
happy, and a sin to think himself so ; yet 
there is one happiness that I may jus- 
tify ; therefore I aspire unto it, and 
humbly desire it of your majesty, that 
you will be pleased to think of me as of 
your majesty's most faithful and most 
obedient creature. 

9th December, 1643. 



LETTER XXV. 

Algernon Sidney to his father Robert Earl 
of Leicester, 

My Lord, 
The passage of letters from England 
hither is so uncertain, that I did not, 
until within these very few days, hear the 
sad news of my mother's death. I was 
then with the king of Sweden at Nyco- 
pin in Faister. This is the first oppor- 
tunity I have had, of sending to condole 
with your lordship, a loss that is so great 
to yourself and your family; of which 
my sense was not so much diminished in 
being prepared by her long, languishing, 
and certainly incurable sickness, as in- 
creased by the last words and actions of 
her life. I confess, persons in such tem- 
pers are most fit to die, but they are also 
most wanted here ; and we that for a 
while are left in the world are most apt, 
and perhaps with reason, to regret most 
the loss of those we most want. It may 
be, light and human passions are most 
suitably employed upon human and 
worldly things, wherein we have some 
sensible concernment ; thoughts, abso- 
lutely abstracted from ourselves, are 
more suitable unto that steadiness of 
mind that is much spoken of, little sought, 
and never found, than that which is seen 
amongst men. It were a small compli- 
ment for me to offer your lordship to 
leave the employment in which I am, if 
I may in any thing be able to ease your 
lordship's solitude. If I could propose 
that to myself, I would cheerfully leave 
a condition of much more pleasure and 
advantage than I can with reason hope 
for. 

LETTER XXVI. 

Dr. Sharp to the Duke of Buckingham ; 
with Queen Elizabeth's speech to her 
army at Tilbury Fort, 

I REMEMBER, in eighty-ciglit, waiting 
upon the earl of Leicester at Tilbury 
camp, and in eighty-nine going into 
Portugal with my noble master, the earl 
of Essex, I learned somewhat fit to be 
imparted to your grace. 

The queen, lying in the camp one 

night, guarded with her army, the old 

lord treasurer Burleigh capie thither, 

and delivered to the earl the examina- 

H % 



100 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IL 



tion of Don Pedro, who was taken and 
brought in by sir Francis Drake, which 
examination the earl of Leicester de- 
livered unto me to publish to the army 
in my next sermon. The sum of it was 
this : 

Don Pedro being asked, what was the 
intent of their coming, stoutly answered 
the lords, What, but to subdue your na- 
tion, and root it out? 

Good, said the lords ; and what meant 
you then to do with the Catholics. He 
answered. We meant to send them (good 
men) directly unto Heaven, as all you 
that are heretics to Hell. Yea, but said 
the lords, What meant you to do with 
your whips of cord and wire ? (whereof 
they had great store in their ships) 
What ? said he ; we meant to whip you 
heretics to death, that have assisted my 
master's rebels, and done such dishonours 
to our Catholic king and people. Yea, 
but what would you have done, said they, 
with their young children ? They, said 
he, which were above seven years old, 
should have gone the way their fathers 
went ; the rest should have lived, branded 
in the forehead with the letter L. for 
Lutheran, to perpetual bondage. 

This, I take God to witness, I re- 
ceived of those great lords upon exami- 
nation taken by the council, and by 
commandment delivered it to the army. 

The queen, the next morning, rode 
through all the squadrons of her army, 
as armed Pallas, attended by noble foot- 
men, Leicester, Essex, and Norris, then 
lord marshal, and divers other great lords, 
where she made an excellent oration to 
her army, which the next day after her 
departure I was commanded to redeliver 
to all the army together, to keep a pub- 
lic fast. Her words were these : — 

" My loving people, we have been 
persuaded by some that are careful of 
our safety, to take heed how we com- 
mit ourself to armed multitudes for fear 
of treachery : but I assure you, I do not 
desire to live to distrust my faithful and 
loving people. Let tyrants fear ; I have 
always so behaved myself, that under 
God I have jilaced my chiefest strength 
and safeguard in the layal hearts and 
goodwill of my subjects. And there- 
fore I am come amongst you as you see 
at this time, not for my recreation and 
disport, but being resolved in the midst 
and licat of the battle to live or die 
amongst you all, to lay down for my God, 



and for my kingdom, and for my peo- 
ple, my honour, and my blood, even in 
the dust. I know I have the body but 
of a weak and feeble woman, but I have 
the heart and stomach of a king, and 
of a king of England too ; and think 
foul scorn, that Parma, or Spain, or 
any prince in Europe, should dare to 
invade the borders of my realm ; to 
which, rather than any dishonour should 
grow by me, I myself will take up arms, 
I myself will be your general, judge, 
and rewarder of every one of your virtues 
in the field. I know already for your 
forwardness you have deserved rewards 
and crowns ; and we do assure you, in 
the word of a prince, they shall be duly 
paid you. In the mean time, my lieu- 
tenant general shall be in my stead, 
than whom never prince commanded a 
more noble or worthy subject : not 
doubting but by your obedience to my 
general, by your concord in the camp, 
and your valour in the field, we shall 
shortly have a famous victory over those 
enemies of my God, of my kingdoms, 
and of my people." 

This I thought would delight your 
grace, and no man hath it but myself, 
and sucli as I have given it to ; and 
therefore I made bold to send it unto 
you, if you have it not already. 



LETTER XXVII. 

Lord Bacon to James I. 

It may please your most excellent 
majesty, 
I DO many times with gladness, and for 
a remedy of my other labours, revolve in 
my mind the great happiness which God 
(of his singular goodness) hath accumu- 
lated upon your majesty every way ; 
and how complete the same would be, 
if the state of your means were once 
rectified and well ordered ; your people 
military and obedient, fit for war, used 
to peace ; your church enlightened with 
good preachers, as an heaven with stars ; 
your judges learned, and learning from 
you ; just, and just by your example ; 
your nobility in a right distance between 
crown and people, no oppressors of the 
people, no overshadowers of the crown; 
your council full of tributes of care, 
faith, and freedom ; your gentlemen 
and justices of peace willing to apply 



Sect. 1. 



MODERN, OF EARLY DATE. 



101 



your royal mandates to the nature of 
their several counties, but ready to obey ; 
your servants in awe of your wisdom, in 
hope of your goodness ; the fields grow- 
ing every day, by the improvement and 
recovery of grounds, from the desert to 
the garden ; the city grown from wood 
to brick ; your sea-walls, or pomeriuju of 
your island surveyed, and in edifying ; 
your merchants embracing the wliole 
compass of the world, east, west, north, 
and south ; the times giving you peace, 
and yet offering you opportunities of 
action abroad ; and, lastly, your excellent 
royal issue entailing these blessings and 
favours of God to descend to all poste- 
rity. It resteth, therefore, that God 
having done so great things for your ma- 
jesty, and you for others, you would do 
so much for yourself as to go through 
(according to your good beginnings) 
with the rectifying and settling of your 
estate and means, which only is wanting. 
Hoc rebus defuit unum. I, therefore, 
whom only love and duty to your ma- 
jesty and your royal line hath made a 
financier, do intend to present unto your 
majesty a perfect book of your estate, 
like a perspective glass, to draw your 
estate near to your sight ; beseeching 
your majesty to conceive, that if I have 
not attained to that tliat 1 would do in 
this which Is not proper for me, nor in 
my element, I shall make your majesty 
amends in some other thing in which I 
am better bred. God ever preserve, &c. 

LETTER XXVIII. 

Sir Walter Raleigh to James I. 

It is one part of the office of a just and 
worthy prince to hear the complaints 
of his vassals, especially such as are in 
great misery. I know not, amongst 
many other presumptions gathered 
against me, how your majesty hath been 
persuaded that I was one of them who 
were greatly discontented, and therefore 
the more likely to prove disloyal. But 
the great God so relieve me in both 
worlds as I was the contrary ; and I 
took as great comfort to behold your ma- 
jesty, and always learned some good, and 
bettering my knowledge by hearing your 
majesty's discourse. I do most humbly 
beseech your sovereign majesty not to 
believe any of those in my particular, 
who, under pretence of offences to kings, 



do easily work their particular revenge. 
I trust no man, under the colour of 
making examples, should persuade your 
majesty to leave the word merciful out of 
your style ; for it will be no less profit to 
your majesty, and become your greatness, 
than the word invincible. It is true, 
that the laws of England are no less 
jealous of the kings than Csesar was of 
Pompey's wife ; for notwithstanding she 
was cleared for having company with 
Claudius, yet for being suspected he: 
condemned her. For myself, I protest 
before Almighty God, and I speak it to 
my master and sovereign, that I never 
invented treason against him ; and yet I 
know t shall fall in manibus eorum, a qui- 
bus non possum evadere, unless by your 
majesty's gracious compassion I be sus- 
tained. Our law therefore, most merci- 
ful prince, knowing her own cruelty, and 
knowing that she is wont to compound 
treason out of presumptions and circum- 
stances, doth give this charitable advice 
to the king her supreme, Non solum sa- 
piens esse sed et misericors, &c. Cmn 
tutius sit reddere rationetn misericordice 
quam judicii. I do, therefore, on the 
knees of my heart beseech your majesty, 
from your own sweet and comfortable 
disposition, to remember that I have 
served your majesty twenty years, for 
which your majesty hath yet given me 
no reward : and it is fitter I should be 
indebted unto my sovereign lord, than 
the king to his poor vassal. Save me 
therefore, most merciful prince, that I 
may owe your majesty my life itself, than 
which there cannot be a greater debt. 
Limit me at least, my sovereign lord, 
that I may pay it for your service when 
your majesty shall please. If the law 
destroy me, your majesty shall put me 
out of your power, and I shall have none 
to fear but the King of kings. 



LETTER XXIX. 

Sir Walter Raleigh to Sir Robert Car. 

Sir, 
After many losses and many years sor- 
rows, of both which I have cause to fear 
I was mistaken in their ends, it is come 
to my knowledge, that yourself (Avhom 
I know not but by an honourable favour) 
hath been persuaded to give me and 
mine my last fatal blow, by obtaining 
from his majesty the inheritance of my 



102 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book 11. 



cflildren and nephews, lost in law for 
want of a word. This done, there re- 
maineth nothing' with me but the name 
of life. His majesty, whom I never of- 
fended (for I hold it unnatural and un- 
manlike to hate goodness), staid me at 
the grave's brink ; not that I thought his 
majesty thought me worthy of many 
deaths, and to behold mine cast out of 
the world with myself, but as a king 
that knoweth the poor in truth, hath 
received a promise from God, that his 
throne shall be established. 

And for you, sir, seeing your fair day 
is but in the dawn, mine drawn to the 
setting ; your own virtues and the king's 
grace assuring you of many fortunes and 
much honour ; I beseech you begin not 
your first building upon the ruins of the 
innocent, and let not mine and their sor- 
rows attend your lii'st plantation. I have 
ever been bound to your nation, as well 
for many other graces, as for the true 
report of my trial to the king's majesty ; 
against whom had I been malignant, the 
hearing of my cause would not have 
changed enemies into friends, malice 
into compassion, and the minds of the 
greatest number then present into the 
commiseration of mine estate. It is not 
the nature of foul treason to beget such 
fair passions : neither could it agree with 
the duty and love of faithful subjects 
(especially of your nation) to bewail his 
overthrow that had conspired against their 
most natural and liberal lord. 1 there- 
fore trust that you will not be the first 
that shall kill us outright, cut down the 
tree with the fruit, and undergo the curse 
of them that enter the fields of the fa- 
therless ; which, if it please you to know 
the truth, is far less in value than in 
fame. But that so worthy a gentleman 
as yourself will rather bind us to you 
(being six gentlemen not base in birth 
and alliance which have interest therein) ; 
and myself, with my uttermost thankful- 
ness, will remain ready to obey your 
commandments. 



LETTER XXX. 

Sir Walter Raleigh to Prince. Henrj/, son 
of James I. 

May it please your highness. 
The following lines are addressed to 
your highness from a man who values 



his liberty, and a very small fortune in a 
remote part of this island, under the 
present constitution, above all the riches 
and honours that he could any where 
enjoy under any other establishment. 

You see, sir, the doctrines that are 
lately come into the world, and how far 
the phrase has obtained of calling your 
royal father, God's vicegerent ; which ill 
men have turned both to the dishonour 
of God, and the impeachment of his ma- 
jesty's goodness. They adjoin vicege- 
rency to the idea of being aU-powerful, 
and not to that of being all-good. His 
majesty's wisdom, it is to be hoped, will 
save him from the snare that may lie 
under gross adulations : but your youth, 
and the thirst of praise which I have 
observed in you, may possibly mislead 
you to hearken to these charmers, who 
would conduct your noble nature into 
tyranny. Be careful, O my prince ! Hear 
them not, fly from their deceits ; you are 
in the succession to a throne, from whence 
no evil can be imputed to you, but aU. 
good must be conveyed from you. Your 
father is called the vicegerent of Heaven ; 
while he is good, he is the vicegerent of 
Heaven. Shall man have authority from 
the fountain of good to do evil ? No, my 
prince 5 let mean and degenerate spirits, 
which want benevoleni^e, suppose your 
power impaired by a disability of doing 
injuries. If want of power to do ill be 
an incapacity in a prince, with reverence 
be it spoken, it is an incapacity he has in 
common with the Deity. Let me not 
doubt but all pleas, which do not carry in 
them the mutual happiness of prince and 
people, will appear as absurd to your great 
understanding, as disagreeable to your 
noble nature. Exert yourself, O gene- 
rous prince, against such sycophants, in 
the glorious cause of liberty ; and as- 
sume such an ambition worthy of you, ta 
secure your feUow-creatures from slavery ; 
from a condition as much below that of 
brutes, as to act without reason is less 
miserable than to act against it. Pre- 
serve to your future subjects the divine 
right of free agents ; and to your own 
royal house the divine right of being 
their benefactors. Believe me, my 
prince, there is no other right can flov/ 
from God. While your highness is foi*m- 
ing yourself for a throne, consider the 
laws as so many common-places in youi* 
study of the science of government ; when 
you mean nothing but justice they are an 



Sect. I. 



xMODERN, OF EARLY DATE. 



103 



ease and help to yoii. This way of 
tliinkiiig is ^Yllat gave men the giorioiis 
appellations of deliverers and fathers of 
their country ; this made the sight of 
them rouse their beholders into acclama- 
tions, and mankind incapable of bearing- 
their yery appearance, Tvithout applaud- 
ing it as a benefit. Consider the inex- 
pressible advantages which will ever at- 
tend yoiu- highness, while you make the 
power of rendering men happy the mea- 
sure of your actions ; while this is your 
impulse, how easily ^^iil that power be 
extended ! The glance of your eye v»'ill 
give gladness, and your very sentence 
have a force of beauty. "VVTiatever some 
men would insinuate, you have lost yoiu* 
subjects when you have lost their incli- 
nations. You are to preside over the 
minds, not the bodies of men ; the soul 
is the essence of the man, and you can- 
not have the true man against his incli- 
nations. Chuse therefore to be the king 
or the conqueror of your people ; it may 
be submission, but it cannot be obedience 
that is passive. I am, sir, your high- 
iiess's most faithful servant. 
London, Aug. 12, 1611. 

LETTER XXXT. 

Lord Bacon to James I. after his disgrace. 
To the King. 

It may please your most excellent 
Majesty, 
In the midst of my misery, vihicli is 
rather assuaged by remembrance than by 
hope, my chiefest Yvorldly comfort is to 
think, that since the time I had the first 
vote of the commons house of parlia- 
ment for commissioner of the union, 
until the time that I was, by this last par- 
liament, chosen by both houses for their 
messenger to your majesty in the petition 
of religion (which two were my first and 
last services), I was evermore so happy 
as to have my poor services graciously 
accepted by your majesty, and likcAvise 
not to have had any of them miscarry in 
my hands ; neither of which points i can 
any wise take to myself, but ascribe the 
former to your majesty's goodness, and 
the latter to youi' prudent directions, 
which I was ever carefid to have and 
keep. For, as I have often said to your 
majesty, I was towards you but as a 
bucket and cistern, to draw forth and 
conserve, whereas vourself was the foun- 



tain. Unt(r this comfort of nineteen 
years prosperity, there succeeded a com- 
fort even in my greatest adversity, some- 
what of the same natm-e, which is, that 
in those oifences wherewith I was charg- 
ed, there was not any one that had spe- 
cial relation to your majesty, or any 
your particular commandments. For as 
towards Almighty God there are offen- 
ces against the first and second table ;, and 
yet all against God ; so with the servants 
of kmgs, there are offences more imme- 
diate against the sovereign, although 
all offences against law are also against, 
the king. Unto Avhich comfort there is 
added this circumstance, that as my 
faults were not against your majesty, 
otherwise than as all faults are ; so my 
fall was not your majesty's act, otherwise 
than as ail acts of justice are yours. 
This I write not to insinuate with your 
majesty, but as a most humble appeal to 
your majesty's gracious remembrance, 
how honest and direct you have ever 
found me in your service, whereby I 
have an assured belief, that there is in 
your majesty's ovni princely thoughts a 
great deal of serenity and clearness to- 
wards me, your majesty's novr prostrate 
and cast down servant. 

Neither, my most gracious sovereign, 
do I, by this mention of my former ser- 
vices, lay claim to your princely graces 
and bounty, though the privilege of cala- 
mity doth bear that form of petition. I 
know well, had they been much more, 
they had been but my bounden duty; 
nay, I must also confess, that they were 
from time to time, far above my merit, 
over and super-rewarded by your ma- 
jesty's benefits, which you heaped upon 
me. Your majesty was and is that 
master to me, that raised and advanced 
me nine times, thrice in dignity, and six 
times in offices. The places were indeed 
the painfiiUest of all your services ; but 
then they had both honour and profits ; 
and the then profits might have main- 
tained my now honours, if I had been 
wise ; neither was your majesty's im- 
mediate liberality wanting towards me 
in some gifts, if I may hold them. All 
this I do most thankfully acknowledge, 
and do herewith conclude, that for any 
thing arising fi'om myself to move youi- 
eye of pity tOMards me, there is much 
more in my present misery than in my 
past services ; save that the same, your 



104 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book 11. 



majesty's goodness, that n^ay give relief 
to the one, may give vahie to the othei'. 
And, indeed, if it may please your 
majesty, this theme of my misery is so 
plentiful, as it need not be coupled with 
any thing* else. I ];iave been somebody 
by your majesty's sing-ular and unde- 
served favour, even the prime officer of 
your kingdom. Your majesty's arm 
hath often been laid over mine in coun- 
cil, when you presided at the table ; so 
near was I ! I have borne your majesty's 
imag-e in metal, much more in my heart. 
I was never, in nineteen years service, 
chidden by your majesty ; but contrari- 
wise, often overjoyed when your majesty 
would sometimes say, 1 was a good hus- 
band for you, though none for myself; 
sometimes, that I had a way to deal in 
business suavibus modis, which was the 
way which was most according to your 
own heart ; and other most gracious 
speeches, of affections and trust, which 
1 feed on to this day. But why should 
I speak of these things, which are now 
vanished, but only the Letter to express 
my downfal ? 

For now it is thus with me : I am a 
year and a half '^' old in misery ; though 
I must ever acknowledge, not without 
some mixture of your majesty's grace 
and mercy. For I do not think it possi- 
ble that any one, v/hom you once loved, 
should be totally miserable. Mine own 
means, through my own improvidence, 
are poor and weak, little better than my 
father left me. The poor things that I 
have had from your majesty are either in 
question or at courtesy. My dignities 
remain marks of your past favour, but 
burdens of my present fortune. The 
poor remnants which 1 had of my for- 
mer fortunes in plate or jewels, I have 
spread upon poor men unto whom I 
owed, scarce leaving myself a convenient 
subsistence ; so as to conclude, I must 
pour out my misery before your majesty 
so far as to say. Si tu deserts, perhnus. 

But as I can offer to your majesty's 
compassion little arising from myself to 
move you, except it be my extreme 
misery, which 1 have truly opened : so 
looking up to your majesty's own self, 1 
should think 1 committed Cain's fault, 
if I should despair. Your majesty is a 
king whose heart is as unscrutable for 

••i"- Thcrcforn this was wrote near the middle 
of the vear 1()22. 



secret motions of goodness, as for depth 
of v/isdom. You are creator-like, fac- 
tive not destructive : you are the prince 
in whom hath ever been noted an aver- 
sion against any thing that favoured of 
an hard heart : as on the other side, 
your princely eye was wont to meet with 
any motion that was made on the re- 
lieving part. Therefore, as one tliat 
hath had the happiness to know your 
majesty near-hand, I have, most gra- 
cious sovereign, faith enough for a mira- 
cle, and much more for a grace, that 
your majesty will not suffer your poor 
creature to be utterly defaced, nor blot 
the name quite out of your book, upon 
M'liich your sacred hand hath been so 
oft for the giving him new ornaments 
and additions. 

Unto this degree of compassion, I 
hope God (of whose mercy towards me, 
both in my prosperity and adversity, 1 
have had great testimonies and pledges, 
though mine own manifold and wretched 
unthankfulness might have averted them) 
will dispose your princely heart, al- 
ready prepared to all piety you shall do 
for mef. And as all commiserable per- 
sons (especially such as find their hearts 
void of all malice) are apt to think that 
all men pity them, so I assure myself 
that the lords of your council, who, out 
of their wisdom and nobleness, cannot 
but be sensible of human events, will in 
this way which I go for the relief of my 
estate, further and advance your ma- 
jesty's goodness towards me ; for there 
is, as I conceive, a kind of fraternity be- 
tween great men that are, and those that 
have been, being but the several tenses 
of one verb. Nay, 1 do farther presume, 
that both houses of parliament will love 
their justice the better, if it end not in 
my ruin : for I have been often told by 
many of my lords, as it were in the way 
of excusing the severity of the sentence, 
that they know they left me in good 
hands. And your majesty knoweth well 
I have been all my life long acceptable 
to those assemblies : not by flattery, but 
by moderation, and by honest express- 
ing of a desire to have all things go 
fairly and well. 

But if it may please your majesty (for 
saints 1 shall give them reverence, but 
no adoration •, my addrjj^s is to your 

f Vouchsafe to express towards me, 



Sect. I. 



MODERN, OF EARLY DATE. 



105 



majesty, the fountain of goodness) your 
majesty sliall, by the grace of God, not 
feel that in gift which I shall extremely 
feel in help ; for my desires are moderate, 
and my com'ses measured to a life or- 
derly and reserved, hoping still to do 
your majesty honour in my way ; only 
i most humbly beseech your majesty to 
give me leave to conclude with these 
words, which necessity speaketh : Help 
me, dear sovereign, lord and master, 
and pity so far, as that I, that have borne 
a bag, be not now in my age, forced in 
effect to bear a wallet ; nor that I, that 
desire to live to study, may not be driven 
to study to live. I most humbly crave 
pai'don of a long letter after a long si- 
lence. God of heaven ever bless, pre- 
serve, and prosper your majesty. Your 
majesty's poor ancient servant and beds- 



LETTER XXXII. 

Lord Baltimore to Lord Wentiuorth, af- 
terwards Earl of Strafford. 

My lord. 
Were not my occasions such as neces- 
sarily keep me here at this time, I would 
not send letters, but fly to you myself 
with all the speed I could, to express 
my own grief, and to take part of 
yours, which I know is exceedingly 
great, for the loss of so noble a lady, 
so virtuous and so loving a wife. There 
are few, perhaps?, can judge of it better 
than I, Avho have been a long time my- 
self a man of sorrows. But all things, 
my lord, in this world pass away statii- 
tiim est, wife, children, honour, wealth, 
friends, and what else is dear to flesh and 
blood ; they are but lent us till God 
please to call for them back again, that 
we may not esteem any thing our own, 
or set our hearts upon any thing but 
him alone, who only remains for ever. I 
beseech his almighty goodness to grant 
that your lordship may, for his sake, 
bear this great cross with meekness and 
patience, whose only son, our dear Lord 
and Saviour, bore a greater for you ; 
and to consider that these humiliations, 
though they be very bitter, yet are they 
sovereign medicines ministered unto us 
by our heavenly physician to cure the 
sicknesses of our souls, if the fault be not 
ours. Good my lord, bear with this ex- 
cess of zeal in a friend whose great af- 



fection to you transports him to dwell 
longer upon this melancholy theme than 
is needful to your lordship, whose own 
wisdom, assisted with God's grace, I 
hope, suggests unto you these and bet- 
ter resolutions than I can offer unto your 
remembrance. All 1 have to say more 
is but this, that I humbly and heartily 
pray for you to dispose of yourself and 
your affairs (the rites being done to the 
noble creature) as to be able to remove, 
as soon as conveniently you may, from 
those parts, where so many things re- 
present themselves unto you, as to make 
your wound bleed afresh ; and let us 
have you here, where the gracious Avel- 
come of your master, tlie conversation 
of your friends, andvariety of businesses, 
may divert your thoughts the sooner from 
sad objects ; the continuance whereof 
wiU but endanger your health, on which 
depends the welfare of your children, 
the comfort of your friends, and many 
other good things, for which 1 hope God 
will reserve you, to whose divine favour 
I humbly recommend you, and remain 
ever your lordship's most affectionate and 
faithful servant. 

From my lodging in Lincolns- 
Inn-Fields, Oct, 11, 1631. 



LETTER XXXIII. 

Lord IVentworth to Archbishop Laud. 

May it please your grace, 
I AM gotten hither to a poor house I 
have, having been this last week almost 
feasted to death at York. In truth, for 
any thing I can find, they were not ill 
pleased to see me. Sure I am, it much 
contented me to be amongst my old ac- 
quaintance, which I would not leave for 
any other affection I have, but to that 
which I both profess and owe to the i)er- 
son of his sacred majesty. Lord ! with 
\vhat quietness in myself could I live in 
comparison of that noise and labour I 
met with elsewhere ; and I protest put 
up more crowns in my purse at the year's 
end too. But we'll let that pass. For I 
am not like to enjoy that blessed condi- 
tion upon earth. And therefore my re- 
solution is set, to endure and struggle 
with it so long as this crazy body will 
bear it ; and finally drop into the silent 
gr.ave, M'here both all these (which I 
now could, as I think, innocentlv de- 



106 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IL 



light myself in) and myself are to be 
forgotten ; and fare them well. I per- 
suade myself exuio lepido I am able to 
lay them down very quietly, and yet 
leave behind me, as a truth not to be 
forgotten, a perfect and full remem- 
brance of my being your grace's most 
humbly to be commanded. 

Gawthorp, the 17th of Aug. 1636. 



LETTER XXXIV. 
Charles I. to Lord Weniivorth. 

Wentworth, 
Certainly I should be much to blame 
not to admit so good a servant as you are 
to speak with me, since I deny it to none 
that there is not a just exception against ; 
yet I must freely tell you, that the cause 
of this desire of yours, if it be known, 
will rather hearten than discourage your 
enemies ; for, if they can once find that 
you apprehend the dark setting of a 
storm, when I say No, they will make you 
leave to care for any thing in a short 
while but for your fears. And, believe it, 
the marks of my favours that stop mali- 
cious tongues are neither places nor titles, 
but the little welcome I give to accusers, 
and the willing ear I give to my servants ; 
this is, not to disparage those favours 
(for envy flies most at the fairest mark), 
but to shew their use ; to wit, not to 
quell envy, but to reward service ; it be- 
ing truly so, when the master without 
the servant's importunity does it ; other- 
wise men judge it more to proceed from 
the servant's wit, than the master's fa- 
vour. I will end with a rule, that may 
serve for a statesman, a courtier, or a 
lover : Never make a defence or apology 
before you be accused. And so I rest 
your assured friend. 

Lindhurst, 3d Sept. 1636. 

For my lord marshal, as you have armed 
me, so I warrant you. 

LETTER XXXV. 

Charles I. to the Earl of Strafford, 

Strafford, 
The misfortune that is fallen upon you 
by the strange mistaking and conjuncture 
of these times being such, that I must 



lay by the thought of employing* you 
hereafter in my affairs ; yet I cannot 
satisfy myself in honour or conscience, 
without assuring you (now in the midst 
of your troubles) that, upon the word of 
a king, you shall not suffer in life, 1 
honour, or fortune. This is but justice, w 
and therefore a very mean reward from a 
master to so faithful and able a servant 
as you have shewed yourself to be ; yet ■ 
it is as much as I conceive the present ■ 
times will permit, though none shall 
hinder me from being your constant 
faithful friend. 

WliitehaU, April 23, 1641. 



LETTER XXXVl. 

Earl of Strafford to his Son. 

My dearest Will, 
These are the last lines that you are to 
receive from a father that tenderly loves 
you. I wish there were a greater leisure 
to impart my mind unto you ; but our 
merciful God will supply all things by 
his grace, and guide and protect you in 
all your ways : to whose infinite goodness 
I bequeath you ; and therefore be not 
discouraged, but serve him, and trust in 
him, and he will preserve and prosper 
you in aU things. 

Be sure you give all respect to my 
wife, that hath ever had a great love 
unto you, and therefore wiU be well be- 
coming you. Never be wanting in your 
love and care to your sisters, but let them 
ever be most dear unto you ; for this will 
give others cause to esteem and respect 
you for it, and is a duty that you owe 
them in the memory of your excellent 
mother and myself ; therefore your care 
and affection to them must be the very 
same that you are to have of yourself ; 
and the like regard must you have to 
your youngest sister ; for indeed you 
owe it to her also both for her father 
and mother's sake. 

Sweet Will, be careful to take the ad- 
vice of those friends which are by me de- 
sired to advise you for your education. 
Serve God diligently morning and even- 
ing, and recommend yourself unto him, 
and have him before your eyes in all 
your ways. With patience here the in- 
structions of those friends I leave with 
you, and diligently follow their counsel ; 
for, till you come by time to have ex- 



Sect. I. 



MODERN, OF EARLY DATE. 



107 



perience in the world, it mU. be far more 
safe to trust to their judgmeuts than 
your own. 

Lose not the time of yoiu* youth , but 
gather those seeds of virtue and know- 
ledge which may be of use to yourself, 
and comfort to your fi*iends, for the rest 
of your life. And that this may be the 
better effected, attend thereunto with pa- 
tience, and be sure to correct and refrain 
yourself from anger. Siiffer not sorrow 
to cast you down, but with cheerfulness 
and good courage go on the race you 
have to run in all sobriety and truth. Be 
sure with an hallowed care to have re- 
spect to all the commandments of God, 
and give not yourself to neglect them in 
the least things, lest by degrees you 
come to forget them in the greatest ; for 
the heart of a man is deceitful above all 
things. And in all your duties and de- 
votions towards God, rather perform 
them joyfully than pensively, for God 
loves a cheerful giver. For your reli- 
gion, let it be directed according to 
that which shall be taught by those 
wliich are in God's church, the proper 
teachers, therefore, rather than that you 
ever either fancy one to yourself, or be 
led by men that are singular in their own 
opinions, and delight to go ways of their 
own finding out ; for you will certainly 
find soberness and truth in the one, and 
much unsteadiness and vanity in the 
other. 

Tlie king, I trust, will deal graciously 
with you, restore you those honours and 
that fortune which a distempered time 
hath deprived you of, together with the 
life of your father : which I rather ad- 
vise might be by a new gift and creation 
from himself, than by any other means, 
to the end you may pay the thanks to 
him without having obligation to any 
other. 

Be sure you avoid as much as you can 
to inquire after those that have been 
sharp in their judgments towards me ; 
and I charge you never to suffer thought 
<of revenge to enter your heart ; but be 
<!areful to be informed who were my 
friends in this prosecution, and to them 
apply yourself to make them your friends 
also ; and on such you may rely, and be- 
stow much of your conversation amongst 
them. 

And God Almighty of his infinite 
goodness bless you and your children's 
children; and his same goodness bless 



your sisters in like manner, perfect you 
in every good work, and give you right 
understandings in all things. Amen. 
Your most loving father. 

Tower, this 11th of May, 1641. 

You must not fail to behave yourself 
towards my lady Clare, your grand- 
mother, with all duty and observance ; 
for most tenderly doth she love you, and 
hath been passing kind unto me : God 
reward her charity for it. And both in 
this and all the rest, the same that I 
counsel you, the same do I direct also 
to your sisters, that so the same may be 
observed by you all. And once more 
do I, from my very soul, beseech our 
gracious God to bless and govern you in 
all, to the saving you in the day of his 
visitation, and join us again in the com- 
munion of his blessed saints, where is 
fulness of joy and bliss for evermore« 
Amen, Amen. 



LETTER XXXVn. 

Ja?nes, Earl of Derby, to Commissary 
General Ireton, in answer to the sum- 
?7ions sent the JEarl to deliver up the 
Isle of Man. 

Sir, 
I HAVE received your letter with indig- 
nation, and with scorn return you this ' 
answer : That I cannot but wonder 
whence you should gather any hopes that 
I should prove, like you, treacherous to 
my sovereign ; since you cannot be ig- 
norant of the manifest candour of my 
former actings in his late majesty's ser- 
vice, from which principles of loyalty I 
am no whit departed. I scorn your 
proffer ; I disdain your favour ; I abhor 
your reason ; and am so far from deli- 
vering up this island to your advantage, 
that I shall keep it to the utmost of my 
power, and, I hope, to your destruction. 
Take this for your final answer, and for- 
bear any further solicitations ; for if you 
trouble me with any more messages of 
this nature, I will burn your paper, and 
hang up your messenger. This is the 
immutable resolution, and shaU be the 
undoubted practice, of him who accounts 
it his chiefest glory, to be his majesty's 
most loyal obedient subject. 

From Castle-Town, this 12th July, 
1649. 



108 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IL 



LETTER XXXVIIL 

Charles II. to the Duke of York. 

Dear brother, 
I HAVE received yours without a date, in 
which you mention that Mr. Montague 
lias endeavoured to pervert you in your 
religion. I do not doubt but you re- 
member very well the commands I left 
with you at my going away concerning 
that point, and am confident you will ob- 
serve them. Yet the letters that come 
from Paris say, that it is the queen's 
purpose to do all she can to change your 
religion, which, if you hearken to her, 
or any body else in that matter, you 
must never think to see England or me 
again ; and whatsoever mischief shall fall 
on me or my affairs from this time, I 
must lay all upon you, as being the only 
cause of it. Therefore consider well 
what it is, not only to be the cause of 
ruining a brother that loves you so well, 
but also of your king and country. Do 
not let them persuade you either by 
force or fair promises ; for the first they 
neither dare nor will use ; and for the 
second, as soon as they have perverted 
you, they will have their end, and will 
care no more for you. 

I am also informed, that there is a 
purport to put you in the Jesuit's col- 
lege, which I command you upon the 
same gi-ounds never to consent unto. 
And whensoever any body shall go to dis- 
pute with you in religion, do not an- 
swer them at all ; for though you have 
the reason on your side, yet they being 
prepared will have the advantage of any 
body that is not upon the same security 
that they are. If you do not consider 
what I say to you, remember the last 
words of your dead father, which were, 
to be constant to your religion, and 
never to be shaken in it ; which if you do 
not observe, this shall be the last time 
you will ever hear from, dear brother, 
your most affectionate brotlier. 

Cologne, Nov. 10, 1654. 



LETTER XXXIX. 

Oliver Cromwell to his So7i H. Cromwell. 

Son, 
I HAVE seen your letter written unto 



Mr. secretary Thurloe, and do find 
thereby that you are very aj)prehensive 
of the carriage of some persons with you 
towards yourself and the public ajffairs. 
I do believe there may be some particular 
persons who are not very well pleased 
with the present condition of things, and 
may be apt to shew their discontent as 
they have opportunity ; but this should 
not make too great impressions on you. 
Time and patience may work them to a 
better frame of spirit, and bring them to 
see that which for the present seems to 
be hid from them ; especially if they shall 
see your moderation and love towards 
them, whilst they are found in other ways 
towards you : which I earnestly desire 
you to study and endeavour all that lies 
in you, whereof both you and I too shall 
have the comfort, whatsoever the issue 
and event thereof be. 

For what you write of more help, I 
have long endeavoured it, and shall not 
be wanting to send you some fiu'ther ad- 
dition to the council as soon as men can 
be found out who are fit for that trust. I 
am also thinking of sending over to you 
a fit person, who may command the 
north of Ireland, which I believe stands 
in gTcat need of one, and am of your opi- 
nion, that Trevor and Colonel Mervin 
are very dangerous persons, and may be 
made the heads of a new rebellion ; and 
therefore I would have you move the 
council, that they be secured in some very 
safe place, and the farther out of their 
own countries the better. I commend 
you to the Lord, and rest your affec- 
tionate father. 

21 Nov. 1655. 



LETTER XL. 

Lady Mary Cromwell to Henry Cromwell. 

Dear brother. 
Your kind letters do so much engage 
my heart towards you, that I can never 
tell how to express in writing the true 
affection and value I have of you, who 
truly I think none that knows you but 
you may justly claim it from. I must 
confess myself in a great fault in the 
omitting of writing to you and your dear 
wife so long a time ; but I suppose you 
cannot be ignorant of the reason, which 
truly has been the only cause, which is 
this business of my sister Frances and Mr. 



Sect, i, 



MODERN, OF EARLY DATE. 



109 



Rich. Truly I can truly say it, for these 
three months I think our family, and my- 
self in particular, have been in the great- 
est confusion and trouble as ever poor 
family can be in ; the Lord tell us his 
* * "^ * in it, and settle us, and make us 
what he would have us to be. I suppose 
you lieard of the breaking- oif the busi- 
ness, and according' to your desire in your 
last letter, as well as I can, I shall give 
you a full account of it, which is this ; 
After a quarter of a year's admissions, my 
father and my lord Warwick began to 
treat about the estate, and it seems my 
lord did not offer that that my father ex- 
pected. I need not name particulars, 
for I suppose you may have had it from 
better hands ; but if I may say the trutlij 
I think it was not so much estate as 
some private reasons, that my father 
discovered to none but my sister Frances, 
and his own family, which was a dislike 
to the young person, which he had from 
some reports of his being a vicious man, 
given to play and such like things, which 
office was done by some that had a 
mind to break oif the match. My sister, 
hearing these things, was resolved to 
know the truth of it, and truly did find 
all the reports to be false that were 
raised of him ; and to tell you the truth, 
they were so much engaged in affection 
before this, that she could not think of 
breaking of it off ; so that my sister 
engaged me, and all the friends she had, 
who truly were very few, to speak in 
her behalf to my father ; which we did, 
but could not be heard to any purpose ; 
only this my father promised, that if he 
were satisfied as to the report, the estate 
shoidd not break it off, v/hicli she was 
satisfied with ; but after this there was 
a second treaty, and my lord Warwick 
desired my father to name what it was 
he demanded more, and to his utmost 
he would satisfy him ; so my father upon 
this made new propositions, which my 
lord Warwick has answered as much as 
he can ; but it seems there is five hun- 
dred pounds a year in my lord Rich's 
hands, which he has power to sell ; and 
there are some people tliat persuaded 
his highness, that it would be dishonour- 
able for him to conclude of it without 
these five hundred pounds a year be set- 
tled upon Mr. Rich after his father's 
death, and my lord Rich having no es- 
teem at all of his son, because he is not 
£LS bad as himself, will not agree to it ; 



and these people upon this persuade my 
father, it would be a dishonour to him 
to yield upon these terms ; it would 
shew, that he was made a fool on by my 
lord Rich ; which the truth is, how it 
should be, I cannot understand, nor very 
few else ; and truly I must tell you 
privately, that they are so far engaged, 
as the match cannot be broke off. She 
acquainted none of her friends with her 
resolution when she did it. Dear bro- 
ther, this is as far as I can tell the state 
of the business. The Lord direct them 
what to do ; and all I think ought to 
beg of God to pardon her in her doing 
of this thing, which I must say truly, 
she was put upon by the * * '^ * of 
things. Dear, let me beg my excuses 
to ray sister for not writing my best 
respects to her. Pardon this trouble, 
and believe me, that I shall ever strive 
to approve myself, dear brother, your 
affectionate sister and servant. 
June 23, 1656. 



LETTER XLI. 

Henry Cromwell to Lord Faulconberg. 

Sept. 8, 1658. 
My lord, 
Although the last letters brought a 
very sad memento of mortality, yet I 
was not well enough prepared to receive 
yours by this post, without (it may be) 
too much consternation. I know the 
highest griefs arising from my natural 
affection to my dear father ought so far 
to give way, as to let me remember my 
present station ; but I see more of this 
kind than I am able to practise; and 
truly when I recollect myself, and con- 
sider the desperate distractions which 
so nearly threaten us, 1 am quite lost in 
the way to the remedy. For 1 may 
truly tell your lordship, that either 
through the design or unfaithfulness of 
my friends, or through their ignorance 
and incompetency for a work of that 
nature, I have never been acquainted 
with the inside either of things or per- 
sons, but fobbed off with intelligence 
about as much differing from Mabbot, as 
he from a Diurnall ; so that 1 can con- 
tribute little to prevent our danger, more 
than by my prayers, and keeping the 
army and people under my charge in a 
good frame. I wish yours may be so 



110 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IL 



kept in Engiand. Methinks some begin 
their meetings very early. It may be 
tliey intend to give the laAv ; but if tliey 
do not keep to what is honest, they 
may meet with disappointments. I do 
heartily thank your lordship for your 
freedom and confidence in me. I am 
sure I cannot plead merit, but shall be 
glad to cherish that sympathy, or what- 
ever else it is that makes me yours. 
I hope I shall always be just to your 
lordship. Some late letters do a little 
revive us, and give hopes of his high- 
ness's recovery ; yet my trovible is ex- 
ceeding great. I remain, &c. 



LETTER XLII. 

Lord'Broghill to Secretary Thurloe. 

Dear sir, 
Though I did on Monday last trou- 
ble you with a letter, yet having now 
also received the honour of another from 
you of the seventh instant, I could not 
but pay you my humble and hearty ac- 
knowledgments for it, and that in such 
a deep affliction as that you are under, 
and that load of business you support, you 
can yet oblige with your letters a person 
so unworthy of them, and so insignificant 
as I am. Your last is so express a pic- 
ture of sorrow, that none could draw it 
so well that did not feel it. I know our 
late loss wounds deeply both the public 
and yourself, and yourself more upon the 
public account than your own. But I 
think sorrow for friends is more tolerable 
while they are dying than after they are 
dead. David's servants reasoned as ill 
as he himself did well ; they concluded, 
if his grief were such when the child was 
but in danger of death, what would it be 
when he knew it was dead ? He took and 
considered the thing another way ; whilst 
there was life, that is, whilst the will of 
God was not declared, he thought it a 
duty to endeavour to move the mercy of 
God by his prayers and sorrow ; but 
when God's pleasure was declared, he 
knew It was a duty cheerfully to yield 
unto it. I know, in the cause of grief 
now before us, I am the unfittest of any 
to offer comfort, which I need as much as 
any ; and I know it is as unfit to offer to 
present it you, who, as you need it most 
of any, so you are ablest to afford it others 
above any : however, this one consider- 



ation of David's actings I could not but 
lay before you, it having proved an ef- 
fectual consolation to me in the death of 
one I but too much loved. But I hope 
your sorrow for what is past does not 
drown your care for what is to come ; 
nay, I am confident of it ; for you that 
can in your sorrow and business mind 
me, makes me know your grief hinders 
us not from enjoying the accustomed 
effects of your care to the public ; and 
while v/hat we pay the dead does not 
obstruct what Ave owe the living, such 
sorrow is a debt, and not a fault. 

In this nation his highness has been 
proclaimed in most of the considerable 
places already, and in others he is daily 
a proclaiming, and indeed with signal 
demonstrations of love to his person, 
and of hope of happiness under his go- 
vernment. 

I heartily join in all the good you say 
of him, and hope witii you he wall be 
happy if his friends stick to him ; amongst 
ail those I know you will ; and I know 
all promises with me are not kept, if you 
are not reckoned by him in the first 
rank, of which I have presumed to mind 
him in a letter I took the confidence to 
write unto him this week. 

But, I fear, while 1 thus trouble you, 
I give the honour of your letters a very 
disproportionate return; and therefore 
I will only now subscribe myself, what I 
am from the bottom of my heart, dear 
sir, your most humble, most faithful, 
and most obliged affectionate servant. 

Ballymallo, the 17th of September, 
1658. 



LETTER XLIII. 

Henry Cromti'ell to Richard Cromwell, 
Protector. 

Sept. 21, 1658. 
May it please your highness, 
I RECEIVED a letter from your highness 
by Mr. UnderAvood, who, according to 
your commands, hath given me a par- 
ticular account of the sickness and death 
of his late highness, my dear father, 
which was such an amazing stroke that 
it did deeply affect the heart of every 
man, much more may it do those of a 
nearer relation. And indeed, for my 
own part, I am so astonished at it, that 
I know not what to say or write upon 



Sect. 1. 



MODERN, OF EARLY DATE. 



Ill 



this so sad and grievous occasion. I 
know it is our duties upon all accounts 
to give submission to the will of God, 
and to be awakened by this mighty noise 
from the Lord to look into our own 
hearts and ways, and to put our mouths 
in the dust, acknowledging our own 
vileness and sinMness before him ; that 
so, if possible, we may thereby yet obtain 
mercy from him for ourselves and these 
poor nations. As this stroke was very 
stupendous, so the happy news of his late 
highness leaving us so hopeful a foun- 
dation for our future peace, in appoint- 
ing your highness his successor, coming 
along with it to us, did not a little allay 
the other. For my part I can truly say 
I was relieved by it, not only upon the 
public consideration, but even upon the 
account of the goodness of God to our 
poor family, who hath preserved us from 
the contempt of our enemy. I gave a 
late account to IMr. secretary Thurloe 
of what passed about the proclaiming 
your highness here, which, I may say 
T^dthout vanity, was with as great joy 
and general satisfaction, as I believe in 
the best affected places in England. I 
doubt not but to give your highness as 
good an account of the rest of the places 
in Ireland, so soon as the proclamations 
are returned. I did also give some ac- 
comit of the speedy compliance of the 
army, whose obedience your highness 
may justly require at my hands. Now, 
that the God and Father of your late 
father and mine, and your highness's 
predecessor, would support you, and by 
pouring down a double portion of the 
same spirit which was so eminently 
upon him, would enable you to walk in 
liis steps, and to do worthily for his 
name, cause, and people, and continually 
preserve you in so doing, is and shaU be 
the fervent and daily prayer of yours, 
&c. 

LETTER XLIV. 

The Hon. Algernon Sidney to his friend. 

Sir, 
I AM sorry I cannot in all things con- 
form myseK to the advices of my friends ; 
if theirs had any joint concernment with 
mine, I would willingly submit my in- 
terest to theirs ; but when I alone am 
interested, and they only advise me to 
4eome over as soon as the act of indem- 



nity is passed, because they think it is 
best for me, I cannot wholly lay aside 
my own judgment and choice, i con- 
fess, we are naturally inclined to delight 
in our own country, and I have a par- 
ticular love to mine ; and I hope I have 
given some testimony of it. I think 
that being exiled from it is a great evil, 
and would redeem myself from it with 
the loss of a great deal of my blood; 
but when that country of mine, which 
used to be esteemed a paradise, is now 
likely to be made a stage of injury ; the 
liberty which we hoped to establish op- 
pressed, all manner of profaneness, 
looseness, luxury, and lewdness set up 
in its height ; instead of piety, virtue, 
sobriety, and modesty, which we hoped 
God, by our hands, Avould have intro- 
duced ; the best of our nation made a 
prey to the worst ; the parliament, 
court, and army corrupted, the people 
enslaved, aU things vendible, and no 
man safe, but by such evil and infamous 
means as flattery and bribery ; what joy 
can I have in my own country in this 
condition ! Is it a pleasure to see all that 
I love in the world sold and destroyed ? 
ShaU I renounce aU my old principle?, 
learn the vUe court arts, and make my 
peace by bribing some of them? Shall 
their corruption and vice be my safety ? 
Ah ! no ; better is a life among stran- 
gers, than in my own country upon 
such conditions. — Wiiilst I live, I wiU 
endeavour to preserve my liberty ; or, 
at least, not consent to the destroying 
of it. I hope I shaU die in the same 
principles in which I have lived, and 
wiU Uve no longer than they Can pre- 
serve me. I have in my life been guUty 
of many foUies, but, as I think, of no 
meanness. I wUl not blot and defile 
that which is past, by endeavouring to 
provide for the future. I have ever had 
in my mind, that when God should cast 
me into such a condition, as that I can- 
not save my life, but by doing an inde- 
cent thing, he shews me the time is 
come wherein I should resign it. And 
when I cannot live in my own country, 
but by such means as are worse than 
dying in it, I think he shews me I ought 
to keep myself out of it. Let them 
please themselves with making the 
king glorious, who think a whole peo- 
ple may justly be sacrificed for the in- 
terest and pleasure of one man, and a 
few of his followers ; let them rejoice in 



112 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book II. 



their subtilty, who, by betraying the 
former powers, have gained the favour 
of this, not only preserved but advanced 
themselves in those dangerous changes. 
Nevertheless (perhaps) they may hnd 
the king's glory is their shame, his 
plenty the people's misery : and that 
the gaining of an office, or a little mo- 
ney, is a poor reward for destroying a 
nation, which if it were preserved in 
liberty and virtue, would truly be the 
most glorious in the Avorld ! and that 
others may find they have, with much 
pains, purchased their own shame and 
misery : a dear price paid for that which 
is not worth keeping, nor the life that 
is accompanied with it. The honour of 
English parliaments has ever been in 
making the nation glorious and happy, 
not in selling and destroying the interest 
of it, to satisfy the lusts of one man. 
Miserable nation ! that, from so great 
a height of glory, is fallen into the most 
despicable condition in the world, of 
having all its good depending upon the 
breath and will of the vilest persons in 
it ! Cheated and sold by them they trust- 
ed ! Infamous traffic, equal almost in 
guilt to that of Judas ! In all preceding- 
ages, parliaments have been the pillars 
of our liberty, the sure defenders of the 
oppressed : they who formerly could 
bridle kings, and keep the balance equal 
between them and the people, are now 
become the instruments of ail our oppres- 
sions, and a sword in his hand to destroy 
us ; they themselves, led by a few inte- 
rested persons, who are willing to buy 
offices for themselves by the misery of 
the whole nation, and the blood of the 
most worthy and eminent persons in it. 
Detestable bribes, worse than the oaths 
now in fashion in this mercenary court ! 
I mean to owe neither my life nor li- 
berty to any such means : when the 
innocence of my actions will not protect 
me, I will stay away till the storm be 
over-passed. In short, where Vane, 
Lambert, and Haslerigg cannot live in 
safety, I cannot live at all. If I had 
been in England, I should have expected 
a lodging with them : or, though they 
may be the first, as being more eminent 
tlian I, I must expect to follow their 
examjde in suffering, as I have been 
their companion in acting. I am most 
in amaze at the mistaken informations 
that were sent to me by my friends, full 
^f expectations, of favours, and employ- 



ments. Who can think, that they, who 
imprison them, would employ me, or 
suffer me to live when they are put to 
deatli ? If I might live, and employed, 
can it be expected that I should serve a 
government that seeks such detestable 
ways of establishing itself? Ah ! no ; I 
have not learnt to make my own 
peace, by persecuting and betraying my 
brethren, more innocent and worthy 
than myself. I must live by just means, 
and serve to just ends, or not at all, 
after such a manifestation of the ways 
by which it is intended the king shall 
govern. I should have renounced any 
place of favour into which the kindness 
and industry of my friends might have 
advanced me, when I found those that 
were better than I were only fit to be 
destroyed. I had formerly some jea- 
lousies, the fraudulent proclamation for 
indemnity increased the imprisonment 
of those three men ; and turning out 
of all the officers of the army, contrary to 
promise, confirmed me in my resolu- 
tions not to return. 

To conclude ; the tide is not to be 
diverted, nor the oppressed delivered ; 
but God, in his time, will have mercy on 
his people ; he will save and defend them, 
and avenge the blood of those who shall 
now perish, upon the heads of those who, 
in their pride, think nothing is able to 
oppose ti)em. Happy are those whom 
God shall make instruments of his jus- 
tice in so blessed a vrork. If I can live 
to see that day, I shall be ripe for the 
grave, and able to say with joy, Lord ! 
now lettest thou thy servant depart in 
peace. Sec. (So sir Arthur Haslerigg on 
Oliver's death.) Farewell. My thoughts 
as to king and state, depending upon 
their actions, no man shall be a more 
faithful servant to him than I, if he 
make the good and prosperity of his 
people his glory ; none more his enemy, 
if he doth the contrary. To my par- 
ticular friends I shall be constant in all 
occasions, and to you a most affectionate 
servant. 

LETTER XLV. 

Mr. Boyle to the Countess of Ranelagh. 

My dear sister, 
If I were of those scribblers' humour 
who love to put themselves to one 
trouble, to put their friends to another ; 



Sect. I, 



MODERN, OF EARLY DATE. 



113 



and who weekly break their silence, only 
to acquaint us with their unwillingness 
to keep it ; I must confess I had much 
oftener written you letters not worth 
the reading. But having- ever looked 
upon silence and respect as things as 
near of kin as importvmity and afifection, 
I elected rather to trust to your good 
opinion, to your good-nature, than your 
patience with my letters : for which to 
suppose a welcome, must have presumed 
a greater kindness, than they could 
have exprest. For I am grown so per- 
fect a villager, and live so removed, not 
only from the roads, but from the very 
bye-paths of intelligence ; that to enter- 
tain you with our country discourse, 
would have extremely puzzled me, 
since your children have not the rickets 
nor the measles ; and as for nev/s, I 
could not have sent you so mucli as that 
of my being well. To beseech you not 
to forget me, were but a bad compli- 
ment to your constancy ; and to tell 
you 1 remember you, were a worse to 
my own judgment ; and compliments of 
the other nature it were not easy for me 
to write from Stalbridge, and less easy 
to write to you : so that wanting all 
themes and strains, that might enable 
me to fill my letters with any thing that 
might pay the patience of reading them, 
I thought it pardonabler to say nothing 
by a respectuous silence, than by idle 
words. But the causes being just so 
many excuses of that silence, I should 
have more need to apologize for my 
letters, if these seemed not necessary to 
prevent the misconstruction of their 
unfrequency ; and if I did not send up 
the antidote with them, in the com- 
pany of my brother Frank ; by whom it 
were equally incongruous and unsea- 
sonable to send you no epistle, and to 
send you a long one ; which (latter) 
that this may not prove, I must hasten 
to assure you, that though I have not 
very lately written you any common let- 
lers, it is not long since I was writing 
you a dedicatory one, which may (pos- 
sibly) have the happiness to convey your 
name to posterity ; and having told you 
this, I shall next take post to beseech 
you to believe, that whensoever you 
shall please to vouchsafe me the honour 
of yoiu- commands, my glad and exact 
obedience shall convince you, that 
though many others may oftener renew 



their bonds, I can esteem myself, by a 
single note under my hand, equally 
engaged to you for all the services that 
may become the relation, and justify the 
professions, that style me, my dear 
sister, your most affectionate brother, 
and faithful humble servant, R. B. 

Stalbridge, this 13th Nov. 1646. 



LETTER XLVL 

From the same to the same. 

My sister, 
I HAVE evel' counted it amongst the 
highest infelicities of friendship, that it 
increasingly reflects upon us our im- 
parted griefs ; for if our friends appear 
unconcerned in them, that indifference 
offends us, and if they resent them, 
sympathy afflicts us . This consideration , 
concurring with my native disposition, 
has made me shy of disclosing my afflic- 
tions, where I could not expect their re- 
dress ; being too proud to seek a relief 
in the being thought to need it, and too 
good a friend to find a satisfaction in 
their griefs I love, or to remit of the 
iU-natured consolation of seeing others 
wretched as well as I. This humour 
may in part inform you of the cause of 
my silence, and, I hope, in part excuse 
it ; but I am not now at leisure to make 
apologies, though I will assure you I de- 
cline the employment for want of time, 
not justice. Since I wrote to you last, I 
was unlikely enough ever to be in a con- 
dition to write to you again ; and my 
danger was so sudden and unexpected, 
that nothing could transcend it, except 
theirs, whose dilatory conversion makes 
them trust eternity to the uncertain 
improvement of a future contingent 
minute of a life obnoxious to numerous 
casualties, as impossible (almost) to be 
numbered as avoided. What God has 
decreed of me, himself best knows ; for 
my part, I shall still pray for a perfect 
resignation to his blessed will, and a re- 
sembling acquiesence in it ; and I hope 
his Spirit will so conform me to his dis- 
pensations, that I may cheerfully, by his 
assignment, either continue my work, 
or ascend to receive my wages. And in 
this I must implore the assistance of 
your fervent prayers, dear sister, which 
I am confident will both find a shorter 
I 



114 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book 1L 



way to heaven, and be better welcomed 
there. These three or four weeks I 
have been troubled with the visits of a 
quotidian ague, which yet had not the 
power to hinder me from three or four 
journeys to serve Frank, and wait upon 
my dear Broghill, nor from continuing 
my Vulcanian feat ; and, in the inter- 
vals of my fits, I both began and made 
some progress in the promised discourse 
of Public Spiritedness ; but now truly 
weakness, and the doctor's prescrip- 
tion, have cast my pen into the fire ; 
though, in spite of their menaces, I 
sometimes presume to snatch it out a 
while, and blot some paper with it. My 
present employment is, the reviewing 
some consolatory thouglits on the loss 
of friends, which my poor lady Susan's 
death obliged me to entertain myself 
with, and which I am now recruiting. 
If ever 1 finish them, I shall trouble 
you to read them ; and if I do not, be- 
seech you to make use of them. The 
melancholy, which some have been 
pleased to misrepresent to you as the 
cause of my distemper, is certainly 
much more the effect of them : neither 
is it either of that quality or that de- 
gree you apprehend, but much more 
just than dangerous : yet, to obey you, 
I shall endeavour a divorce ; and, as 
the properest means, endeavour to wait 
upon you ; in order to which, I came 
this night in a litter to this town, 
whence I intend not to dislodge, till 
God's blessing upon the remedies ena- 
ble me to do it on horseback. The 
kindness you expressed, in the letter I 
received this morning, has brought me 
so high a consolation, that 1 should 
think it cheaply purchased by the oc- 
casion of it, if I had ignored that the 
sole want of suitable opportunities re- 
strained the frequency of resembling 
strains ; and if I were not too well ac- 
quainted with the greatness of your 
goodness, not to derive a higher joy 
from your obliging proffers, as they are 
effects of your friendship, than testimo- 
nies of it. But though I value the 
blessing of your company at the rate of 
having the happiness of more than an 
indifferent acquaintance with you, I 
cannot consent to purchase my felicity 
(if such a thing could be done) by your 
disquiet : for your remove will not more 
certainly discompose your family, than 



it will be useless or unnecessary to me ; 
the nature of my disease being such, 
that it will either frustrate your visit, or 
allow me to do so ; for if in a very short 
time it destroy not, it will leave me 
strength enough to fetch a perfect cure 
of it at London, whither in spite of my 
present distempers, which are not small, 
nor (I fear) very fugitive, the physicians 
would persuade me that, by God's as- 
sistance, I may be able to crawl in a 
short time. I shall beseech you there- 
fore not to stir, until you hear further 
either from me, or of me ; and to be- 
lieve, that though your vis-its are fa- 
vours of too precious a quality to be 
fully receivable from your intention 
only, yet my concern in your quiet will 
make me (in the purposed journey) 
more welcomely resent your design 
than your presence. I hope you will 
pardon the disorder of this scribble to 
that of the writer, who is not only A 
weary of his journey, but is at present i 
troubled with a fit of his ague, which 
yet being but a sickness, cannot impair 
an affection, which will be sure to keep 
me really and unalterably till death, my 
dearest, dearest, dearest sister, your 
most affectionate brother and humble 
servant, R. B, 

Bath, August 2, 1649, late at night. 



LETTER XLVIL 

M^r. Bo7/le to the Countess of Ranelagh, 

My sister, 
I MUST confess that I should be as much 
in debt for your letters, though I had 
answered every one of yours, as he is 
in his creditor's, who for tAvo angels has 
paid back but two shillings : for cer- 
taiidy, if any where, it is in the ductions 
of the mind, that the quality ought to 
measure extent, and assign number and 
equity to multiply excellency, where 
wit has contracted it. I could easily 
evince this truth, and the justness of the 
application too, did I not apprehend 
that your modesty would make you 
mind me, that the nature of my disease 
forbids all strains. I am here, God be 
jjraised, upon the mending hand, though 
not yet exempted from either pain or 
fears ; the latter of which 1 could wish 
(but believe not) as much enemies to my 



Sect. I. 



MODERN, OF EARLY DATE. 



115 



reason, as I find the former to my quiet, 
I intend notwithstanding-, by God's 
blessing-, as soon as I have here recruited 
and refreshed my purse and self, to ac- 
complish my designed removal to Lon- 
don : my hoped arrival at which 1 look 
on with more joy, as a fruit of my reco- 
very, than a testimony of it. Sir Wil- 
liam and his son went hence this morn- 
ing-, having by the favour (or rather 
charity) of a visit, made me some com- 
pensation for the many I have lately 
received from persons, whose visitations 
(I think I may call them), in spite of my 
averseness to physic, make me find a 
gTeater ti'ouble in tlie congTatulations, 
than the instruments of my recovery. 
You will pardon, perhaps, the bitterness 
of this -expression, when I have told you, 
that having spent most of this week in 
drawing (for my particular use) a quin- 
tessence of wormwood, those disturbers 
of my work might easily shake some few 
drops into my ink. I will not now pre- 
sume to entertain you with those moral 
speculations, with which my chemical 
practices have entertained me ; but if 
this last sickness had not diverted me, I 
had before this presented you with a 
discourse (which my vanity made me 
hope would not have displeased you) of 
the theological use of natural philoso- 
phy, endeavouring to make the con- 
templation of the creatures contributory 
to the instruction of the prince, and to 
the glory of the author of them. But 
my blood has so thickened my ink, that 
I cannot yet make it run ; and my 
thoughts of improving the creatures 
have been very much displaced by those 
of leaving them. Nor has my disease 
been more guilty of my oblivion, than 
my employment since it has begun to 
release me : for Vulcan has so trans- 
ported and bewitched me, that as the 
delights I taste in it make me fancy my 
laboratory a kind of Elysium, so as if 
the threshold of it possessed the quality 
the poets ascribed to that Lethe, their 
fictions made men taste of before their 
entrance into those seats of bliss, I there 
forget my standish and my books, and 
almost all things, but the unchangeable 
resolution I have made of continuing 
till death, sister, your R. B. 

Stalb. Aug. the last, 1649. 



LETTER XLVIII. 

3Jr. Boyle to Lord Broghill. 

My dearest governor, 
I RECEIVE in our separation as much 
of happiness as is consistent with it, in 
hearing of you in so glorious, and from 
you in so obliging a way ; and in being 
assured, by your letters and your actions, 
how true you are to your friendship and 
your gallantry. I am not a little sa- 
tisfied to find, that since you were re- 
duced to leave your Parthenissa, your 
successes have so happily emulated or 
continued the story of Artabanes ; and 
that you have now given romances as 
well credit as reputation. Nor am I 
moderately pleased, to see you as good 
at reducing towns in Munster as Assyria, 
and to find your eloquence as prevalent 
with masters of garrisons as mistresses 
of hearts ; for I esteem the former both 
much the difiiculter conquest, and more 
the usefuUer. Another may lawfully 
exalt your bold attempts and fortunate 
enterprizes ; but, for my part, I think 
that such a celebration would extremely 
misbecome a friendship, to which your 
goodness and my affection flatter me into 
a belief that our relation has rather given 
the occasion than degree. Besides that 
I have so great a concern in all things 
wherein you have any, that the presump- 
tion of my own modesty does, as well 
as the greatness of yours, silence my 
praises. And truly that which most 
endears your acquisitions to me is, that 
they have cost you so little blood. For 
besides that the glory is much more your 
own to reduce places by your own single 
virtue, and the interest it has acquired 
you, than if you had I know not how 
many thousand men to help you, and 
share as much the honour of your suc- 
cesses as they contribute to them ; be- 
sides this consideration, I say, certainly 
though a laurel cro\\Ti were more glo- 
rious amongst the Romans, the myrtle 
coronet (that croTvued bloodless victories) 
ought to be acceptabler to a Christian, 
who is tied by the bindingest principles 
of his religion to a peculiar charity to- 
wards tliose that profess it ; to use to- 
wards delinquents as much gentleness as 
infringes not the just rights of the inno- 
cent : and to be very tender of spilling 
their blood, for whom Christ shed his. 
But I am less delighted to learn your 
I 2 



116 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book 1L 



successes in the world, than to find (by 
your letter to my sister Ranelagh) that 
you mean not that they shall tie you to 
it : and are resolved, as soon as your af- 
fairs and reputation Avill permit you, to 
divest your public employment, and re- 
tire to a quiet privacy, where you may 
enjoy yourself, and have leisure to con- 
sider the vanity of that posthume glory, 
which has nothing in it of certain but 
the uselessness. That, in the hurry of 
businesses that distract you, you could 
find leisure to bless me with your letters, 
is a favour, whicli, though it amaze me 
not, does highly satisfy me. The kind- 
ness they express is welcomer to me for 
what it argues, than for what it pro- 
riiises ; and I am much more pleased to 
see you in a condition of making pro- 
mises, than I should be with their ac- 
complishment. I shall only, in general, 
desire your countenance for tliose that 
manage my fortune in your provuice, 
whither I should wait upon my dearest 
lady M. if black Betty did not ; and se- 
riously, the jade arrived very seasonably 
to save me a journey * for which I was 
but slenderly provided ; for having not 
yet been able to put oflF my L. Goring's 
statute, I am kept in this town, to do 
penance for my transgression of that 
precept, " My son, put money in thy 
purse." But the term assigned my ex- 
piation is, I hope, near expired ; and I 
despair not to see myself shortly in a 
condition to make you a visit, that shall 
prevent the spring's. I shall implore, 
for my lady Pegg, the self same passage 
I shall wish for myself, and solemnize the 
first easterly gale with a 

Farewell, fair saint, may not the seas and 
wind, &c. 

But I am so entirely taken up with the 
contemplation of her and you, that I 
had forgot that I have to write this night 
more letters than the four-and-twenty 
of the alphabet. My next shall give you 
an account of my transactions, my stu- 
dies, and my amours ; of the latter of 
which, black Betty will tell you as many 
lies as circumstances }. but hope you 
know too well what she is, and whence 
she comes, not to take all her stories for 
fictions, almost as great as is the truth 
that styles me my dearest brother, your 
most affectionate brother, and humble 
servant, R. B. 

London, this 20th of Dec. 1649. 



LETTER XLIX. 

From Mr. Boyle to Dame Augustine Cary* 

Madam, 
I KNOW not whether the shame of hav- 
ing been so long in your debt, be greater 
than that of paying it so ill at last ; but 
I am sure it is much harder to be ex- 
cused, and therefore shall not attempt 
it, but leave it to Father Placid's ora- 
tory ; though having failed in the sub- 
stantial part of your business, I have 
little reason to hope he will succeed bet- 
ter in the ceremonial part of mine. The 
truth is, there is so great a difference in 
common sound between. It is done, and. 
It will be done, that I was unwilling to 
acknowledge the honour of having re- 
ceived your ladyship's commands, before 
I had compassed that of obeying them, 
which the marquis here hath so often 
assured me would suddenly fall to my 
share, that I thought we had both equal 
reason, his excellency to do it, and I to 
believe it. This right I must yet do 
him, that I never pressed him in this 
concern of your ladyship's, but he told 
me all my alignments were needless, for 
the thing should be done ; and how to 
force a man that yields, I never under- 
stood : but yet I much doubt that till 
the result be given upon the gross of 
this affair, which is and has been some 
time under view, your part in particular 
will hardly be thought ripe for either his 
justice or favour, which will be rather 
the style it'must run in, if it be a desire 
of exemption from a general rule given 
in the case : whatever person (after the 
father's return) shall be appointed to 
observe the course of this affair, and pur- 
sue the lady's pretensions here, will be 
sure of all the assistance I can at any 
time give him ; though I think it would 
prove a more public service to find some 
Avay of dissolving your society, and by 
that means dispersing so much worth 
about the world, than, by preserving 
you together, confine it to a corner, and 
suffer it to shine so much less, and go 
out so much sooner, than otherwise it 
would. The ill effects of your retreat 
appear too much in the ill success of 
your business ; for I cannot think any 
thing could fail that your ladyship 
would solicit : but, I presume, nothing 
in this lower scene is worthy either 
that, or so much as your desire or care, 



Sect. I. 



MODERN, OF EARLY DATE. 



117 



which are words that enter not your 
gates, to disturb that perfect quiet and 
indifferency, which I will believe in- 
habit there ; and by your happiness 
decide the long dispute, whether the 
greater lies in wanting nothing, or pos- 
sessing much. 

I cannot but tell you it was unkindly 
done to refresh the memory of your 
brother Da Gary's loss, which was not a 
more general one to mankind, than it 
was particular to me : but if I can suc- 
ceed in your ladyship's service, as well 
as I had the honour once to do in his 
friendship, I shall think I have lived to 
good purpose here ; and for hereafter, 
shall leave it to Almighty God, Avith a 
submission as abandoned as you can ex- 



ercise in the low common concernments 
of this worthless life, which I can hardly 
imagine was intended us for so great a 
misery as it is here commonly made, or 
to betray so large a part of the world to 
so much greater hereafter as is com- 
monly believed. However, I am obliged 
to your ladyship for your prayers, which 
I am sure are well intended me, and shall 
return you mine, that no ill thoughts of 
my faith may possess your ladyship with 
an ill one of my works too ; which I am 
sure cannot fail of being very meritori- 
ous, if ever I reach the intentions I 
have of expressing myself upon all oc- 
casions, madam, your ladyship's most 
humble and most obedient servant. 
Brussels, Feb. I6th, S. N. 1666. 



BOOK THE SECOND. 



MODERN AND MISCELLANEOUS, 

OF EARLY DATE, CONTINUED. 



SECTION II. 



LETTER I. 

From James Hoivel, Esq. to Sir J. S. at 
Leeds Castle. 



Sir, 



Westmin. 25th July, 1625. 



It was a quaint difference the ancients 
did put betwixt a letter and an oration ; 
that the one should he attired like a 
woman, the other like a man : the latter 
of the two is allowed large side robes, 
as long periods, parentheses, similes, ex- 
amples, and other parts of rhetorical flou- 
rishes : but a letter or epistle should be 
short-coated and closely couched : a hun- 
gerlin becomes a letter more handsomely 
than a gown ; indeed we should write as 
we speak ; and that's a true familiar let- 
ter which expresseth one's mind, as if he 
were discoursing with the party to whom 
he writes, in succinct and short terms. 
The tongue and the pen are both of 
them interpreters of the mind ; but I 
hold the pen to be the more faithful of 
the two ; the tongue in udo posita, being 
seated in a moist slippery place, may fail 
and falter in her sudden extemporal ex- 
pressions ; but the pen, having a greater 
advantage of premeditation, is not so 
subject to error, and leaves things behind 
it upon firm and authentic record. Now 
letters, though they be capable of any 
subject, yet commonly they are either 



narratory, objurgatory, consolatory, mo- 
nitory, or congratulatory. The first con- 
sists of relations, the second of reprehen- 
sions, the third of comfort, the two last 
of counsel and joy : there are some who in 
lieu of letters write homilies ; they preach 
when they should epistolize : there are 
others that turn them to tedious tractates : 
this is to make letters degenerate from 
their true nature. Some modern authors 
there are who have exposed their letters 
to the world, but most of them, I mean 
among your Latin epistolizers, go freight- 
ed with mere Bartholomew ware, with 
trite and trivial phrases only, listed with 
pedantic shreds of school-boy verses. 
Others there are among our next trans- 
marine neighbours eastward, who write 
in their own language, but their style is 
so soft and easy, that their letters may be 
said to be like bodies of loose flesh with- 
out sinews, they have neither joints of 
art nor arteries in them ; they have a 
kind of simpering and lank hectic ex- 
pressions made up of a bombast of words, 
and finical affected compliments only : I 
cannot well away with such sleazy stuff, 
with such cobweb compositions, where 
there is no strength of matter, nothing 
for the reader to carry away wiih him 
that may enlarge the notions of his soul. 
One shall hardly find an apophthegm, ex- 
ample, simile, or any thing of philosophy, 



Sect. II. 



MODERN, OF EARLY DATE. 



]19 



history, or solid knowledge, or as much 
as one new created phrase in a hundred 
of them : and to draw any observations 
out of them, were as if one went about 
to distil cream out of froth ; insomuch 
that it may be said of them, what was 
said of the Echo, " That she is a mere 
sound and nothing else." 

I return you your Balzac by this bearer ; 
and when I found those letters, wherein 
he is so familiar with his king, so flat ; 
and those to Richlieu so puffed with 
profane hyperboles, and larded up and 
down with such gross flatteries, with 
others besides, which he sends as urinals 
up and down the world to look into his 
water for discovery of the crazy condi- 
tion of his body ; 1 forbore him further. 
So I am your affectionate servitor. 



LETTER n. 

From the same to his Father, upon his 
first going bei/ond sea. 

Broad-sh-eet, London, 1st March, 1G18. 
Sir, 
I SHOULD be much wanting to myself, 
and to that obligation of duty the law 
of God and his handmaid Nature hath 
imposed on me, if I should not acquaint 
you with the course and quality of my 
affairs and fortunes, especially at this 
time, that I am upon point of crossing 
the seas to eat my bread abroad. Nor 
is it the common relation of a son that 
only induced me hereunto, but that most 
indvilgent and costly care you have been 
pleased (in so extraordinary a manner) 
to have had of my breeding (though but 
one child of fifteen) by placing me in a 
choice methodical school (so far distant 
from your dwelling) under a learned 
(though lashing) master ; and by trans- 
planting me thence to Oxford, to be gra- 
duated ; and so holding me still up by 
the chin until I could swim without blad- 
ders. This patrimony of liberal educa- 
tion you have been pleased to endow me 
withal, I now carry along with me 
abroad, as a sure inseparable treasure ; 
nor do I feel it any burthen or incum- 
brance unto me at all ; and what danger 
soever my person, or other things I 
have about me, do incur, yet I do not 
fear the losing of this, either by ship- 
wreck, or pirates at sea, nor by robbers, 
or fire, or any other casualty on shore ; 



and at my return to England, I hope, at 
leastwise I shall do my endeavour, that 
you may find this patrimony improved 
somewhat to your couifort. 

In this my peregrination, if I happen, 
by some accident, to be disappointed of 
that allowance 1 am to subsist by, I must 
make my address to you, for 1 have no 
other rendezvous to flee unto ; but it shall 
not be, unless in case of great indi- 
gence. 

The latter end of this week I am to go 
a ship-board, and first for the Low-Coun- 
tries. I humbly pray your blessing may 
accompany me in these my travels by 
la,nd and sea, with a continuance of your 
prayers, which Avill be so many good 
gales to blow me safe to port ; for I have 
l3een taught, that the parent's benedic- 
tions contribute very much, and have a 
kind of prophetic virtue to make the 
child prosperous. In this opinion I shall 
ever rest your dutiful son. 

LETTER III. 

Fro7n the same to Dr. Francis Mansell, 
since Principal of Jesus College in Ox- 
ford, 



Sir, 



London, 26th March, 1618. 



Being to take leave of England and to 
launch into the world abroad, to breathe 
foreign air awhile, I thought it very 
handsome, and an act well becoming 
me, to take my leave also of you, and of 
my dearly honoured Mother, Oxford ; 
otherwise both of you might have just 
grounds to exhibit a biU of complaint, 
or rather a protest against me, and cry 
me up ; you for a forgetful friend ; she 
for an ungrateful son, if not some spu- 
rious issue. To prevent this, I salute 
you both together : you with the best of 
my most candid affections ; her with my 
most dutiful observance, and thankful- 
ness for the milk she pleased to give me 
in that exuberance, had I taken it in that 
measure she offered it me AvhUe I slept 
in her lap : yet that little I have sucked, 
I carry with me now abroad, and hope 
that this course of life will help to con- 
nect it to a greater advantage, having 
opportunity, by the nature of my employ- 
ment, to study men as well as books. 
Tlie small time I supervised the glass- 
house, I got among those Venetians 
some smatterings of the Italian tongue^ 



120 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book. H. 



which besides the little I have, you 
know, of school-language, is all the pre- 
paratives I have made for travel. I am 
to go this week down to Gravesend, 
and so embark for Holland. I have got 
a warrant from the Lords of the Council 
to travel for three years any where, 
Rome and St. Omers excepted. I pray 
let me retain some room, though never 
so little, in your thoughts, during the 
time of this our separation ; and let our 
souls meet sometimes by intercourse of 
letters ; I promise you that yours shall 
receive the best entertainment I can make 
them, for I love you dearly, dearly well, 
and value your friendship at a very high 
rate. So with apprecation of as much 
happiness to you at home, as 1 shall de- 
sire to accompany me abroad, I rest ever 
your friend to serve you. 

LETTER IV. 

"From James Howel, Esq. to Dan. Cald- 
well, Esq. from Amsterdam. 

Amsterdam, lOth April, 1619, 
My dear Dan, 
I HAVE made your friendship so neces- 
sary unto me for the contentment of my 
life, that happiness itself would be but 
a kind of infelicity without it ; it is as 
needful to me as fire and water, as the 
very air I take in and breathe out : it is 
to me not only necessitudo, but necessitas : 
therefore I pray let me enjoy it in that 
fair proportion, that I desire to return 
unto you, by way of correspondence and 
retaliation. Our first league of love, you 
know, was contracted among the Muses 
in Oxford ; for no sooner was I matricu- 
lated to her, but I was adopted to you ; 
I became her son, and your friend, at 
one time : you know I followed you then 
to London, where our love received con- 
firmation in the Temple, and elsewhere. 
We are now far asunder, for no less than 
a sea severs us, and that no narrow one, 
but the German Ocean ; distancs some- 
times endears friendship, and absence 
sweeteneth it ; it much enhances the 
value of it, and makes it more pre- 
cious. Let this be verified in us ; let 
that love which formerly used to be nou- 
rished by personal communication and 
the lips, be now fed by letters ; let the 
pen supply the office of the tongue : let- 
ters have a strong operation, they have 
a kind of art-like embraces to mingle 



souls, and make them meet, though mil- 
lions of paces asunder ; by them we may 
converse, and know how it fares with 
each other as it were by intercourse of 
spirits. Therefore among your civil spe- 
culations, I pray let your thoughts some- 
times reflect on me (your absent self), 
and wrap those thoughts in paper, and so 
send them me over ; I promise you they 
shall be very welcome, I shall embrace 
and hug them with my best affections. 

Commend me to Tom Browyer, and 
enjoin him the like : I pray be no nig- 
gard in distributing my love plentifully 
among our friends at the inns of court ; 
let Jack Toldervy have my kind com- 
mends, with this caveat, that the pot 
which goes often to the water, comes 
home cracked at last : therefore I hope 
he will be careful how he makes the 
Fleece in Cornhill his thoroughfare too 
often. So may my dear Daniel live 
happy and love his, &c. 

LETTER V. 

From the same to Mr. Richard Altham, 
at his chamber in Gray's Inn. 

Hague, 30th May, 1619. 

Dear sir. 
Though you be now a good way out of 
my reach, yet you are not out of my re- 
membrance ; you are still within the 
horizon of my love. Now the horizon of 
love is large and spacious, it is as bound- 
less as that of the imagination ; and 
where the imagination rangeth, the me- 
mory is still busy to usher in, and present 
the desired object it fixes upon ; it is love 
that sets them both on work, and may 
be said to be the highest sphere whence 
they receive their motion. Thus you ap- 
pear to me often in these foreign travels ; 
and that you may believe me the better, 
I send you these lines as my ambassadors 
(and ambassadors must not lie) to inform 
you accordingly, and to salute you. 

I desire to know how you like Plow- 
den ; I heard it often said, that there is 
no study requires patience and constancy 
more than the common law ; for it is a 
good while before one comes to any 
known perfection in it, and consequently 
to any gainful practice. This (I think) 
made Jack Chaundler throw away his 
Littleton, like him that, when he could 
not catch the hare, said, A pox upon 
her, she is but dry tough meat, let her 



Sect. II. 



MODERN, OF EARLY DATE. 



lil 



go : it is not so with you, for I know you 
are of that disposition, that when you 
mind a thing-, nothing- can frighten you 
in making constant pursuit after it till 
you have obtained it ; for if the mathe- 
matics, with their crabbedness and intri- 
cacy, could not deter you, but that you 
waded through the very midst of them, 
and arrived to so excellent a perfection ; 
I believe it is not in the power of Flow- 
den to dastardize or cow your spirits, un- 
til you have overcome him, at leastwise 
have so much of him as will serve your 
turn. I know you were always a quick 
and pressing disputant in logic and philo- 
sophy ; which makes me think your ge- 
nius is fit for law (as the Baron your ex- 
cellent father was), for a good logician 
makes always a good lawyer : and hereby 
one may give a strong conjecture of the 
aptness or inaptitude of one's capacity to 
that study and profession ; and you know 
as well as I, that logicians, who went un- 
der the name of Sophisters, were the 
first lawyers that ever were. 

I shall be upon uncertain removes 
hence, until I come to Rouen in France, 
and there I mean to cast anchor a good 
while ; I shall expect your letters there 
with impatience. I pray present my ser- 
vice to sir James Altham, and to my 
good lady your mother, with the rest to 
whom it is due in Bishopsgate-street, 
and elsewhere : so I am yours in the 
best degree of friendship. 



LETTER VL 

From the same to Capt. Francis Bacon, 
from Paris. 



Sir, 



Paris, 30th March, 1620. 



I RECEIVED two of yours in Rouen, 
with the bills of exchange there in- 
closed ; and according to your direc- 
tions I sent you those things which you 
wrote for. 

I am now newly come to Paris, this 
huge magazine of men, the epitome of 
this large populous kingdom, and ren- 
dezvous of all foreigners. The struc- 
tures here are indifferently fair, though 
the streets generally foul of all four sea- 
sons of the year ; which 1 impute first 
to the position of the city, being built 
upon an isle (the isle of France, made so 
by the branching and serpentine course 



of the river of Seine), and having some 
of her suburbs seated high, the filth runs 
down the channel, and settles in many 
places within the body of the city, which 
lies upon a flat ; as also for a world of 
coaches, carts, and horses of all sorts, that 
go to and fro perpetually, so that some- 
times one shall meet with a stop half a 
mile long of those coaches, carts, and 
horses, that can move neither forward 
nor backward, by reason of some sudden 
encounter of others coming a cross-way : 
so that often-times it will be an hour or 
two before they can disentangle. In such 
a stop the great Henry was so fatally 
slain by Ravillac. Hence comes it to 
pass, that this town (for Paris is a town, 
a city, and an university) is always dirty, 
and it is such a dirt, that by perpetual 
motion is beaten into such black, unctuous 
oil, that where it sticks no ait can wash 
it off of some colours ; insomuch , that it 
may be no improper comparison to say, 
that an ill name is like the crot (the dirt) 
of Paris, which is indelible ; besides the 
stain this dirt leaves, it gives also so 
strong a scent, that may be smelt many 
miles off, if the wind be in one's face as 
he comes from the fresh air of the coun- 
try : this maybe one cause why the plague 
is always in some corner or other of this 
vast city, which may be Called, as once Scy- 
thia was, vagina populorum, or (as man- 
kind was called by a great philosopher) 
a great mole-hill of ants ; yet I believe 
this city is not so populous as she seems 
to be, for her form being round (as the 
whole kingdom is) the passengers wheel 
about, and meet oftener than they use to 
do in the long continued streets of Lon- 
don, which makes London appear less po- 
pulous than she is indeed ; so that Lon- 
don for length (though not for latitude), 
including Westminster, exceeds Paris, 
and hath in Michaelmas term more souls 
moving within her in all places. It is 
under one hundred years that Paris is be- 
come so sumptuous and strong in build- 
ings ; for her houses were mean, until a 
mine of white stone was discovered hard 
by, which runs in a continued vein of 
earth, and is digged out with ease, be- 
ing soft, and is betAveen a white clay and 
chalk at first : but being pulleyed up 
with the open air, it receives a crusty 
kind of hardness, and so becomes per- 
fect free-stone ; and before it is sent up 
from the pit, they can reduce it to any 
form : of this stone tlie Lourre, the 



192 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book II. 



king's palace, is built, which is a vast 
fabric, for the gallery wants not much 
of an Italian mile in length, and will 
easily lodge 3000 men ; which, some 
told me, was the end for which the 
last king made it so big ; that, lying at 
the fag-end of this great mutinous city, 
if she perchance should rise, the king 
might pour out of the Louvre so many 
thousand men unawares into the heart of 
her. 

I am lodged here hard by the Bastile, 
because it is furthest off from those 
places where the English resort : for I 
would go on to get a little language as 
soon as I could. In my next, I shaU 
impart unto you what state-news France 
affords ; in the interim, and always, I 
am your humble servant. 

LETTER VIL 

From J allies Howel, Esq. to Richard Al- 
tham, Esq. from Paris. 

Paris, 1st May, 1620. 

Dear sir, 
Love is the marrow of friendship, and 
letters are the elixir of love ; they are 
the best fuel of affection, and cast a 
sweeter odour than any frankincense can 
do : such an odour, such an aromatic per- 
fume, your late letter brought with it, pro- 
ceeding from the fragrancy of those dain- 
ty flowers of eloquence, which I found 
blossoming as it were in every line ; I 
mean those sweet expressions of love and 
wit, which in every period were inter- 
mingled with so much art, that they 
seemed to contend for mastery which 
was the strongest. I must confess, that 
you put me to hard shifts to correspond 
with you in such exquisite strains and 
raptures of love, which were so lively, 
that I must needs judge them to proceed 
from the motions, from the diastole and 
systole of a heart truly affected ; certainly 
your heart did dictate every syllable you 
writ, and guided your hand aU along. 
Sir, give me leave to tell you, that not a 
dram, nor a dose, nor a scruple of this 
precious love of yours is lost, but is 
safely treasured up in my breast, and 
answered in like proportion to the full : 
mine to you is as cordial, it is passionate 
and perfect as love can be. 

I thank you for the desire you have to 
know how it fares with me abroad ; I 
thank God I am perfectly well, and well 
contented with this wandering course of 



life a while ; I never enjoyed my health 
better, but I was like to endanger it two 
nights ago ; for being in some jovial 
company abroad, and coming late to our 
lodging, we were suddenly surprised by 
a crew of Jilous, or night rogues, who 
drew upon us ; and as we had exchanged 
some blows, it pleased God the Chevalier 
du Guet, an officer, who goes up and 
down the streets all night on horseback 
to prevent disorders, passed by, and so 
rescued us ; but Jack White was hurt, 
and I had two thrusts in my cloak. There 
is never a night passes but some robbing 
or murder is committed in this town ; 
so that it is not safe to go late anywhere, 
specially about the Pont-Neuf (the New 
Bridge), though Henry the Great himself 
lies centinel there in arms, upon a huge 
Florentine horse, and sits bare to every 
one that passeth, an improper posture 
methinks to a king on horseback. Not 
long since, one of the secretaries of 
state (whereof there are always four), 
having been invited to the suburbs of 
St. Germains to supper, left order with 
one of his lacqueys to bring him his 
horse about nine ; it so happened that a 
mischance befel the horse, which lamed 
him as he went a-watering to the Seine, 
insomuch that the secretary was put to 
beat the hoof himself, and foot it home ; 
but as he v/as passing the Pont-Neuf, 
with his lacquey carrying a torch before 
him, he might overhear a noise of 
clashing of swords, and fighting, and 
looking under the torch, and perceiving 
they were but two, he bade his lacquey 
to go on ; they had not made many 
paces, but two armed men, with their 
pistols cocked and swords drawn, made 
puffmg towards them, whereof one had 
a paper in his hand, which he said he 
had casually took up in the streets, and 
the difference between them was about 
that paper ; therefore they desired the 
secretary to read it, with a great deal of 
compliment ; the secretary took out his 
spectacles and fell a-reading of the said 
paper, whereof the substance was. That 
it should be known to all men, thajfc 
whosoever did pass over that bridge af- 
ter nine o'clock at night in winter, and 
ten in summer, was to leave his cloak 
behind him, and in case of no cloak, his 
hat. The secretary starting at this, one 
of the comrades told him, that he 
thought that paper concerned him ; so 
they unmantled him of a new plush 



Sect. II. 



MODERN, OF EARLY DATE. 



123 



cloak, and my secretary was content to 
go home quietly, and en curpo. This 
makes me think often of the excellent 
nocturnal government of our city of 
London, where one may pass and repass 
secui-ely all hours of the night, if he gives 
good words to the watch. There is a 
gentle calm of peace now throughout all 
France, and the king intends to make a 
progress to all the frontier towns of the 
kingdom, to see how they are fortified. 
The favourite Luines strengtheneth him- 
self more and more in his minionship ; 
but he is much murmured at, in regard 
the access of suitors to him is so difficult : 
which made a lord of this land say, 
That three of the hardest things in the 
world were, to quadrate a circle, to find 
out the philosopher's stone, and to speak 
with the duke of Luines. 

I have sent you by Vacandary, the 
post, the French beaver and tweeses you 
writ for : beaver hats are grown dearer 
of late, because the Jesuits have got the 
monopoly of them from the king. 

Farewell, dear child of virtue and mi- 
nion of the Muses, and continue to love 
yours, &c. 



LETTER VIH. 

From the same to Sir James Crofts, from 
Paris. 

Paris, 12th May, 1620. 

I AM to set forward this week for Spain, 
and if I can find no commodity of em- 
barkation at St. Maloes, I must be 
forced to journey it all the way by land, 
and clamber up the huge Pyrenee hills ; 
but I could not bid Paris adieu, till I 
had conveyed my true and constant re- 
spects to you by this letter. I was yester- 
day to wait upon Sir Herbert Crofts at 
St. Germains, where I met with a French 
gentleman, who, amongst other curiosi- 
ties which he pleased to shew me up 
and down Paris, brought me to that 
place where the late king was slain, and 
to that where the marquis of Ancre was 
shot ; and so made me a punctual rela- 
tion of all the circumstances of those 
two acts, which in regard they were 
rare, and I believe two of the nota- 
blest accidents that ever happened in 
France, I thought it worth the labour to 
make you partaker of some part of his 
discourse. 



France, as all Christendom besides 
(for there was then a truce betwixt Spain 
and the Hollanders), was in a profound 
peace, and had continued so twenty years 
together, when Henry IV. fell upon 
some great martial design, the bottom 
whereof is not known to this day ; and 
being rich (for he had heaped up in the 
Bastile a mount of gold that was as high 
as a lance), he levied a huge army of 
40,000 men, whence came the song, 
" The King of France with forty thousand 
men ; " and upon a sudden he put his 
army in perfect equipage, and some say 
he invited our Prince Henry to come to 
him to be a sharer in his exploits. But 
going one afternoon to the Bastile, to see 
his treasure and ammunition, his coach 
stopped suddenly, by reason of some col- 
liers and other carts that were in that 
narrow street ; whereupon one Ravillac, 
a lay Jesuit (who had a whole tM^elve- 
month Avatched an opportunity to do the 
act), put his foot boldly upon one of the 
wheels of the coach, and with a long 
knife stretched himself over their should- 
ers who were in the boot of the coach, and 
reached the king at the end, and stabbed 
him right in the left side to the heart, 
and pulling out the fatal steel he doubled 
his thrust, the king with a ruthful voice 
cried out, Je suis blesse (I am hurt), and 
suddenly the blood gushed out at his 
mouth. The regicide villain was appre- 
hended, and command given that no 
violence should be offered him, that he 
might be reserved for the law, and some 
exquisite torture. The queen grew half 
distracted hereupon, who had been 
crowned queen of France the day before 
in great triumph ; but in a few days after 
she had something to countervail, if not 
to overmatch, her sorrow ; for according 
to St. Lewis's law, she was made queen- 
regent of France, during the king's 
minority, who was then but about ten 
years of age. Many consultations were 
held how to punish Ravillac, and there 
were some Italian physicians that under- 
took to prescribe a torment, that should 
last a constant torment for three days ; 
but he escaped only with this, his body 
was pulled between four horses, that one 
might hear his bones crack, and after the 
dislocation they were set again ; and so he 
was carried in a cart, standing half naked, 
with a torch in that hand which had 
committed the murder, and in the place 
where the act was done it was cut off, 



124 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book H. 



and a gauntlet of hot oil was clapped 
upon the stump to staunch the blood ; 
whereat he gave a doleful shriek : then 
was he brought upon a stage, where a 
new pair of boots was provided for him, 
half filled with boiling oil ; then his body 
was pincered, and hot oil poured into the 
holes. In all the extremity of this tor- 
ture he scarce shewed any sense of pain ; 
but when the gauntlet was clapped upon 
his arm, to staunch the flux at that time 
of reeking blood, he gave a shriek only. 
He bore up against all these torments 
about three hours before he died. All 
the confession that could be drawn from 
him was. That he thought to have done 
God good service, to take away that 
king which would have embroiled all 
Christendom in an 'endless war. 

A fatal thing it was that France should 
have three of her kings come to such 
violent deaths in so short a revolution of 
time. Henry IL, running at tilt with 
M. Montgomery, was killed by a splinter 
of a lance that pierced his eye : Henry 
in. not long after was killed by a young 
friar, who, in lieu of a letter which he 
pretended to have for him, jiuUed out 
of his long sleeve a knife, and thrust 
him into the bottom of tlie belly, as he 
was coming from his close-stool, and so 
dispatched him ; but that regicide was 
hacked to pieces in the place by the 
nobles. The same destiny attended the 
king by Ravillac, which is become now 
a common name of reproach and infamy 
in France. 

Never was a king so much lamented as 
this ; there are a world not only of his 
pictures, but statues up and down France, 
and there is scarce a market town but 
hath him erected in the market place, or 
over some gate, not upon sign-posts, as 
our Henry VIII. ; and by a public act of 
parliament, which was confirmed in the 
consistory at Rome, he was entitled 
Henry the Great, and so placed in the 
temple of Immortality. A notable prince 
he was, and of an admirable temper 
of body and mind ; he had a graceful 
facetious way to gain both love and 
awe : he would be never transported 
beyond himself with choler, but he 
would pass by any thing with some re- 
partee, some witty strain, wherein he 
was excellent. I Avill instance in a few 
which were told me from a good hand. 
One day he was charged by the duke 
of Bouillon to have changed his religion, 



he answered, " No, cousin, I have 
changed no religion, but an opinion :" 
and the cardinal of Perron being by, 
he enjoined him to write a treatise 
for his vindication : the cardinal was 
long about the work, and when the 
king asked from time to time where his 
book was, he would still answer him. 
That he expected some manuscripts from 
Rome before he could finish it. It hap- 
pened, that one day the king took the 
cardinal along with him to look on his 
workmen and new buildings at the 
Louvre ; and passing by one corner 
which had been a long time begun, but 
left unfinished, the king asked the chief 
mason why that corner was not all this 
while perfected? " Sir, it is because 
I want some choice stones." — " No, 
no," said the king, looking upon the 
cardinal, "it is because thou wantest 
manuscripts from Rome." Another time 
the old duke of Main, who was used to 
play the droll with him, coming softly 
into his bed chamber, and thrusting in 
his bald head and long neck, in a posture 
to make the king merry, it happened 
the king was coming from doing his 
ease, and spying him, he took the round 
cover of the close stool, and clapped 
it on his bald sconce, saying, "Ah, 
cousin, you thought once to have taken 
the crown off my head, and wear it on 
your own ; but this of my tail shall now 
serve your turn." Another time, when 
at the siege of Amiens, he having 
sent for the count of Soissons (who 
had 100,000 franks a year pension from 
the crown) to assist him in those wars, 
and that the count excused himself by 
reason of his years and poverty, having 
exhausted himself in the former wars, 
and all that he could do now was to 
pray for his majesty, which he would 
do heartily : this answer being brought 
to the king, he replied, " Will my 
cousin, the count of Soissons, do no- 
thing else but pray for me? tell him, 
that prayer without fasting is not avail- 
able ; therefore I will make my cousin 
fast also from his pension of 100,000 
per annum.'''' 

He was once troubled with a fit of the 
gout ; and the Spanish ambassador com- 
ing then to visit him, and saying he was 
sorry to see his majesty so lame, he 
answered, "As lame as I am, if there 
were occasion, your master the king of 
Spain should no sooner have his foot in 



Sect. II. 



MODERN, OF EARLY DATE. 



125 



the stirrup but he should find me on 
horseback." 

By these few you may guess at the 
genius of this sprightly prince : I could 
make many more instances, but then I 
should exceed the bounds of a letter. 
When I am in Spain, you shall hear fur- 
ther from me : and if you can think on 
any thing wherein 1 may serve you, be- 
lieve it, sir, that any employment from 
you shall be welcome to your much ob- 
liged servant. 



LETTER IX. 

From James Hoiuel, Esq. to Mr. Thomas 
Porter, after Captain Porter, from 
Barcelona. 

Barcelona, 10th Nov. 1620. 

My dear Tom, 
I HAD no sooner set foot upon this soil, 
and breathed Spanish air, but my 
thoughts presently reflected upon you ; 
of all my friends in England, you were 
the first I met here ; you were the prime 
object of my speculation ; methought 
the very winds in gentle whispers did 
breathe out your name and blow it on 
me ; you seemed to reverberate upon me 
with the beams of the sun, which you 
know hath such a powerful influence, 
and indeed too great a stroke in this 
country. And all this you must ascribe to 
the operations of love, which hath such 
a strong virtual force, that when it 
fasteneth upon a pleasing subject, it sets 
the imagination in a strange fit of work- 
ing, it employs all the faculties of the 
soul, so that not one cell in the brain 
is idle ; it busieth the wliole inward 
man, it affects the heart, amuseth the 
imder standing ; it quickeneth the fancy, 
and leads the will as it were by a silken 
thread to co-operate them all ; I have 
felt these motions often in me, especially 
at this time that my memory is fixed 
upon you. But the reason that I fell 
first upon you in Spain was, that I re- 
member I had heard you often dis- 
coursing how you have received part of 
your education here, which brought you 
to speak the language so exactly well. 
I think often of the relations I have 
heard you make of this country, and 
the good instruction you pleased to give 
me. 

I am now in Barcelona, but the next 



week I intend to go on through your 
town of Valentia to Alicant, and thence 
you shall be sure to hear from me farther, 
for I make account to winter there. The 
duke of Ossuna passed by here lately, 
and having got leave of grace to release 
some slaves, he went aboard the Cape 
galleys, and passing through the churma 
of slaves, he asked divers of them what 
their offences were ; every one excused 
himself ; one saying; That he was put in 
out of malice, another by bribery of the 
judge, but all of them unjustly ; amongst 
the rest there was one little sturdy black 
man, and the duke asking him what he 
was in for, " Sir," said he, " I cannot 
deny but I am justly put in here, for 
I wanted money, and so took a purse 
hard by Tarragone, to keep me from 
starving." The duke, with a little staff 
he had in his hand, gave him two or 
three blows upon the shoulders, saying, 
" You rogue, what do you do amongst 
so many honest innocent men ? get you 
gone out of their company ; " so he was 
freed, and the rest remained still in statu 
quo prills, to tug at the oar. 

I pray commend me to Signior Ca- 
millo, and Mazalao, with the rest of the 
Venetians with you ; and when you go 
aboard the ship behind the Exchange, 
think upon yours. 

LETTER X. 

Fro7n the same to Robert Browji, Esq. 
at the Middle Temple, from Venice. 

Venice, 12th August, 1621. 
Robin, 
I HAVE now enough of the maiden city, 
and this week am to go further into 
Italy ; for though I have been a good 
while in Venice, yet I cannot say I have 
hitherto been upon the continent of 
Italy ; for this city is nought else but 
a knot of islands in the Adi'iatic sea, 
joined in one body by bridges, and a 
good way distant from the firm land. I 
have lighted upon very choice company, 
your cousin Brown and Master Webb ; 
and we all take the road of Lombardy, 
but we made an order among ourselves, 
that om' discourse be always in the lan- 
guage of the country, under penalty of 
a forfeiture, which is to be indispensably 
paid. Randal Syms made us a curious 
feast lately, where in a cup of the richest 
Greek Ave had your health, and I could 



126 



ELEGAJSTT EPISTLES. 



Book IL 



not tell whether the wine or the remem- 
brance of you was sweeter ; for it was 
naturally a kind of aromatic wine, which 
left a fragrant perfuming kind of farewell 
behind it. I have sent you a runlet of 
it in the ship Lion, and if it come safe 
and unpricked, I pray bestow some bot- 
tles upon the lady (you know) with my 
humble service. When you write next 
to Mr. Symns, I pray acknowledge the 
good hospitality and extraordinary civi- 
lities I received from him. Before I 
conclude, I will acquaint you with a 
common saying that is used of this dainty 
city of Venice : — 

Venetia, Venetia, chi non te vede non te pregia. 
Ma chi Vha troppe veduto te dispreggia. 

Englished and rhymed thus (though I 
know you need no translation, you un- 
derstand so much of the Italian) : — 

Venice, Venice, none thee unseen can prize j 
Who hath seen too much will thee despise. 

I will conclude with that famous hex- 
astic which Sannazaro made of this great 
city, which pleaseth me much better : — 

Viderat Hadriacis Venetam Neptunus in undis 
Stare urbem, et toti ponere jura mari; 

Nunc mihi Tarpeias quantum vis, Jupiter, arces 
Objice et ilia tui mcenia Martis ait. 

Sic pelago Tibrim preefers urbem aspice utramque, 
Illam homines dices, hanc posuisse Deus. 

When Neptune saw in Adrian surges stand 
Venice, and give the sea laws of command: 
Now Jove, said he, object thy Capitol, 
And Mars' proud walls: this were for to extol 
Tiber beyond the main; both towns behold; 
Rome, men thou'lt say, Venice the gods did 
mould. 

Sannazaro had given him by St. Mark 
a hundred zecchins for every one of these 
verses, which amounts to about 300/. It 
would be long before the city of London 
would do the like ; witness that cold re- 
ward, or rather those cold drops of water 
which were cast upon my countryman 
Sir Hugh Middleton, for bringing Ware 
river through her streets, the most ser- 
viceable and wholesome benefit that ever 
she received. 

The parcel of Italian books that you 
write for, you shall receive from Mr. 
Leat, if it please God to send the ship to 
safe port ; and I take it as a favour, that 
you employ me in any thing that may 
conduce to your contentment, because I 
am your serious servitor. 



LETTER XI. 

Frojn James Howel, Esq. to Christopher 
Jones, Esq. at Gray's Inn, from Naples. 

8th Oct. 1821. 
Honoured father, 
I MUST still style you so, since I was 
adopted your son by so good a mother 
as Oxford ; my mind lately prompted me 
that I should commit a great solecism, if 
among the rest of my friends in England 
I should leave you unsaluted, whom I 
love so dearly well, especially having such 
a fair and pregnant opportunity as the 
hand of this worthy gentleman, your 
cousin Morgan, who is now posting 
hence for England. He will tell you 
how it fares with me ; how any time 
these thirty odd months I have been 
tossed from shore to shore, and passed 
under various meridians, and am now 
in this voluptuous and luxuriant city of 
Naples : and though these frequent re- 
moves and tumblings under climes of 
different temper were not without some 
danger, yet the delight which accom- 
panied them was far greater ; and it 
is impossible for any man to conceive 
the true pleasure of peregrination, but 
he who actually enjoys and puts it in 
practice. Believe it, sir, that one year 
well employed abroad by one of mature 
judgment (which you know I want very 
much) advantageth more in point of use- 
ful and solid knowledge than three in 
any of our universities. You know run- 
ning waters are the purest, so they that 
traverse the world up and down, have 
the clearest understanding ; being faith- 
ful eye-witnesses of those things which 
others receive but in trust, whereunto 
they must yield an intuitive consent, 
and a kind of implicit faith. When I 
passed through some parts of Lombardy, 
among other things I observed the phy- 
siognomies and complexions of the peo- 
ple, men and women ; and I thought I 
was in Wales, for divers of them have a 
cast of countenance, and a nearer re- 
semblance with our nation than any I 
ever saw yet : and the reason is obvious ; 
for the Romans having been near upon 
three hundred years among us, where 
they had four legions (before the English 
nation or language had any being), by so 
long a coalition and tract of time, the 
two nations must needs copulate and 
mix ; insomuch that I believe there is 
yet remaining in Wales many of the 



Sect. 11. 



MODERN, OF EARLY DATE. 



127 



Roman race, and divers in Italy of the 
British. Among" other resemblances, 
one was in their prosody, and vein of 
versifying- or rhyming, which is like our 
bards, who hold agnominations, and en- 
forcing of consonant words or syllables 
one upon the other, to be the greatest 
elegance. As for example, in Welsh, 
Tewgris, todyrris tyr derryn, gwillt, &c. 
so have I seen divers old rhymes in Ita- 
lian running so ; Donne, O danno, die 
felo affrontn affronta : in selva salvo a 
me: Piu caro cuore, &c. 

Being lately in Rome, among other 
pasquils I met with one that was against 
the Scots : though it had some gall in it, 
yet it had a great deal of wit, especially 
towards the conclusion ; so that I think 
if King James saw it, he would but laugh 
at it. 

As I remember some years since there 
was a very abusive satire in verse brought 
to our king ; and as the passages were 
a-reading before him, he often said, that 
if there were no more men in England, 
the rogue should hang for it : at last be- 
ing come to the conclusion, which was 
(after all his railing) 

Now God preserve the king, the queen, the 

peers, 
And grant the author long may wear his ears; 

this pleased his majesty so well, that he 
broke into a laughter, and said, " By my 
soul, so thou shalt for me : thou art a 
bitter, but thou art a witty knave." 

When you write to Monmouthshire, 
I pray send my respects to my tutor, 
master Moor Fortune, and my service to 
sir Charles Williams : and according to 
that relation which was betwixt us at 
Oxford, I rest your constant son to serve 
you. 

LETTER XII. 

From the same to Sir Eubule Theltvall, 
Knis^ht, and Principal of Jesus College 
in Oxford. 



Sir, 



London, idibus Mar. 1621. 



I SEND you most due and humble 
thanks, that notwithstanding I have 
played the truant, and been absent so 
long from Oxford, you have been pleased 
lately to make a choice of me to be fellow 
of your new foundation in Jesus' Col- 
lege, whereof I was once a member. As 
the quality of my fortunes, and course of 



life run now, I cannot make present use 
of this your great favour, or promotion 
rather : yet I do highly value it, and 
humbly accept of it, and intend by your 
permission to reserve and lay it by, as a 
good warm garment against rough wea- 
ther, if any fall on me. With this my 
expression of thankfulness, I do congra- 
tulate the great honour you have pur- 
chased, both by your own beneficence, 
and by your painful endeavour besides to 
perfect that national college, which here- 
after is like to be a monument of your 
fame, as well as a seminary of learning, 
and will perpetuate your memory to all 
posterity. 

God Almighty prosper and perfect 
your undertakings, and provide for you 
in Heaven those rewards which such 
public works of piety use to be crowned 
withal ; it is the appreciation of your 
truly devoted servitor. 



LETTER XIII. 

Fro7n the same to Dan. Caldwall, Esq. 

from the Lord Savage's house in Long 

Melford. 

20th of May, 16] P. 

My dear Dan, 
Though, considering my former condi- 
tion of life, I may now be called a coun- 
tryman, yet you cannot call me a rustic 
(as you would imply in your letter) as 
long as I live in so civil and noble a fa- 
mily, as long as I lodge in so virtuous 
and regular a house as any I believe in 
the land, both for (Economical govern- 
ment and the choice company ; for I 
never saw yet such a dainty race of chil- 
dren in all my life together ; I never saw 
yet such an orderly and punctual at- 
tendance of servants, nor a great house 
so neatly kept. Here one shall see no 
dog, nor a cat, nor cage, to cause any 
nastiness within the body of the house. 
The kitchen and gutters, and other 
offices of noise and drudgery, are at the 
fag end ; there is a back gate for the 
beggars and the meaner sort of swains 
to come in at ; the stables butt upon the 
park, which for a cheerful rising ground, 
for groves and browsings for the deer, 
for rivulets of water, may compare witk 
any for its highness in the whole land ; it 
is opposite to the front of the great 
house, whence from the gallery one may 
see much of the game Avhen they are 



12g 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book II 



a-hunting. Now for the gardening and 
costly choice flowers, for ponds, for 
stately large walks, green and gravelly, 
for orchards and choice fruits of all sorts, 
there are few the like in England. Here 
you have your bon christian pear and 
bergamot in perfection : your muscadel 
grapes in such plenty, that there are 
some bottles of wine sent every year to 
the king ; and one Mr. Daniel, a worthy 
gentleman hard by, who hath been long 
abroad, makes good store in his vin- 
tage. Truly this house of Long Melford, 
though it be not so great, yet it is so 
well compacted, and contrived with such 
dainty conveniences every way, that if 
you saw the landscape of it, you would 
be mightily taken with it, and it would 
serve for a choice pattern to build and 
contrive a house by. If you come this 
summer to your manor of Sheriff in 
Essex, you will not be far off hence ; if 
your occasions will permit, it will be 
worth your coming hither, though it be 
only to see him, who would think it a 
short journey to ^b from St. David's 
Head to Dover Cliffs to see and serve you, 
were there occasion. If you would know 
who the same is, it is yours, &c. 

LETTER XIV. 

From James Howel, Esq. to his Brother, 
Mr. Hugh Penry, upon his marriage. 



Sir, 



20th May, 1622. 



You have had a good while the interest 
of a friend in me, but you have me now 
in a straiter tie, for I am your bro- 
ther by your late marriage, which hath 
turned friendship into an alliance ; you 
have in your arms one of my dearest 
sisters, who I hope, nay I know, will 
make a good wife. I heartily congratu- 
late this marriage, and pray that a bless- 
ing may descend upon it from that place 
where all marriages are made, which is 
from Heaven, the fountain of all felicity ; 
to this prayer 1 think it no profaneness 
to add the saying of the lyric poet 
Horace, in whom I know you delight 
much ; and I send it to you as a kind of 
epithalamium, and wish it may be veri- 
fied in you both. 

Fa-lices ter et umplius, 

2uos irrupta tenet copula, nee malts 
Divulsus queritnoniis 

Suprema citius solvet amor die. 



Thus Englished : 

That couple's more than trebly blest, 
WJiich nuptial bonds do so combine. 
That no distaste can them untwine, 

Till the last day send both to rest. 

So, my dear brother, I much rejoice 
for this alliance, and wish you may in- 
crease and multiply to your heart's con- 
tent. Your affectionate brother. 

LETTER XV. 

From the same to Dr. Thomas Prichard, 
at Worcester House. 



Paris, 3d Aucr. 1621. 



Sir, 



Friendship is the great chain of human 
society, and intercourse of letters is one 
of the chiefest links of that chain. 
You know this as well as I ; therefore, 
I pray, let our friendship, let our love, 
that nationality of British love, that vir- 
tuous tie of academic love, be still 
strengthened (as heretofore) and receive 
daily more and more vigour. I am now 
in Paris, and there is weekly oppor- 
tunity to receive and send ; and if you 
please to send, you shall be sure to re- 
ceive, for I make it a kind of religion 
to be punctual in this kind of payment. 
I am heartily glad to hear that you are 
become a domestic member to that most 
noble family of the Worcesters, and I 
hold it to be a very good foundation for 
future preferment ; I wish you may be 
as happy in them as I know they will be 
happy in you. France is now barren qf 
news, only there was a shrewd brush 
lately between the young king and his 
mother, who, having the duke of Eper- 
non and others for her champions, met 
him in open field about Pont de Ce, but 
she went away with the worst ; such was 
the rare dutifulness of the king, that he 
forgave her upon his knees, and pardoned 
all her accomplices ; and noAV there is 
an universal peace in this country, which 
it is thought will not last long, for there 
is a war intended against them of the re- 
formed religion : for this king, though 
he be slow in speech, yet he is active in 
spirit, and loves motion. I am here com- 
rade to a gallant young gentleman, my 
old acquaintance, who is full of excellent 
parts, which he hath acquired by a choice 
breeding the baron his father gave him, 
both in the university and in the inns of 
court ; so that for the time I envy no 
man's happiness. So with my hearty 



Sect. II. 



MODERN, OP EARLY DATE. 



129 



commends, and much endeared lore unto 
you, I rest yours. 

LETTER XVI. 

From the same to the Honourable Mr. 

John Savage {now Earl of Rivers), at 

Florence. 

Lond. 24th March, 1622. 
Sir, 
My love is not so short but it can reach 
as far as Florence to find you out, and 
farther too, if occasion required ; nor are 
these affections I have to serve you so 
dull, but they can clamber over the Alps 
and Appenines to wait upon you, as they 
have adventured to do now in this paper. 
I am sorry I was not in London to kiss 
your hands before you set to sea, and 
much more sorry that I had not the hap- 
piness to meet you in Holland or Bra- 
bant, for we went the very same road, 
and lay in Dort and Antwerp, in the 
same lodgings you had lain in a fortnight 
before. I presume you have by this time 
tasted the sweetness of travel, and that 
you have weaned your affections from 
England for a good while : you must now 
think upon home, as (one said) good men 
think upon Heaven, aiming still to go 
thither, but not till they finish their 
course ; and yours I understand will be 
three years : in the mean time you must 
not suffer any melting tenderness of 
thoughts or longing desires to distract 
or interrupt you in that fair road you are 
in to virtue, and to beautify within that 
comely edifice which nature hath built 
without you. I know your reputation is 
precious to you, as it should be to every 
noble mind ; you have exposed it now to 
the hazard, therefore you must be careful 
it receive no taint at your return, by not 
answering that expectation, which your 
prince and noble parents have of you. 
You are now under the chiefest clime of 
wisdom, fair Italy, the darling of nature, 
the nurse of policy, the theatre of virtue ; 
but though Italy give milk to virtue with 
one dug, she often suffers vice to suck at 
the other ; therefore you must take heed 
you mistake not the dug, for there is an 
ill-favoured saying, that Inglese Italio- 
nato c diavolo incarnato; An Englishman 
Italianate is a devil incarnate. I fear no 
such thing of you, I have had such preg- 
nant proofs of your ingenuity, and no- 
ble inclinations to virtue and honour : I 
know you have a mind to both, but I 



must tell you that you will hardly get the 
good will of the latter, unless the first 
speak a good word for you. Wlien you 
go to Rome you may haply see the ruins 
of two temples, one dedicated to Virtue, 
the other to Honour ; and there was no 
way to enter into the last but through the 
first. Noble sir, I wish your good very 
seriously, and if you please to call to me- 
mory, and examine the circumstance of 
thmgs, and my carriage towards you 
since I had the happiness to be known 
first to your honourable family, I know 
you will conclude that I love and honour 
you in no vulgar way. 

My lord, your grandfather,, was com- 
plaining lately that he had not heard 
from you a good while : by the next 
shipping to Leghorn, among other things, 
he intends to send you a whole brawn in 
collars. I pray be pleased to remember 
my affectionate service to Mr. Thomas 
Savage, and my kind respects to Mr. 
Bold. For English news, I know this 
packet comes freighted to you, therefore 
I forbear at this time to send any. Fare- 
well, noble heir of honour, 
always your true servitor, 

LETTER XVII. 

From the same to Dr, Prichard. 



Sir, 



London, 6th Jan. 1625. 



Since I was beholden to you for your 
many favours in Oxford I have not 
heard from you {ne gry quiden) ; I pray 
let the wonted correspondence be now 
revived, and receive new vigour between 
us. 

My lord chancellor Bacon is lately 
dead of a long languishing weakness ; he 
died so poor that he scarce left money to 
bury him, which, though he had a great 
wit, did argue no great wisdom : it being 
one of the essential properties of a wise 
man to provide for the main chance. I 
have read, that it had been the fortunes 
of all poets commonly to die beggars ; 
but for an orator, a lawyer, and philoso- 
pher, as he was, to die so, it is rare. It 
seems the same fate befel him, that at- 
tended Demosthenes, Seneca, and Cicero 
(all great men), of whom the two first 
fell by corruption. The fairest diamond 
may have a flaw in it, but I believe he 
died poor out of a contempt of the pelf 
of fortune, as also out of an excess of 
K 



■■■ 



130 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book iL 



generosity, which appeared, as in divers 
other passages, so once when the king- 
had sent him a stag, he sent up for the 
under -keeper, and having drank the 
king's health to him in a great silver 
gift bowl, he gave it for his fee. 

He wrote a pitiful letter to King James 
not long before his death, and concludes, 
" Help me, dear sovereign, lord and 
master, and pity me so far, that I who 
have been born to a bag, be not now in 
my age forced in effect to bear a wallet ; 
nor that I, who desire to live to study, 
may be driven to study to live." Which 
words, in my opinion, argued a little ab- 
jection of spirit, as his former letter to 
the prince did of profaneness ; wherein 
he hoped, that as the father was his cre- 
ator, the son will be his redeemer. I 
write not this to derogate from the noble 
worth of the lord viscount Verulam, 
who was a rare man ; a man reconditce 
scientice, et ad salutem literarum natus, 
and I think the eloquentest that was 
born in this isle. They say he shall 
be the last Lord Chancellor, as sir Ed- 
ward Coke was the last Lord Chief Jus- 
tice of England ; for ever since they 
have been termed Lord Chief Justices of 
the King's Bench ; so hereafter they 
shall be only Keepers of the Great Seal, 
which for title and office are deposeable ; 
but they say the Lord Chancellor's title 
is indelible. 

I was lately at Gray's Inn with sir 
Eubule, and he desired me to remember 
him to you, as I do also salute Meum Pri- 
chardum ex imis prcecordiis, VaJe KS(pcc\rj 
f/.oi irpO(r(pi\s(rTdr-/). Yours aifectionately. 

LETTER XVIII. 

From James Howel, Esq. to his well- 
beloved Cousin jyjr. T. V. 

London, 5th Feb. 1 625. 
Cousin, 
You have a great work in hand, for you 
write to me that you are upon a treaty 
of marriage ; a great work indeed, and a 
work of such consequence that it may 
make you, or mar you ; it may make the 
whole remainder of your life uncouth or 
comfortable to you : for of all civil ac- 
tions that are incident to man, there is 
not any that tends more to his infelicity 
or happiness ; therefore it concerns you 
not to be over-hasty herein, nor to take 
ihe ball before the bound. You must be 



cautious how you thrust your neck into 
such a yoke, whence you will never have 
power to withdraw it again ; for the 
tongue useth to tie so hard a knot that 
the teeth can never untie, no not Alex- 
ander's sword can cut asunder, amongst 
us Christians. If you are resolved to 
marry, choose where you love, and resolve 
to love your choice : let love rather than 
lucre be your guide in this election ; 
though a concurrence of both be good, 
yet, for my part, I had rather the latter 
should be wanting than the first : the 
one is the pilot, the other but the bal- 
last of the ship, which should carry us to 
the harbour of a happy life. If you are 
bent to wed, I wish you another guess 
wife than Socrates had : who when she 
had scolded him out of doors, as he was 
going through the portal, threw a cham- 
ber pot of stale urine upon his head; 
whereat the philosopher, having been 
silent all the while, smilingly said, " I 
thought after so much thimder we should 
have rain." And as I wish you may not 
light upon such a Xantippe (as the wisest 
men have had ill luck in this kind, as I 
could instance in two of our most emi- 
nent lawyers, C. B.), so I pray that God 
may deliver you from a wife of such a 
generation that Strowd our cook here 
at Westminster said his wife was of, 
who, when (out of a mislike of the 
preacher) he had on Sunday in the after- 
noon gone out of the church to a tavern, 
and returning towards the evening pretty 
well heated with Canary, to look to his 
roast, and his wife falling to read him a 
loud lesson in so furious a manner, as if 
she would have basted him instead of the 
mutton, and, among other revilings, tell- 
ing him often, " That the devil, the de- 
vil would fetch him ;" at last he broke 
out of a long silence, and told her, "I 
prithee, good wife, hold thyself content : 
for I know the devil will do 'me no hurt, 
for I have married his kinswoman." If 
you light upon such a mfe (a wife that 
hath more bone than flesh), I wish you 
may have the same measure of patience 
that Socrates and Strowd had, to suffer 
the grey mare sometimes to be the bet- 
ter horse. I remember a French pro- 
verb : — 

La maison est miserabile et mechante. 
Ou la poule plus haul que le cocq chante. 

That house doth every daj' more wretched 
Where the hen lender than the cock doth crow. 



Sect. II. 



MODERN, OF EARLY DATE. 



13\ 



Yet we have another English proverb, 
almost counter to this, " That it is bet- 
ter to marry a shrew than a sheep ;" for 
though silence be the dumb orator of 
beauty, and the best ornament of a wo- 
man, yet a phlegmatic dull wife is ful- 
some and fastidious. 

Excuse me, cousin, that I jest with 
you in so serious a business : I know you 
need no counsel of mine herein : you are 
discreet enough of yourself; nor, I pre- 
sume, do you want advice of parents, 
which by all means must go along with 
you. So wishing you all conjugal joy, 
and an happy confarreation, I rest your 
aflFectionate cousin. 



LETTER XIX. 

From the same to the Lady Jane Savage, 
Marchioness of Winchester. 

Lond. loth Mar. 1626. 

Excellent lady, 
I MAY say of your grace as it was said 
once of a rare Italian princess, that you 
are the greatest tyrant in the world, be- 
cause you make all those that see you 
your slaves, much more them that know 
you, I mean those that are acquainted 
with your inward disposition, and witli 
the faculties of your soul, as well as the 
phisnomy of your face ; for virtue took 
as much pains to adorn the one, as na- 
ture did to perfect the other. I have 
had the happiness to know both, when 
your grace took pleasure to learn Spa- 
nish : at which time, when my betters 
far had offered their service in this kind, 
I had the honour to be commanded by 
you often. He that hath as much expe- 
rience of you as I have had will confess, 
that the handmaid of God xAhnighty was 
never so prodigal of her gifts to any, or 
laboured more to frame an exact model 
of female perfection : nor was dame Na- 
ture only busied in this work ; but all 
the Graces did consult and co-operate 
with her ; and they wasted so much of 
their treasure to enrich this one piece, 
that it may be a good reason why so 
many lame and defective fragments of 
women-kind are daily thrust into the 
world. 

I return you here the enclosed sonnet 
youi' grace pleased to send me lately, 
rendered into Spanish, and fitted for the 
same air it had in Eno-lish, both for ca- 



dence and number of feet. With it I 
send my most humble thanks, that your 
grace would descend to command me in 
any thing that might conduce to your 
contentment and service ; for there is 
nothing I desire with a greater ambition 
(and herein I have all the world my ri- 
val) than to be accounted, madam, your 
grace's most humble and ready servitor. 



LETTER XX. 

From the same to Mr, R. Sc. at York. 



Sir, 



Lond, 19th July, 
the first of the Dogdays, 1 626. 



I SENT you one of the 3d current, but it 
was not answered ; I sent another the 
13th, like a second arrow, to find out 
the first ; but I know not what's become 
of either : I send this to find out the 
other two, and if this fail, there shall 
go no more out of my quiver. If you 
forget me, I have cause to complain, and 
more if you remember me : to forget 
may proceed from the frailty of memory ; 
not to answer me when you mind me is 
pure neglect, and no less than a piacle. 
So I rest yours, easily to be recovered. 

Ira furor breves, brevis est mea littera ; cogor, 
Ira correptus, corripuisse stylum. 



LETTER XXI. 

From the same to the Right Honourable 
Lady Scroop, Countess of Sunderland ; 
from Stamford. 

Stamford, 5th Aug. 1628. 

Madam, 
I LAY yesternight at the post-house at 
Stilton, and this morning betimes the 
postmaster came to my lK;d's head, and 
told me the duke of Buckingham was 
slain. My faith was not then strong 
enough to believe it, till an hour ago I 
met in the way with my lord of Rutland 
(your brother) riding post towards Lon- 
don ; it pleased him to alight, and shew 
me a letter, wherein there was an exact 
relation of all the circumstances of this 
sad tragedy. 

Upon Saturday last, which was but 
next before yesterday, being Bartholo- 
mew eve, the duke did rise up in a Avell- 
disposed humour out of his bed, and cut 
K 2 



132 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IL 



a caper or two, and being ready, and 
having been under the barber's hand 
(where the murderer had thought to have 
done the deed, for he was leaning upon 
the window aU the while), he went to 
breakfast, attended by a great company 
of commanders, where monsieur Subize 
came to him, and whispered him in the 
ear that Rochel was relieved ; the duke 
seemed to slight the news, which made 
some think that Subize went away dis- 
contented. After breakfast the duke 
going out, colonel Fryer stept before 
him, and stopped him upon some busi- 
ness ; and lieutenant Felton, being be- 
hind, made a thrust with a common ten- 
penny knife over Fryer's arm at the duke, 
which lighted so fatally that he slit his 
heart in two, leaving the khife sticking 
in the body. The duke took out the 
knife, and threw it away ; and laying 
his hand on his sword, and drawing it 
half out, said, " The villain hath killed 
me" (meaning, as some think, colonel 
Fryer, for there had been some differ- 
ence betwixt them) ; so reeling against a 
chimney, he fell down dead. The du- 
chess being with child, hearing the noise 
below, came in her night-geers from her 
bedchamber, which was in an upper 
room, to a kind of rail, and thence be- 
held him weltering in his own blood. 
Felton had lost his hat in the crowd, 
wherein there was a paper sewed, where- 
in he declared, that the reason which 
moved him to this act was no gi'udge 
of his own, though he had been far be- 
hind for his pay, and had been put by 
his captain's place twice, but in regard 
he thought the duke an enemy to the 
state, because he was branded in parlia- 
ment ; therefore what he did was for the 
public good of his country. Yet he got 
clearly down, and so might have gone to 
his horse, wliich was tied to a hedge hard 
by ; but he was so amazed that he missed 
his way, and so struck into the pastry, 
where, although the cry went that some 
Frenchman had done it, he, thinking 
the word was Felton, boldly confessed it 
was he that had done the deed, and so 
he was in their hands. Jack Stamford 
would have run at him, but he was kept 
off by Mr. Nicholas ; so being carried up 
to a tower, captain Mince tore off his 
spurs, and asking how he durst attempt 
such an act, making him believe the 
duke was not dead, he answered boldly, 
that he knew he was dispatched, for it 



was not he, but the hand of Heaven that 
gave the stroke ; and though his whole 
body had been covered over with armour 
of proof, he could not have avoided it. 
Captain Charles Price went post present- 
ly to the king four miles off, who being 
at prayers on his knees when it was told 
him, yet never stirred, nor was hQ dis- 
turbed a whit till all divine service was 
done. This was the relation, as far as 
my memory could bear, in my lord of 
Rutland's letter, who willed me to re- 
member him to your ladyship, and tell 
you that he was going to comfort your 
neice (the duchess) as fast as he could. 
And so I have sent the truth of this sad 
story to your ladyship as fast as I could 
by this post, because I cannot make that 
speed myself, in regard of some business 
I have to dispatch for my lord in the 
way ; so I humbly take my leave, and 
rest your ladyship's most dutiful servant. 

LETTER XXIL 

From James Howel, Esq, to his Cousin 
Mr. St. John, at Christ Church College 
in Oxford. 

London, 25 th Oct. 1627. 
Cousin, 
Though you want no incitements to go 
on in that fair road of virtue where you 
ar^e now running your course, yet being 
lately in your noble father's company, 
he did intimate to me, that any thing 
which came from me would take with 
you very much. I hear so well of your 
proceedings, that I should rather com- 
mend than encourage you. I know you 
were removed to Oxford in full matu- 
rity, you were a good orator, a good 
poet, and a good linguist for your time ; 
I would not have that fate light upon 
you, which useth to befal some, who 
from golden students became silver ba- 
chelors, and leaden masters. I am far 
from entertaining such thought of you, 
that logic with her quiddities, and qucs, 
la, vel hipps, can any way unpolish your 
humane studies. As logic is clubfisted 
and crabbed, so she is terrible at first 
sight ; she is like a gorgon's head to a 
young student ; but after a twelvemonth's 
constancy and patience, this gorgon's 
head will prove a mere bugbear ; when 
you have devoured the organon, you 
will find philosophy far more delightful 
and pleasing to your palate. In feeding 
the soul with knowledge, the under- 



Sect. II. 



MODERN, OF EARLY DATE. 



133 



standing' requireth the same consecutive 
acts which nature useth in nourishing 
the hody. To the nutrition of the body 
there are two essential conditions re- 
quired, assumption and retention, then 
there follows two more, irs'^is and 
7*rpQa-Q(,^iS, concoction and agglutina- 
tion, or adhesion : so in feeding your 
soul with science, you must first assume 
and suck in the matter into your 
apprehension, then must the memory 
retain and keep it in; afterwards by 
disputation, discourse, and meditation, 
it must be well concocted ; then it must 
be agglutinated, and converted to nu- 
triment. All this may be reduced to 
these two heads, tcnere fideliter, et vti 
fceliciter, which are two of the happiest 
properties of a student. There is ano- 
ther act required to good concoction, 
called the act of expulsion, which puts 
off all that is unsound and noxious ; so 
in study there must be an expulsive 
virtue to shun all that is erroneous ; 
and there is no science but is full of 
such stuff, which by direction of tutor, 
and choice of good books, must be ex- 
cerned. Do not confound yourself with 
multiplicity of authors, two is enough 
upon any science, provided they be ple- 
nary and orthodox ; philosophy should be 
your substantial food, poetry your ban- 
quetting-stuff ; philosophy hath more of 
reality in it than any knowledge ; the 
philosopher can fathom the deep, mea- 
sure mountains, reach the stars with a 
staff, and bless heaven with a girdle. 

But among these studies, you must not 
forget the unicum necessarimu : on Sun- 
days and holidays let divinity be the sole 
object of your speculation, in comparison 
whereof all other knowledge is but cob- 
web learning : prcB qua quisquilice ccetera. 

When you can make truce with study, 
I should be glad you would employ some 
superfluous hour or other to write to 
me, for I much covet your good, because 
I am your affectionate cousin. 



LETTER XXin. 

From the same to J. S. Knight. 



Sir, 



London, 25th May, 1628. 



away twice from me, but he knew the 
way back again. Yet though he hath 
a running head as well as running heels, 
(and who will expect a footman to be a 
stayed man ?) I would not part with him 
were I not to go post to the North. — 
There be some things in him that answer 
for his waggeries ; he will come when 
you call him, go when you bid him, and 
shut the door after him ; he is faithful 
and stout, and a lover of his master ; he 
is a great enemy to all dogs, if they bark 
at him in his running, for I have seen 
him confront a huge mastiff, and knock 
him down : when you go a country jour- 
ney, or have him run with you a hunt- 
ing, you must spirit him with liquor ; 
you must allow him also something ex- 
traordinary for socks, else you must not 
have him to wait at your table; when 
his grease melts in running hard, it is 
subject to fall into his toes. I send him 
you but for trial ; if he be not for your 
turn, turn him over to me again when 
I come back. 

The best news I can send you at this 
time is, that we are like to have a peace 
both with France and Spain ; so that 
Harwich men, your neighbours, shall 
not hereafter need to fear the name of 
Spinola, who struck such an apprehen- 
sion into them lately, that I understand 
they began to fortify. 

I pray present my most humble ser- 
vice to my good lady, and at my return 
from the North I will be bold to kiss 
her hands and yours. So I am your 
much obliged servitor. 



LETTER XXIV. 



From the same to R. S. Esq. 



Sir, 



Westminster, 3d Au;^-. 1629. 



You writ to me lately for a footman, 
and I think this bearer will fit you : I 
know he can run well, for he hath run 



I AM one of them who value not a 
courtesy that hangs long betwixt the 
fingers. I love not those viscosa bene- 
jicia, those bird-limed kindnesses, whicli 
Pliny speaks of; nor would I receive 
money in a dirty clout, if possible I 
could be without it : therefore I return 
you the courtesy by the same hand 
that brought it ; it might have pleasured 
me at first, but the expectation of it 
hath prejudiced me, and now perhaps 
you may have more need of it than your 
humble servitor. 



134 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book II. 



LETTER XXV. 

From James Howel, Esq. to his Father. 



Sir, 



London, Dec. ."3d, 1630. 



Sir Tho. Wentworth hath been a good 
while lord president of York, and since 
is sworn privy counsellor, and made 
baron and viscount : the duke of Buck- 
ingham himself flew not so high in so 
short a revolution of time : he was made 
viscount with a great deal of high cere- 
mony upon a Sunday in the afternoon at 
Whitehall. Mylordof Powis (who affects 
him not so much) being told that the 
heralds had fetched his pedigree from 
the blood-royal, viz. from John of 

Gaunt, said, " D e, if ever he come 

to be king of England, I will turn 
rebel." When I went first to give him 
joy, he pleased to give me the disposing 
of the next attorney's place that falls 
void in York, which is valued at 300/. 
I have no reason to leave my lord of 
Sunderland, for I hope he will be noble 
unto me. The perquisites of my place, 
taking the king's fee away, came far 
short of what he promised me at my first 
coming to him, in regard of his non-re- 
sidence at York ; therefore I hope he 
will consider it some other way. This 
languishing sickness still hangs on him, 
and I fear will make an end of him. 
There's none can tell what to make of 
it, but he voided lately a small worm at 
Wickham ; but I fear there's an impost- 
hume growing in him, for he told me a 
passage, how many years ago my lord 
Willoughby and he, with so many of 
their servants (de gaiete de c(siir) played 
a match at foot-ball against such a num- 
ber of countrymen, where my lord of 
Sunderland being busy about the ball, 
got a bruise in the breast, which put him 
in a swoon for the present, but did not 
trouble him till three months after, when 
being at Bever Castle (his brother-in- 
law's house) a qualm took him on a 
sudden, which made him retire to his 
bedchamber. My lord of Rutland fol- 
lowing him, put a pipe full of tobacco in 
his mouth ; he being not accustomed to 
tobacco, taking the smoke downwards, 
fell a casting and vomiting up divers 
little imposthumated bladders of con- 
gealed blood, which saved his life then, 
and brought him to have a better conceit 
of tobacco ever after ; and I fear there 



is some of that clotted blood still in his 
body. 

Because Mr. Hawes of Cheapside is 
lately dead, 1 have removed my brother 
Griffith to the Hen and Chickens in Pa- 
ternoster Row, to Mr. Taylor's, as gen- 
teel a shop as any in the city ; but I gave 
a piece or plate of twenty nobles' price 
to his wife. I wish the Yorkshire horse 
may be fit for your turn ; he was ac- 
counted the best saddle gelding about 
York, when I bought him of captain 
Philips, the muster master : and when 
he carried me first to London, there was 
twenty pounds offered for him by my 
lady Carlisle. No more now, but de- 
siring a continuance of your blessing 
and prayers, 1 rest your dutiful son. 

LETTER XXVL 

From the same to the Right Rev. Dr. 
Field, lord bishop of St. David's. 

Westminster, 1st May, 1632, 

My lord, 
Your late letter affected me with two 
contrary passions, with gladness and 
sorrow. The beginning of it dilated my 
spirits with apprehensions of joy, that 
you are so well recovered of your late 
sickness, which I heartily congratulate : 
but the conclusion of your lordship's let- 
ter contracted my spirits, and plunged 
them in a deep sense of just sorrow, while 
you please to writ© me news of my dear 
father's death. Permulsit initinm, per- 
cussit finis. Truly, my lord, it is the 
heaviest news that ever was sent me ; but 
Avhen I recollect myself, and consider 
the fairness and maturity of his age, and 
that it was rather a gentle dissolution 
than a death ; when 1 contemplate that 
infinite advantage he hath got by this 
change and transmigration, it much light- 
ens the weight of my grief; for if ever 
human soul entered heaven, surely his 
is there. Such was his constant piety 
to God, his rare indulgence to his 
children, his charity to his neighbours, 
and his candour in reconciling differ- 
ences ; such was the gentleness of his 
disposition, his unwearied course in ac- 
tions of virtue, that I wish my soul no 
other felicity, when she hath shaken 
off these rags of flesh, than to ascend to 
his, and coenjoy the same bliss. 

Excuse me, my lord, that I take my 
leave at this time so abruptly of you : 



S ECT. II 



IVLODERN, OF EARLY DATE. 



135 



Avhen this sorrow is a little digested, 
you shall hear further from me ; for I 
am your lordship's most true and hum- 
ble servitor. 



LETTER XXVn. 

Fro7n the same to sir Ed. B Knight. 



Sir, 



London, 25th July, 1635. 



1 RECEIVED yours this Maundy Thurs- 
day ; and whereas among other passages, 
and high endearments of love, you de- 
sire to know what method I observe in 
the exercise of my devotions, I thank 
you for your request, which I have rea- 
son to believe doth proceed from an ex- 
traordinary respect to me ; and I will 
deal with you herein as one should do 
with his confessor. 

It is true, though there be rules and 
rubrics in our Liturgy sufl&cient to guide 
every one in the performance of all holy 
duties, yet I believe every one hath 
some mode and model or formulary of 
his own, especially for his private cu- 
bicular devotions. 

I will begin with the last day of the 
week, and with the latter end of that 
day, I mean Saturday evening, on which 
I have fasted ever since I was a youth in 
Venice, for being delivered from a very 
great danger. This year I use some ex- 
traordinary acts of devotion, to usher in 
the ensuing Sunday in hymns, and va- 
rious prayers of my own penning, before 
I go to bed. On Sunday morning I rise 
earlier than upon other days, to prepare 
myself for the sanctifying of it ; nor do 
I use barber, taylor, shoe-maker, or 
any other mechanic, that morning ; and 
whatsoever diversions or lets may hinder 
me the week before, I never miss, but in 
caae of sickness, to repair to God's holy 
house that day, where I come before 
prayers begin, to make myself fitter for 
the work by some previous meditations, 
and to take the whole service along with 
me ; nor do I love to mingle speech with 
any in the interim, about news or worldly 
negociations, in God's holy house. I 
prostrate myself in the humblest and de- 
centest way of genuflection I can imagine ; 
nor do I believe there can be any excess 
of exterior humility in that place ; there- 
fore I do not like those squatting unseem- 
ly bold postures upon one's tail, or muf- 



fling the face in the hat, or thrusting it 
in some hole, or covering it with one's 
hand ; but with bended knee, and in 
open confident face, I fix my eyes on the 
east part of the church, and heaven. I 
endeavour to apply every tittle of the ser- 
vice to my own conscience and occasions ; 
and I believe the want of this, with the 
huddling up and careless reading of some 
ministers, with the commonness of it, is 
the greatest cause that many do under- 
value and take a surfeit of our public 
service. 

For the reading and singing psalms, 
whereas most of them are either petitions 
or eucharistical ejaculations, I listen to 
them more attentively and make them 
my own. Wlien I stand at the Creed, I 
think upon the custom they have in Po- 
land, and elsewhere, for gentlemen to 
draw their swords all the while, intimat- 
ing thereby that they will defend it with 
their lives and blood. And for the De- 
calogue, whereas others use to rise, and 
sit, I ever kneel at it in the humblest 
and tremblingest posture of all ; to crave 
remission for the breaches passed of any 
of God's holy commandments (especiaUy 
the week before), and future grace to 
observe them. 

I love a holy devout sermon, that first 
checks and then cheers the conscience ; 
that begins with the Law, and ends witV^ 
the Gospel ; but I never prejudicate or 
censure any preacher, taking him as I 
find him. 

And now that we are not only adulted, 
but ancient Christians, I believe the most 
acceptable sacrifice we can send up to 
heaven is prayer and praise ; and that 
sermons are not so essential as either of 
them to the true practice of devotion. 
The rest of the holy sabbath I sequester 
my body and mind as much as I can 
from worldly affairs. 

Upon Monday morn, as soon as the 
Cinque Ports are open, I have a parti- 
cular prayer of thanks that I am re- 
prieved to the beginning of that week ; 
and every day following I knock thrice 
at heaven's gate, in the morning, in the 
evening, and at night ; besides prayers 
at meals, and some other occasional eja- 
culations, as upon the putting on of a 
clean shirt, washing my hands, and 
at lighting of candles, which, because 
they are sudden, I do in the tliird 
person. 

Tuesday morning I rise winter and 



136 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book If. 



summer as soon as I wake, and send up 
a more particular sacrifice for some rea- 
sons ; and as I am disposed, or have 
business, I go to bed again. 

Upon Wednesday night I always fast, 
and perform also some extraordinary acts 
of devotion, as also upon Friday night ; 
and Saturday morning, as soon as my 
senses are unlocked, I get up. And in 
the summer time I am oftentimes abroad 
in some private field to attend the sun- 
rising ; and as I pray thrice every day, 
so I fast thrice every week ; at least 
I eat but one meal upon Wednesdays, 
Fridays, and Saturdays, in regard I am 
jealous with myself, to have more infir- 
mities to answer for than others. 

Before I go to bed, I make a scrutiny 
what peccant humours have reigned in 
me that day ; and so I reconcile myself 
to my Creator, and strike a tally in the 
exchequer of heaven for my quietus est, 
ere I close my eyes, and leave no burden 
upon my conscience. 

Before I presume to take the holy sa- 
crament, I use some extraordinary acts 
of humiliation to prepare myself some 
days before, and by doing some deeds of 
charity ; and commonly I compose some 
new prayers. 

I use not to rush rashly into prayer 
without a trembling precedent medita- 
tion ; and if any odd thoughts intervene, 
and grow upon me, I check myself, and 
recommence ; and this is incident to 
long prayers, which are more subject to 
man's weakness and the devil's malice. 

By these steps I strive to climb up to 
heaven, and my soul prompts me I shall 
go thither ; for there is no object in the 
world delights me more than to cast up 
my eyes that way, especially in a star- 
light night ; and if my mind be overcast 
with any odd clouds of melancholy, when 
I look up and behold that glorious fa- 
bric, which I hope shall be my country 
hereafter, there are new spirits begot in 
me presently, which make me scorn the 
world and the pleasures thereof, con- 
sidering the vanity of the one, and the 
inanity of the other. 

Thus my soul still moves eastward, as 
all the heavenly bodies do ; but I must 
tell you, that as those bodies are over- 
mastered, and snatched away to the west, 
raptu primi mohilis, by the general mo- 
tion of the tenth sphere, so by those epi- 
demical infirmities which are incident to 
man, I am often snatched away a clean 



contrary course, yet my soul persists still 
in her own proper motion. I am often 
at variance and angry with myself (nor 
do I hold this anger to be any breach of 
charity), when I consider, that whereas 
my Creator intended this body of mine, 
though a lump of clay, to be a temple 
of his holy Spirit, my affection should 
turn it often to a brothel-house, my pas- 
sions to a bedlam, and my excess to an 
hospital. 

Being of a lay profession, 1 humbly 
conform to the constitutions of the 
church, and my spiritual superiors ; and 
I hold this obedience to be an accepta- 
ble sacrifice to God. 

Difference in opinion may work a dis- 
affection in me, but not a detestation ; 1 
rather pity than hate Turk or Infidel, 
for they are of the same metal, and bear 
the same stamp as I do, though the in- 
scription differ. If I hate any, it is those 
schismatics that puzzle the sweet peace 
of our church ; so that I could be con- 
tent to see an Anabaptist go to hell on 
a Brownist's back. 

Noble knight, now that I have thus 
eviscerated myself, a:id dealt so clearly 
with you, I desire by way of correspond- 
ence, that you will tell me what way 
you take in your journey to heaven ; for 
if my breast lie so open to you, it is not 
fitting yours should be shut up to me ; 
therefore I pray let me hear from you 
when it may stand with your conve- 
nience. 

So I wish you your heart's desire here, 
and heaven hereafter, because I am yours 
in no vulgar friendship. 

LETTER XXVIII. 

From Ja7nes Hoivel, Esq, to Master 
Thomas Adams. 



Sir, 



Westminster, 25th August, 1633. 



I PRAY Stir nimbly in the business you 
imparted to me last, and let it not lan- 
guish ; you know how much it concerns 
your credit, and the conveniency of a 
friend who deserves so well of you : I 
fear you will meet Avith divers obstacles 
in the way, which, if you cannot remove, 
you must overcome. A lukewarm irre- 
solute man did never any thing well ; 
every thought entangles him ; therefore 
you must pursue the point of your 
design with heat, and set all wheels a- 



Sect. 11. 



MODERN, OF EARLY DATE. 



137 



going. It is a true badge of a generous 
nature, being once embarked in a bu- 
siness, to hoise up and spread every sail, 
main, mizen, sprit, and top-sail ; by that 
means he will sooner arrive at his port. 
If the winds be so cross, and that there 
be such a fate in the thing, that it can 
take no effect, yet you shall have where- 
with to satisfy an honest mind, that you 
left no thing unattempted to compass it ; 
for in the conduct of human affairs, it is 
a rule. That a good conscience hath al- 
ways within doors enough to reward it- 
self, though the success fall not out ac- 
cording to the merit of the endeavour. 

I was J according to your desire, to 
visit the late new married couple more 
than once ; and to tell you true, I never 
saw such a disparity between two that 
were made one flesh in all my life ; he 
handsome outwardly but of odd condi- 
tions ; she excellently qualified, but hard- 
favoured ; so that the one may be com- 
pared to a cloth of tissue doubled, cut 
upon coarse canvas ; the other to a buck- 
ram petticoat, lined with satin. I think 
Clotho had her fingers smutted in snuffing 
the candle, when she began to spin the 
thread of her life, and Lachesis frowned 
in twisting it up ; but Aglaia, with the 
rest of the Graces, were in a good hu- 
mour when they formed her inner parts. 
A blind man is fittest to hear her sing ; 
one would take delight to see her dance 
if masked ; and it would please you to 
discourse with her in the dark, for there 
she is best company, if your imagination 
can forbear to run upon her face. When 
you marry, I wish you such an inside of 
a wife ; but from such an outward phis- 
nomy the Lord deliver you, and your 
faithful friend to serve you. 



LETTER XXIX. 

JFrom the same to his Nephew J. P. at 
St. Johns in Oxford. 

Westmhister, 1st August, 1633. 
Nephew, 
I HAD from you lately two letters ; the 
last was weU freighted with very good 
stuff, but the other, to deal plainly with 
you, was not so ; there was as much dif- 
ference between them, as betwixt a 
Scotch pedlar's pack in Poland, and the 
magazine of an English merchant in Na- 
ples, the one being usually full of taffaty. 



silks, and satins ; the other of calicoes, 
threads, ribbons, and such poldavy ware. 
I perceive you have good commodities to 
vend, if you take the pains : your trifles 
and bagatelles are ill bestowed upon me, 
therefore hereafter I pray let me have of 
your best sort of wares. I am glad to 
find that you have stored up so much 
already : you are in the best mart in the 
world to improve them, which I hope 
you daily do, and I doubt not, when the 
time of your apprenticeship there is ex- 
pired, but you shall find a good market to 
expose them, for your own and the public 
benefit abroad. I have sent you the phi- 
losophy books you wrote to me for; 
any thing that you want of this kind for 
the advancement of your studies, do but 
write, and I shaU furnish you. When I 
was a student as you are, my practice was 
to borrow rather than buy some sort of 
books, and to be always punctual in re- 
storing them upon the day assigned, and 
in the interim to swallow of them as 
much as made for my turn. This obliged 
me to read them through with more 
haste to keep my word, whereas I had 
not been so careM to peruse them had 
they been my own books, which I knew 
were always ready at my dispose. I 
thank you heartily for your last letter, in 
regard I found it smelt of the lamp ; I 
pray let your next do so, and the oil and 
labour shall not be lost which you ex- 
pend upon your assured loving uncle. 



LETTER XXX. 

From the same to the Right Honourable 
the Lady Elizabeth Digby. 

Westminster, 5th August. 
Madam, 
It is no improper comparison, that a 
thankful heart is like a box of precious 
ointment, which keeps the smell long 
after the thing is spent. Madam, with- 
out vanity be it spoken, such is my heart 
to you, and such are your favours to me ; 
the strong aromatic odour they carried 
with them diffused itself through all the 
veins of my heart, especially through the 
left ventricle where the most illustrious 
blood lies ; so that the perfume of them 
remains stiU fresh within me, and is like 
to do, while that triangle of flesh dilates 
and shuts itself within my breast ; nor 
doth this perfume stay there, but as all 



138 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book II. 



smells naturally tend upwards, it hath 
ascended to my brain, and sweetened all 
the cells thereof, especially the memory, 
which may be said to be a cabinet also 
to preserve courtesies ; for though the 
heart be the box of love, the memory is 
the box of lastingness ; the one may be 
termed the source whence the motions 
of g-ratitude flow, the other the cistern 
that keeps them. 

But your ladyship will say, these are 
words only ; I confess it, it is but a ver- 
bal acknowledgment ; but, madam, if I 
were made happy with an opportunity, 
you shall quickly find these words turned 
to actions, either to go, to run, or ride 
upon your errand. In expectation of 
such a favourable occasion, I rest, ma- 
dam, your ladyship's most humble and 
enchained servitor. 

LETTER XXXI. 

Frofti James Howel, Esq. to Mr. Tko. H, 



Sir, 



Fleet, 7th Nov. 1644. 



Though the time abound with schisms 
more than ever (the more is our misery), 
yet I hope you will not suffer any to 
creep into our friendship ; though I ap- 
prehend some fears thereof by your long 
silence and cessation of literal corre- 
spondence. You know there is a peculiar 
religion attends friendship ; there is, 
according to the etymology of the word, 
a litigation and solemn tie, the rescind- 
ing whereof may be truly called a schism, 
or a piacle, which is more. There be- 
long to this religion of friendship certain 
due rites and decent ceremonies, as 
visits, messages, and missives. Though 
I am content to believe that you are firm 
in the fundamentals, yet I find, under 
favour, that you have lately fallen short 
of performing those exterior offices, as if 
the ceremonial law were quite abrogated 
with you in all things. Friendship also 
allows of merits, and works of superero- 
gation sometimes, to make her capable 
of eternity. You know that pair which 
were taken up into heaven, and placed 
among the brightest stars for their rare 
constancy and fidelity one to the other ; 
you know also they are put among the 
fixed stars, not the erratics, to shew there 
must be no inconstancy in love. Navi- 
gators steer their course by them, and 
they are the best friends in working seas. 



dark nights, and distresses of weather, 
whence may be inferred, that true friends 
should shine clearest in adversity, in 
cloudy and doubtful times. On my part,^ 
this ancient friendship is still pure, ortho- 
dox, and uncorrupted ; and though I have 
not the opportunity (as you have) to per- 
form all the rites thereof in regard of 
this recluse life, yet I shaU never err in 
the essentials : I am still yours xr^Vst 
(in possession), though I cannot be 
^pYi(rsi (in use) ; for in statu quo nunc, I 
am grown useless and good for nothing, 
yet in point of possession, I am as much 
as ever your firm unalterable servitor. 

LETTER XXXII. 

From the same to Dr. D. Featly. 



Sir, 



Fleet, 2d Aug. 1644. 



I RECEIVED your answer to that fiitilous 
pamphlet, with your desire of my opi- 
nion touching it. Truly, sir, I must 
tell you, that never poor cur was tossed 
in a blanket, as you have tossed that 
poor coxcomb in the sheet you pleased 
to send me ; for whereas a fillip might 
have felled him, you have knocked him 
down with a kind of Herculean club, 
sans resource. These times (more is the 
pity) labour with the same disease that 
France did during the league, as a fa- 
mous author hath it. Prurigo scripturi- 
entium erat scabies temporum ; " The 
itching of scribblers was the scab of the 
time : " it is just so now, that any trio- 
bolary pasquiller, every tressis agaso, any 
sterquilinous rascal, is licensed to throw 
dirt in the faces of sovereign princes in 
open printed language. But I hope the 
times will mend, and your man alsa> if 
he hath any grace, you have so well 
corrected him. So I rest yours to serve 
and reverence you. 



LETTER XXXIII. 

From the same to his honoured friend 
Sir S. C. 



Sir, 



Holborn, 17th March, 1639. 



I WAS upon point of going abroad to 
steal a solitary walk, when yours of the 
12th current came to hand. Tlie high 
researches and choice abstracted notions 



Sect. II. 



MODERN, OF EARLY DATE. 



139 



I found therein, seemed to heighten my 
spirits, and make my fancy litter for my 
intended retirement and meditation : add 
hereunto that the countenance of the 
weather invited me ; for it was a still 
evening, it was also a clear open sky, not 
a speck, or the least wrinkle appeared in 
the whole face of heaven, it was such a 
pure deep azure all the hemisphere over, 
that I wondered what was become of 
the three regions of the air with their 
meteors. So having got into a close 
held, I cast my face upward, and fell to 
consider wliat a rare prerogative the op- 
tic virtue of the eye hath, much more 
the intuitive virtue in the thought, that 
the one in a moment can reach heaven, 
and the other go beyond it ; therefore 
sure that philosopher was but a kind of 
frantic fool, that would have plucked out 
both his eyes, because they were a hin- 
drance to his speculations. Moreover, 
I began to contemplate, as I was in this 
posture, the vast magnitude of the uni- 
verse, and what proportion this poor 
globe of earth might bear with it ; for if 
those numberless bodies which stick in the 
vast roof of heaven, though they appear 
to us but as spangles, be some of them 
thousands of times bigger than the earth, 
take the sea with it to boot, for they both 
make but one sphere, surely the astro- 
nomers had reason to term this sphere an 
indivisible point, and a thing of no di- 
mension at all, being compared to the 
whole world. I fell then to think, that 
at the second general destruction, it is no 
more for God Almighty to fire this earth, 
than for us to blow up a small squib, or 
rather one small grain of gunpowder. 
As I Avas musing thus, I spied a swarm of 
gnats waving up and down the air about 
me, which I knew to be part of the uni- 
verse as well as I : and methought it was 
a strange opinion of our Aristotle to hold, 
that the least of those small insected ephe- 
merans should be more noble than the 
sun, because it had a sensitive soul in it. 
I fell to think that in the same proportion 
which those animalillios bore with me in 
point of bigness, the same I held with 
those glorious spirits which are near the 
throne of the Almighty. What then 
should we think of the magnitude of the 
Creator himself? Doubtless, it is beyond 
the reacb of any human imagination to 
conceive it : in my private devotions I 
presume to compare him to a great 
mountain of light, and my soul seems to 



discern some glorious form therein ; 
but suddenly as she would fix her eyes 
upon the object, her sight is presently 
dazzled and disgregated Avith the reful- 
gency and coruscations thereof. 

Walking a little further I spied a young 
boisterous bull breaking over hedge and 
ditch to a herd of kine in the next pas- 
ture ; which made me think, that if that 
fierce, strong animal, with others of that 
kind, knew their own strength, they 
would never suffer man to be their mas- 
ter. Then looking upon them quietly 
grazing up and down, I fell to consider 
that the flesh which is daily dished upon 
our tables is but concocted grass, which 
is recarnified in our stomachs, and 
transmuted to another flesh. I fell also 
to think what advantage those innocent 
animals had of man, who as soon as na- 
ture cast them into the world, find their 
meat dressed, the cloth laid, and the 
table covered ; they find their drink 
brewed, and the buttery open, their 
beds made, and their clothes ready; 
and though man hath the faculty of 
reason to make him a compensation for 
the want of those advantages, yet this 
reason brings with it a thosuand per- 
turbations of mind and perplexities of 
spirit, griping cares and anguishes of 
thought, which those harmless silly 
creatures were exempted fi-om. Going 
on I came to repose myself upon the 
trunk of a tree, and I fell to consider 
further what advantage that dull vege- 
table had of those feeding animals, as not 
to be so troublesome and beholden to 
nature, not to be subject to starving, to 
diseases, to the inclemency of the wea- 
ther, and to be far longer-lived. Then I 
spied a great stone, and sitting a while 
upon it, I feel to weigh in my thoughts 
that that stone was in a happier condition 
in some respects, than either of those 
sensitive creatures or vegetables I saw be- 
fore ; in regard that that stone, which 
propagates by assimilation, as the philo- 
sophers say, needed neither grass nor 
hay, or any aliment for restoration of 
nature, nor water to refresh its roots, or 
the heat of the sun to attract the moisture 
upwards, to increase the growth, as the 
other did. As I directed my pace liome- 
Avard, I spied a kite soaring high in the 
air, and gently gliding up and down the 
clear region so far above my head, that I 
fell to envy the bird extremely, and re- 
})ine at his happiness, that he should 



140 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IL 



have a privileg'e to make a nearer ap- 
proach to heaven than L 

Excuse me that I trouhle you thus 
with these rambling meditations, they 
are to correspond with you in some part 
for those accurate fancies of yours lately 
sent me. So I rest your entire and true 
servitor. 



no cause to brag of ; 
teroons : 



hate such bla- 



Odi illos ceu clausiru Erebi- 



I thought good to give you this little 
mot of advice, because the times are 
ticklish, of committing secrets to any, 
though not to your most affectionate 
friend to serve you. 

LETTER XXXV. 

FromJas. Howel, Esq. to Mr, R Howard. jprom the same to Sir K. D, at Rome. 



LETTER XXXIV. 



Sir, 



Fleet, 14th Feb. 164" 



There is a saying that carrieth with 
it a great deal of caution ; '* From him 
whom I trust God defend me ; for from 
him whom I trust not, I will defend 
myself." There be sundry sorts of 
trusts, but that of a secret is one of 
the greatest : I trusted T. P. with a 
weighty one, conjuring him that it 
should not take air and go abroad : 
which was not done according to the 
rules and religion of friendship, but 
it went out of him the very next day. 
Though the inconvenience may be mine, 
yet the reproach is his : nor would I 
exchange my damage for his disgrace. 
I would wish you take heed of him, 
for he is such as the comic poet speaks 
of, " Plenus rimarum/' "he is full of 
chinks, he can hold nothing:" you 
know a secret is too much for one, 
too little for three, and enough for 
two; but Tom must be none of those 
two, unless there were a trick to 
solder up his mouth: if he had com- 
mitted a secret to me, and enjoined 
me silence, and 1 had promised it, 
though I had been shut up in Perillus' 
brazen bull, I should not have bellowed 
it out. I find it now true, " That he 
who discovers his secrets to another, 
sells him his liberty, and becomes his 
slave:" well, I shall be warier here- 
after, and learn more wit. In the in- 
terim, the best satisfaction I can give 
myself is, to expunge him quite ex albo 
amicorum, to raze him out of the ca- 
talogue of my friends (though I can- 
not of my acquaintance), where your 
name is inserted in great golden cha- 
racters. I will endeavour to lose the 
memory of him, and that my thoughts 
may never run more upon the fashion 
of his face, which you know he hath 



Sir, 



Fleet, 3d March 1646. 



Though you know well that in the 
carriage and course of my rambling 
life, I had occasion to be, as the Dutch- 
man saith, a landloper, and to see much 
of the world abroad, yet methinks I 
have travelled more since I have been 
immured and martyred betwixt these 
walls than ever I did before ; for I have 
travelled the Isle of Man, I mean this 
little world, which I have carried about 
me and within me so many years : for as 
the wisest of pagan philosophers said 
that the greatest learning was the know- 
ledge of one's self, to be his own geome- 
trician ; if one do so, he need not gad 
abroad to see fashions, he shall find 
enough at home, he shall hourly meet 
with new fancies, new humours, new 
passions within doors. 

This travelling over of one's self is 
one of the paths that leads a man to pa- 
radise : it is true, that it is a dirty and 
dangerous one, for it is thick set with 
extravagant desires, irregular affections 
and concupiscences, which are but odd 
comrades, and oftentimes do lie in am- 
bush to cut our throats : there are also 
some melancholy companions in the way, 
which are our thoughts, but they turn 
many time to be good fellows, and the 
best company; which makes me, that 
among these disconsolate walls I am 
never less alone than when I am alone ; 
I am oft-times sole, but seldom solitary. 
Some there are, who are over-pestered 
with these companions, and have too 
much mind for their bodies ; but 1 am 
none of those. 

There have been (since you shook 
hands with England) many strange things 
happened here, which posterity must have 
a strong faith to believe ; but for my 
part I wonder not at any thing, I have 



Sect. ll. 



MODERN, OF EARi-Y DATE. 



141 



seen such monstrous things. You know 
there is nothing that can be casual; 
there is no success, good or had, but is 
contingent to man sometimes or other ; 
nor are there any contingencies, pre- 
sent or future, but they have their pa- 
rallels from time past : for the great 
wheel of fortune, upon whose rim (as 
the twelve signs upon the zodiac) all 
worldly chances are embossed, turns 
round perpetually ; and the spokes of 
that wheel, which point at all human 
actions, return exactly to the same 
place after such a time of revolution ; 
which makes me little marvel at any of 
the strange traverses of these distracted 
times, in regard there hath been the 
like, or such like formerly. If the Li- 
turgy is now suppressed, the Missal and 
the Roman Breviary was used so a hun- 
dred years since : if crosses, church win- 
dows, organs, and fonts, are now bat- 
tered down, I little wonder at it ; for 
chapels, monasteries, hermitaries, nun- 
neries, and other religious houses, were 
used so in the time of old King Henry : 
if bishops and deans are now in danger 
to be demolished, I little wonder at it, 
for abbots, priors, and the pope himself, 
had that fortune here an age since. 
That our king is reduced to this pass, I 
do not wonder much at it ; for the first 
time I travelled France, Lewis XIII. 
(afterwards a most triumphant king as 
ever that country had) in a dangerous 
civil war was brought to such straits ; 
for he was brought to dispense with part 
of his coronation oath, to remove from 
his court of justice, from the council 
table, from his very bedchamber, his 
greatest favourites : he was driven to be 
content to pay the expense of the war, 
to reward those that took arms against 
him, and publish a declaration, that the 
ground of their quarrel was good ; which 
was the same in effect with ours, viz, a 
discontinuance of the assembly of the 
three estates, and that Spanish counsels 
did predominate in France. 

You know better than I, that all 
events, gx)od or bad, come from the all- 
disposing high Deity of heaven : if 
goad, he produceth them ; if bad, he 
permits them. He is the pilot that sits 
at the stern, and steers the great vessel 
of the world; and we must not presume 
to direct him in his course, for he un- 
derstands the use of the compass better 
than we. He commands also the winds 



and the weather, and after a storm, 
he never fails to send us a calm, and 
to recompense ill times with better, if 
we can live to see them ; which I pray 
you may do, whatsoever becomes of 
your still more faithful humble ser- 
vitor. 



LETTER XXXVI. 

From the same to Mr. En. P. at Paris. 



Sir, 



Fleet, 20th Feb. \6-i6. 



Since we are both agreed to truck in- 
telligence, and that you are contented 
to barter French for English, I shall be 
careful to send you hence from time to 
time the currentest and most staple 
stuff I can find, with weight and good 
measure to boot. I know in that more 
subtle air of yours, tinsel sometimes 
passes for tissue, Venice beads for pearl, 
and demicastors for beavers : but I know 
you have so discerning a judgment that 
you will not suffer yourself to be so 
cheated ; they must rise betimes that 
can put tricks upon you, and make you 
take semblances for realities, probabili- 
ties for certainties, or spurious for true 
things. To hold this literal correspond- 
ence, I desire but the parings of your 
time, that you may have something to 
do when you have nothing else to do, 
while I make a business of it to be 
punctual in my answers to you. Let 
our letters be as echoes, let them bound 
back and make mutual repercussions ; I 
know you that breathe upon the conti- 
nent have clearer echoes there, witness 
that in the Thuilleries, especially that 
at Charenton bridge, which quavers, and 
renders the voice ten times when it is 
open weather, and it were a virtuous cu- 
riosity to try it. 

For news, the world is here turned up- 
side down, and it hath been long a-going 
so : you know a good while since we have 
had leather caps and beaver shoes ; but 
now the arms are come to be legs, for 
bishops' lawn sleeves are worn for boot- 
hose tops ; the waist is come to the 
knee, for the points that were used to be 
about the middle are now dangling 
there. Boots and shoes are so long 
snouted, that one can hardly kneel in 
God's house, where all genuflection and 
postures of devotion and decency are 



i42 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IL 



quite out of use : the devil may walk 
freely up and down the streets of London 
now, for there is not a cross to fright him 
any where ; and it seems he was never so 
busy in any country upon earth, for there 
have been more witches arraigned and 
executed here lately, than ever were in 
this island since the creation. 

I have no more to communicate to you 
at this time, and this is too much unless 
it were better. God Almighty send us 
patience, you in your banishment, me in 
my captivity, and give us heaven for our 
last country, where desires turn to frui- 
tion, doubts to certitude, and dark 
thoughts to clear contemplations . Truly, 
my dear Don Antonio, as the times are, 
I take little contentment to live among 
the elements : and (were it my Maker's 
pleasure) I could willingly, had I quit 
scores with the world, make my last ac- 
count with nature, and return this small 
skinful of bones to my common mother. 
If I chance to do so before you, I love 
you so entirely well that my spirit shall 
visit you, to bring you some tidings from 
the other world ; and if you precede me, 
I shaU expect the like from you, which 
you may do without affrighting me, for 
I know your spirit will be a bonus genius. 
So desiring to know what is become of 
my manuscript, I kiss your hands, and 
rest most passionately your most faithful 
servitor. 

LETTER XXXVII. 

From James Howel, Esq. to Mr. William 
Blois. 

Fleet, 2()th March, 1647. 
My worthy esteemed nephew, 
I RECEIVED those rich nuptial favours 
you appointed me for bands and hats, 
which I wear with very much content- 
ment and respect, most heartily wishing 
that this late double condition may mul- 
tiply new blessings upon you, that it may 
usher in fair and golden days according 
to the colour and substance of your bridal 
ribband ; that those days may be per- 
fumed with delight and pleasure, as the 
rich scented gloves I wear for your sake. 
May such benedictions attend you both, 
as the epithalamiums of Stella in Statius, 
and Julia in Catullus, speak of. I hope 
also to be married shortly to a lady whom 
I have wooed above these five years, but 
I have found her coy and dainty hither- 



to ; yet I am now like to get her good- 
will in part, I mean the lady Liberty. 

When you see my N. Brownrigg, I 
pray tell him that I did not think Suffolk 
waters had such a Lethean quality in 
them, as to cause su.ch an amnestia in 
him of his friends here upon the Thames, 
among whom for reality and seriousness, 
I may match among the foremost ; but I 
impute it to some new task that his muse 
might haply impose upon him, which 
hath ingrossed all his speculations ; I pray 
present my cordial kind respects unto 
him. 

So praying that a thousand blessings 
may attend this confarreation, I rest, my 
dear nephew, yours most affectionately 
to love and serve you. 



LETTER XXXVIII. 

From the same to Henry Hopkins, Esq. 



Sir, 



Fleet, 1st January, 1646. 



To usher in again old Janus, I send you 
a parcel of Indian perfume which the 
Spaniards call the Holy Herb, in regard 
of the various virtues it hath, but we 
call it tobacco ; I will not say it grew 
under the king of Spain's window, but 
I am told it was gathered near his gold 
mines of Potosi (where they report that 
in some places there is more of that ore 
than earth), therefore it must needs be 
precious stuff : if moderately and season- 
ably taken (as I find you always do), it 
is good for many things ; it helps diges- 
tion taken awhile after meat, it makes 
one void rheum, break wind, and keeps 
the body open : a leaf or two being 
steeped over-night in a little white-wine 
is a vomit that never fails in its opera- 
tion : it is a good companion to one that 
converseth with dead men ; for if one 
hath been poring long upon a book, or 
is toiled with the pen, and stupified with 
study, it quickeneth him, and dispels 
those clouds that usually overset the 
brain. The smoke of it is one of the 
wholesomest scents that is, against all 
contagious airs, for it over-masters all 
other smells, as king James, they say, 
found true, when being once a-hunting, 
a shower of rain drove him into a pig- 
stye for shelter, where he caused a pipe- 
full to be taken on purpose : it cannot 
endure a spider, or a flea, with such-like 



Sect. II. 



MODERN, OF EARLY DATE. 



143 



vermin, and if your hawk be troubled 
with any such, being blown into his 
feathers, it frees him. Now to descend 
from the substance of the smoke, to the 
"ashes, it is well known that the medicinal 
virtues thereof are very many ; but they 
are so common, that 1 will spare the in- 
serting- of them here : but if one would 
try a petty conclusion, how much smoke 
there is in a pound of tobacco, the ashes 
will tell him ; for let a pound be exactly 
weighed, and the ashes kept charily and 
weighed afterwards, what wants of a 
pound weight in the ashes cannot be de- 
nied to have been smoke, which evapo- 
rated into air. I have been told that sir 
Walter Raleigh won a wager of queen 
Elizabeth upon this nicety. 

The Spaniards and Irish take it most 
in powder or smutchin, and it mightily 
refreshes the brain, and I believe there 
is as much taken this way in Ireland, as 
there is in pipes in England ; one shall 
commonly see the serving-maid upon 
the washing-block, and the swain upon 
the plough-share, when they are tired 
with labour, take out their boxes of 
smutchin, and draw it into their nostrils 
Avith a quill, and it will beget new spirits 
in them with a fresh vigour to fall to 
their work again. In Barbary and other 
parts of Afric, it is wonderful what a 
small piU of tobacco will do ; for those 
who use to ride post through the sandy 
desarts, where they meet not with any 
thing that's potable or edible, sometimes 
three days together, they use to carry 
small balls or pills of tobacco, which 
being put under the tongue, it affords 
them a perpetual moisture, and takes 
off the edge of the appetite for some 
4iays. 

If you desire to read with pleasure all 
the virtues of this modern herb, you 
must read Dr. Thorus's Psetologia, an 
accurate piece couched in a strenuous 
heroic verse, full of matter, and conti- 
nuing its strength from first to last; 
insomuch that for the bigness it may be 
compared to any piece of antiquity, and, 
in my opinion, is beyond Barpaxoy^uo- 
fj^oc^ioc, or TccKscoi^voy^a^lcc. 

So I conclude these rambling notions, 
presuming you will accept this small ar- 
gument of my great respect to you. If 
you want paper to light your pipe, this 
letter may serve the turn ; and if it be 
true, what the poets frequently sing, that 
^flfectiou is fire, you shall need no other 



than the clear flames of the donor's love 
to make ignition, which is comprehend- 
ed in this distich : 



Ignis Amorisjit, Tobaccum accendere nostrum f 
Nulla petenda iibifax nisi dantis amor. 



So I wish you, as to myself, a most 
happy new year ; may the beginning be 
good, the middle better, and the end 
best of all. Your most faithful and 
truly affectionate servitor. 



LETTER XXXIX. 



From the same to Mr, T. Morgan. 



Sir, 



May 12. 



I RECEIVED two of yours upon Tuesday 
last, one to your brother, the other to 
me ; but the superscriptions were mis- 
taken, which makes me think on that 
famous civilian doctor Dale, who being- 
employed to Flanders by queen Eliza- 
beth, sent in a packet to the secretary 
of state two letters, one to the queen, 
the other to his wife ; but that which was 
meant for the queen was superscribed, 
" To his dear Wife ;" and that for his 
wife, " To her most excellent Majesty :" 
so that the queen having opened his let- 
ter, she found it beginning with sweet- 
heart, and afterwards with my dear, 
and dear love, with such expressions, ac- 
quainting her with the state of his body, 
and that he began to want money. You 
may easily guess what motions of mirth 
this mistake raised ; but the doctor by this 
oversight (or cunningness rather) got a 
supply of money. This perchance may 
be your policy, to endorse me your bro- 
ther, thereby to endear me the more to 
you : but you needed not to have done 
that, for the name/r2>?z£/ goes sometimes 
further than brother ; and there be more 
examples of friends that did sacrifice their 
lives one for another, than of brothers ; 
which the writer doth think he should do 
for you, if the case required. But since 
I am fallen upon Dr. Dale, who was a 
witty kind of droll, I will tell you in- 
stead of news (for there is little good 
stirring now) two other facetious tales 
of his ; and familiar tales may become 
familiar letters well enough. When 
queen Elizabeth did first propose to him 
that foreign employment to Flanders, 



144 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book II. 



among other encouragements, she told 
him that he should have 20*. per diem 
for his expenses. " Then, madam," 
said he, "I will spend lOs. a-day." — 
*' What will you do with the odd shil- 
ling?" the queen replied. — " I will re- 
serve that for my Kate, and for Tom 
and Dick ; " meaning his wife and chil- 
dren. This induced the queen to en- 
large his allowance . But this that comes 
last is the best of all, and may he called 
the superlative of the three ; which was 
when at the overture of the treaty the 
other ambassadors came to propose in 
what language they should treat, the 
Spanish ambassador answered, that the 
French was the most proper, because 
his mistress entitled herself Queen of 
France ; " Nay then," said Dr. Dale, 
" let us treat in Hebrew, for your mas- 
ter calls himself King of Jerusalem." 

I performed the civilities you conjoin- 
ed me to your friends here, who return 
you the like centuplicated, and so doth 
your entire friend. 

LETTER XL. 

From James Jiowel, Esq. to the Right 
Honourable the Ladi/ E. D. 

April 8. 

Madam, 
There is a French saying, that courte- 
sies and favours are like flowers, which 
are sweet only while they are fresh, but 
afterwards they quickly fade and wither. 
I cannot deny but your favours to me 
might be compared to some kind of 
flowers (and they would make a thick 
posie), but they should be to the flower 
called life everlasting; or that pretty 
vermilion flower which grows at the 
foot of the mountain ^tna in Sicily, 
which never loses any thing of its first 
colour and scent. Those favours you 
did me thirty years ago, in the life-time 
of your incomparable brother Mr. R. 
Altham (who left us in the flower of his 
age), methinks are as fresh to me as if 
they were done yesterday. 

Nor were it any danger to compare 
courtesies done to me to other flowers, 
as I use them ; for I distil them in the 
limbec of my memory, and so turn them 
to essences. 

But, madam, I honour you not so 
much for favours, as for that precious 
brood of virtues, which shine in you with 
that brightness, but especially for those 



high motions whereby your soul soars 
up so often towards heaven ; insomuch, 
madam, that if it were safe to call any 
mortal a saint, you should have that title 
from me, and I would be one of your 
chiefest votaries J howsoever, I may with- 
out any superstition subscribe myself 
your truly devoted servant. 

LETTER XLL 

From the same to the Lord Marquis of 
Hartford, 

My Lord, 
I RECEIVED your lordship's of the 11th 
current, with the commands it carried, 
whereof 1 shall give an account in my 
next. Foreign parts aflFord not much 
matter of intelligence, it being now the 
dead of winter, and the season unfit for 
action. But we need not go abroad for 
news, there is store enough at home. 
We see daily mighty things, and they 
are marvellous in our eyes ; but the 
greatest marvel is, that nothing should 
now be marvelled at; for we are so 
habituated to wonders, that they are 
grown familiar unto us. 

Poor England may be said to be like 
a ship tossed up and down the surges of 
a turbulent sea, having lost her old 
pilot ; and God knows when she can get 
into safe harbour again : yet doubtless 
this tempest, according to the usual ope- 
rations of nature, and the succession of 
mundane effects by contrary agents, will 
turn at last into a calm, though many 
who are yet in their nonage may not 
live to see it. Your lordship knows that 
the >coVjU,of, this fair frame of the uni- 
verse, came out of a chaos, an indigest- 
ed lump ; and that this elementary world 
was made of millions of ingredients re- 
pugnant to themselves in nature ; and 
the whole is still preserved by the reluc- 
tancy and restless combatings of these 
principles. We see how the shipwright 
doth make use of knee-timber and other 
cross-grained pieces, as well as of straight 
and even, for framing a goodly vessel to 
ride on Neptune's back. The printer 
useth many contrary characters in his 
art to put forth a fair volume : as c? is a 
p reversed, and w is a w turned upward, 
with other differing letters, which yet 
concur all to the perfection of the whole 
work. There go many various and dis- 
sonant tones to make an harmonious 



Sect. II. 



MODERN, O F E A R L Y DATE. 



145 



concert. This put me in mind of an 
excellent passage which a noble specu- 
lative knight (sir P. Herbert) hath in his 
late Conceptions to his son ; how a holy 
anchorite being in a wilderness, among 
other contemplations he fell to admire 
the method of Providence ; how out of 
causes which seem bad to us he pro- 
duceth oftentimes good effects ; how he 
suffers virtuous, loyal, and religious men 
to be oppressed, and others to prosper. 
x\s he was transported with these ideas, 
a goodly young man appeared to him, 
and told him, " Father, I know your 
thoughts are distracted, and I am sent 
to quiet them ; therefore if you will ac- 
company me a few days, you shall re- 
turn very weU satisfied of those doubts 
that now encumber your mind." So 
going along with him, they were to pass 
over a deep river, whereon there was a 
narrow bridge : and meeting there with 
another passenger, the young man jos- 
tled him into the water, and so drowned 
him. The old anchorite being much as- 
tonished hereat, would have left him ; 
but his guide said, " Father, be not 
amazed, because I shall give you good 
reasons for what Ido, and you shall see 
stranger things than this before you and 
I part; but at last I shall settle your 
judgment, and put your mind in full 
repose." So going that night to lodge 
in an inn where there was a crew of 
banditti and debauched ruffians, the 
young man struck into their company, 
and rebelled with them tiU the morning, 
wliile the anchorite spent most of the 
night in numbering his beads : but as 
soon as they were departed thence, they 
met with some officers who went to ap- 
prehend that crew of banditti they had 
left behind them. The next day they 
came to a gentleman's house, which was 
a faL*" palace, where they received all the 
courteous hospitality which could be : 
but in the morning as they parted there 
was a child in a cradle, which was the 
only son of the gentleman; and the 
young man, spying his opportunity, 
strangled the child, and so got away. 
The third day they came to another inn, 
where the man of the house treated 
them with all the civility that could be, 
and gratis ; yet the young man embez- 
zled a silver goblet, and carried it away 
in his pocket ; which stiU increased the 
amazement of the anchorite. Tlie fourth 



day in the evening they came to lodge at 
another inn, where the host was very 
sullen and uncivil to them, exacting 
much more than the value of what they 
had spent ; yet at parting the young man 
bestowed upon him the silver goblet he 
had stolen from that host who had used 
them so kindly. The fifth day they made 
towards a great rich town ; but some 
miles before they came at it, they met 
with a merchant at the close of the day, 
who had a great charge of money about 
him ; and asking the next passage to the 
town, the young man put him in a clean 
contrary way. The anchorite and his 
guide being come to the town, at the 
gate they spied a devil, who lay as it 
were sentinel, but he was asleep : they 
found also both men and women at sun- 
dry kinds of sports, some dancing, others 
singing, with divers sorts of re veilings. 
They went afterwards to a convent of 
Capuchins, where about the gate they 
found legions of devils lying siege to 
that monastery ; yet they got in and 
lodged there that night. Being awaked 
the next morning, the young man came 
to that cell where the anchorite was 
lodged, and told him, " I know your 
heart is full of horror, and your head 
full of confusion, astonishments, and 
doubts, for what you have seen since 
the first time of our association. But 
know, I am an angel sent from heaven 
to rectify your judgment, as also to cor- 
rect a little your curiosity in the re- 
searches of the ways and acts of Provi- 
dence too far ; for though separately 
they seem strange to the shallow ap- 
prehension of man, yet conjunctly they 
all tend to produce good effects. 

" That man which I tumbled into the 
river was an act of Providence ; for he 
was going upon a most mischievous de- 
sign, that would have damnified not only 
his own soul, but destroyed the party 
against whom it was intended ; there- 
fore I prevented it. 

" The cause why I conversed all night 
with that crew of rogues was also an 
act of Providence ; for they intended to 
go a-robbing all that night ; but I kept 
them there purposely till the next morn- 
ing, that the hand of justice might seize 
upon them. 

" Touching the kind host from whom 
I took the silver goblet, and the clown- 
ish or knavish host to whom I gave it 
L 



14« 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book II. 



let this demonstrate to you, that good 
men are liable to crosses and losses, 
whereof bad men oftentimes reap the 
benefit ; but it commonly produceth 
patience in the one, and pride in the 
other. 

" Concerning that noble gentleman, 
whose child I strangled after so cour- 
teous entertainment, know, that that 
alyo was an act of Providence ; for the 
gentleman was so indulgent and doting 
on that child, that it lessened his love to 
Heaven ; so I took away the cause. 

" Touching the merchant whom I 
misguided in his way, it was likewise 
an act of Providence ; for had he gone 
the direct way to this town, he had been 
robbed, and his throat cut ; therefore I 
preserved him by that deviation. 

*' Now, concerning this great luxu- 
rious city, whereas we spied but one 
devil who lay asleep without the gate, 
there being so many about this poor 
convent, you must consider, that Luci- 
fer being already assured of that riotous 
town by corrupting their manners every 
day more and more, he needs but one 
single sentinel to secure it ; but for this 
holy place of retirement, this monastery 
inhabited by so many devout souls, who 
spend their whole lives in acts of morti- 
fication, as exercises of piety and pe- 
nance, he hath brought so many legions 
to beleaguer them ; yet he can do no 
good upon them, for they bear up against 
him most undauntedly, maugre all his 
infernal power and stratagems." So the 
young man, or divine messenger, sud- 
denly disappeared and vanished, yet leav- 
ing his fellow-traveller in good hands. 

My lord, I crave your pardon for this 
extravagancy, and the tediousness there- 
of ; but I hope the sublimity of the mat- 
terwillmake some compensation, which, 
if I am not deceived, will well suit with 
your genius ; for I know your contem- 
plations to be as high as your condition, 
and as much above the vulgar. This 
figurative story shews that the ways of 
Providence are inscrutable, his intention 
and method of operation not conforma- 
ble oftentimes to human judgment, the 
plummet and line whereof is infinitely 
too short to fathom the depth of his de- 
signs ; therefore let us acquiesce in an 
humble admiration, and with this con- 
fidence, that all things co-operate to the 
best at last, as they relate to his glory, 



and the general good of his creatures, 
though sometimes they appear to us by 
uncouth circumstances and cross me- 
diums. 

So in a due distance and posture of 
humility I kiss your lordship's hand, as 
being, my most highly honoured lord, 
your thrice obedient and obliged ser- 
vitor. 

LETTER XLII. 

From James Howel, Esq. to J. Suit on, Esq. 
London, 5th January. 
Sir, 
Whereas you desire my opinion of the 
late History translated by Mr. Wad, of . 
the Civil Wars of Spain, in the begin- i 
ning of Charles the Emperor's reign, I ^ 
cannot choose but tell you, that it is a 
faithful and pure maiden story, never 
blown upon before in any language but 
in Spanish, therefore very worthy your 
perusal ; for among those various kind 
of studies that your contemplative soul 
delights in, I hold history to be the most 
fitting to your quality. 

Now, among those sundry advantages 
which accrue to a reader of history, one 
is, that no modern accident can seem 
strange to him, much less astonish him. 
He will leave off wondering at anything, 
in regard he may remember to have read 
of the same, or much like the same, that 
happened in former times : therefore he 
doth not stand staring like a child at 
every unusual spectacle, like that simple 
American, who, the first time he saw a 
Spaniard on horseback, thought the man 
and beast to be but one creature, and 
that the horse did chew the rings of his 
bit, and eat them. 

Now, indeed, not to be an historian, 
that is, not to know what foreign na- 
tions and our forefathers did, hoc est 
semper esse puer, as Cicero hath it, *' This 
is still to be a child " who gazeth at every 
thing : whence may be inferred, there 
is no knowledge that ripeneth the judg- 
ment, and puts one out of his nonage, 
sooner than history. 

If I had not formerly read the Barons' 
wars in England, I had more admired 
that of the JLeaguers in France. He who 
had read th« near-upon fourscore years' 
wars in Low Germany, I believe, never 
wondered at the late thirty years' wars 
in High Germany. I had wondered 
more that Richard of Bourdeaux was 



Sect. II. 



MODERN, OF EARLY DATE. 



147 



knocked down with halberds, had I not 
read formerly that Edward of Carnar- 
von was made away by a hot iron thrust 
"lip his fundament. It was strange that 
Murat the great Ottoman emperor 
should be lately strangled in his own 
court at Constantinople ; yet, consider- 
ing that Osman the predecessor had been 
knocked down by one of these ordinary 
slaves not many years before, it was not 
strange at all. The blazing star in Vir- 
go thirty-four years since, did not seem 
strange to him who had read of that 
which appeared in Cassiopeia and other 
constellations some years before. Hence 
maybe inferred, that history is the great 
looking-glass through which we may be- 
hold with ancestral eyes, not only the 
various actions of ages past, and the odd 
accidents that attended time, but also 
discern the different humours of men, 
and feel the pulse of former times. 

This history will display the very in- 
trinsicals of the Castilian, who goes for 
the prime Spaniard ; and makes the opi- 
nion a paradox, which cries him up to 
be so constant to his principles, so loyal 
to his prince, and so conformable to go- 
vernment ; for it will discover as much 
levity and tumultuary passions in him as 
in otlier nations. 

Among divers other examples which 
could be produced out of this story, I 
will instance in one : When Juan de Pa- 
dillia, an infamous fellow, and of base 
extraction, was made general of the peo- 
ple, among others there was a priest, 
that being a great zealot for him, used 
to pray publicly in the church, " Let us 
pray for the whole Commonalty, and his 
majesty Don Juan de Padillia, and for 
the lady Donna Maria Pacheco his wife," 
&c. But a little after, some of Juan de 
PadiUia's soldiers having quartered in his 
house, and pitifully plundered him, the 
next Sunday the same priest said in the 
church, " Beloved Christians, you know 
how Juan de PadiUia passing this way, 
some of his brigade were billeted in my 
house : truly they have not left me one 
chicken ; they have drunk up a whole 
barrel of wine, devoured my bacon, and 
taken away my Catilina, my maid Kate : I 
charge you therefore pray no more for 
him." Divers such traverses as these 
may be read in that story ; which may 
be the reason why it was suppressed in 
Spain, that it should not cross the seas, 
or clamber over the Pyreneans to ac» 



quaint other nations with their foolery 
and baseness : yet Mr. Simon Digby, a 
gentleman of much worth, got a copy, 
which he brought over with him, out of 
which this translation is derived ; though 
I must tell you by the bye, that some 
passages were commanded to be omitted 
because they had too near an analogy 
with our times. 

So in a serious way of true friendship, 
I profess myself your most affectionate 
servitor. 



LETTER XLIII. 

From James Howel, Esq. to the Lord 
Marquis of Dorchester. 

Londoiij 15t!i August. 
My Lord, 
There is a sentence that carrieth a 
high sense with it, viz. Ingenia prin- 
cipumfata temporum, " The fancy of the 
prince is the fate of the times : " so in 
point of peace or war, oppression or jus- 
tice, virtue or vice, profaneness or devo- 
tion ; for regis ad exemplum. But there 
is another saying, which is as true, viz. 
Genius plebis est fatum principis, " The 
happiness of the prince depends upon 
the humour of the people." There can- 
not be a more pregnant example hereof, 
than in that successful and long-lived 
queen, queen Elizabeth, who having 
come, as it were, from the scaffold to 
the throne, enjoyed a wonderful calm 
(excepting some short gusts of insurrec- 
tion that happened in the beginning) for 
near upon forty-five years together. But 
this, my lord, may be imputed to the 
temper of the people, who had had a 
boisterous king not long before, with 
so many revolutions in religion, and a 
minor king afterward, which made them 
to be governed by their felloAv-subjects. 
And the fire and faggot being frequent 
among them in queen Mary's days, the 
humours of the common people were 
pretty well spent, and so were willing 
to conform to any government that 
might preserve them and their estates in 
quietness. Yet in the reign of that so 
popular and well-beloved queen there 
were many traverses, which trenched as 
much if not more upon the privileges of 
parliament, and the liberties of the peo- 
ple, than any that happened in the reign 
of the two last kings : vet it was not 
L 2 



148 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book. II. 



their fate to be so popular. Touching 
the first, viz. parliament ; in one of hers, 
there was a motion made in the House 
of Commons, that there should be a lec- 
ture in the morning- some days of the 
week before they sat, whereunto the 
House was very inclinable : the queen 
hearing of it, sent them a message, that 
she much wondered at their rashness, 
that they should offer to introduce such 
an innovation. 

Another parliament would have pro- 
posed ways for the regulation of her 
court ; but she sent them another such 
message, that she wondered, that, being 
called by her thither to consult of public 
affairs, they should intermeddle with the 
government of her ordinary family, and 
to think her to be so ill an housewife as 
not to be able to look to her own house 
herself. 

In another parliament there was a 
motion made, that the queen should 
entail the succession of the crown, and 
declare her next heir ; but Wentworth, 
who proposed it, was committed to the 
Tower, where he breathed his last ; and 
Bromley, upon a less occasion, was clap- 
ped in the Fleet. 

Another time, the House petitioning 
that the Lords might join in private 
committees with the Commoners, she ut- 
terly rejected it. You know how Stubbs 
and Page had their hands cut off with a 
butcher's knife and a mallet, because 
they writ against the match with the 
duke of Anjou ; and Penry was hanged 
at Tyburn, though Alured, who writ a 
bitter invective against the late Spanish 
match, was but confined for a .short 
time ; how sir Jolm Heywood was shut 
up in the Tower, for an epistle dedica- 
tory to the earl of Essex, &c. 

Touching her favourites, what a mon- 
ster of a man was Leicester, who first 
brought the art of poisoning into Eng- 
land? Add hereunto, that privy-seals 
were common in her days, and pressing 
of men more frequent, especially for Ire- 
land, where they were sent in handfuls, 
rather to continue a war (by the cunning 
of the officers) than to conclude it. The 
three fleets she sent against the Spaniard 
did hardly make the benefit of the voy- 
ages to countervail the charge. How 
poorly did the English garrison quit Ha^ 
vre-de-grace ? and how were we bafiled 
for the arrears that were due to Eng- 
land (by article) for the forces sent into 



France? For buildings, with aU kind 
of braveries else that use to make a na- 
tion happy, as riches and commerce, in- 
ward and outward, it was not the twen- 
tieth part so much in the best of her 
days (as appears by the Custom-house 
books) as it was in the reign of her suc- 
cessors. 

Touching the religion of the court, 
she seldom came to sermon but in Lent- 
time, nor did there use to be any sermon 
upon Sundays, unless they were festivals ; 
whereas the succeeding kings had duly 
two every morning, one for the house- 
hold, the other for themselves, where 
they were always present, as also at pri- 
vate prayers in the closet : yet it was not 
their fortune to gain so much upon the 
affections of city or country. There- 
fore, my lord, the felicity of queen Eli- 
zabeth may be much imputed to the 
rare temper and moderation of men's 
minds in those days ; for the purse of 
the common people, and Londoners, did 
beat nothing so high as it did afterwards, 
when they grew pampered with so long 
peace and plenty. Add hereunto, that 
neither Hans, Jocky, or John Calvin, 
had taken such footing here as they did 
get afterwards, whose humour is to 
pry and peep with a kind of malice 
into the carriage of the court and 
mysteries of state, as also to malign 
nobility, with the wealth and solemnities 
of the church. 

My lord, it is far from my meaning 
hereby to let drop the least aspersion 
upon the tomb of that rare renowned 
queen ; but it is only to observe the 
differing temper both of time and peo- 
ple. The fame of some princes is like 
the rose, which, as we find by experi- 
ence, smells sweeter after it is plucked : 
the memory of others is like the tulip 
and poppy, which make a gay show, and 
fair flourish, while they stand upon the 
stalk, but being cut down they give an 
ill-favoured scent. It was the happi- 
ness of that great long-lived queen to 
cast a pleasing odour among her people, 
both while she stood, and after she was 
cut off by the common stroke of morta- 
lity ; and the older the world grows, the 
fresher her fame will be. Yet she is lit- 
tle beholden to any foreign writers, un- 
less it be the Hollanders ; and good rea- 
son they had to speak well of her, for 
she was the chiefest instrument, who, 
though with the expense of much Eng- 



Sect. 11. 



MODERN, OF EARLY DATE. 



149 



lish blood and bullion, raised them to a 
republic, by casting- tliat fatal bone for 
the Spaniard to gnaw upon, which shook 
his teeth so ill-favouredly for fourscore 
years together. Other writers speak 
bitterly of her for her carriage to her 
sister the queen of Scots ; for her ingra- 
titude to her brother Philip of Spain ; 
for giving advice, by her ambassador 
with the Great Turk, to expel the Je- 
suits, who had got a coUege in Peru : as 
also that her secretary Walsingham 
should project the poisoning of the wa- 
ters of Douay: and lastly, how she suf- 
fered the festival of the Nativity of the 
Virgin Mary in September to be turned 
to the celebration of her own birthday, 
&c. But these stains are cast upon her 
by her enemies ; and the aspersions of 
an enemy use to be like the dirt of oy- 
sters, which doth rather cleanse than 
contaminate. 

Thus, my lord, have I pointed at 
some remarks, to shew how various and 
discrepant the humours of a nation may 
be, and the genius of the times, from 
what it was ; which doubtless must pro- 
ceed from a high all-disposing power : a 
speculation that may become the greatest 
and knowingest spirits, among whom 
your lordship doth shine as a star of the 
first magnitude ; for your house may be 
called a true academy, and your head 
the capital of knowledge, or rather an 
exchequer, wherein there is a treasure 
enough to give pensions to all the wits 
of the time. With these thoughts I rest, 
my most highly honoured lord, your very 
obedient and ever obliged servant. 

LETTER XLIV. 

From James Howel, Esq. to Sir E. S. 



Londoii, 4th August. 



Sir, 



In the various courses of my wandering 
life, I have had occasion to spend some 
part of my time in literal correspond- 
ences with divers ; but I never remember 
that I pleased myself more in paying 
these civilities to any than to yourself ; 
for when I undertake this task, I find 
that my head, my hand, and my heart, 
go all so wiQing about it. The inven- 
tion of the one, the graphical office of 
the other, and the affections of the last, 
are so ready to obey me in performing 
the work ; work do I call it? It is rather 



a sport, my pen and paper are as a chess- 
board, or as your instruments of music 
are to you, when you would recreate 
your harmonious soul. Wlience this pro- 
ceeds I know not, unless it be from a 
charming kind of virtue that your letters 
carry with them to work upon my spi- 
rits, which are so full of facete and fa- 
miliar friendly strains, and so punctual 
in answering every part of mine, tli^t 
you may give the law of epistolizing to 
all mankind. 

Touching your poet laureat Skelton, I 
found him at last (as I told you before) 
skulking in Duck Lane, pitifully tattered 
and torn ; and, as these times are, I do 
not think it worth the labour and cost to 
put him in better clothes, for the genius 
of the age is quite another tiling : yet 
there be some lines of his, which I think 
wUl never be out of date for their quaint 
sense ; and with these I will close this 
letter, and salute you, as he did his 
friend, with these options : 

Salve plus decies quam sunt momenta diurna, 
2uot species ge7ierum, quot res, quot nomina rerum, 
2uot pratisjlores, qu&t sunt et in or he color es, 
2uot pisces, quot aves, quot sunt et in eequore naves, 
Quot valuer umpenncE, quot sunt tormenta gekenncey 
Quot cceli stellce, quot sunt miracula Thomce ; 
Quot sunt virtutes, tanlas tibi mitto salutes. 

These were the wishes in time of yore 
of Jo. Skelton, but now they are of 
your, &c. 

LETTER XLV. 

Froju the scmie to R. Davies, Esq. 



Sir 



London, 5th July. 



Did your letters know how truly wel- 
come they are to me, they would make 
more haste, and not loiter so long in 
the way ; for I did not receive yours of 
the 2d of June till the 1st of July; 
which is time enough to have travelled 
not only a hundred English, but so many 
Helvetian miles, that are five times big- 
ger ; for in some places they contain 
forty furlongs, whereas ours have but 
eight, unless it be in Wales, where they 
are allowed better measure, or in the 
north parts, where there is a wee bit to 
every mile. But that yours should be a 
whole month in making scarce 100 Eng- 
lish miles (for the distance between us 
is no more) is strange to me, unless you 
purposely sent it by John Long, the car- 
rier. I know, being so near Lemstcr's 



150 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IL 



ore, that you dwell in a gentle soil, which 
is good for cheese as well as for cloth : 
therefore if you send me a good one, I 
shall return my cousin your wife some- 
thing from hence that may he equiva- 
lent : if you neglect me I shall think that 
Wales is relapsed into her first harha- 
risms ; for Strabo makes it one of his ar- 
guments to prove the Britons barbarous, 
because they had not the art of making 
cheese till the Romans came : but I be- 
lieve you will preserve them from this 
imputation again. 1 know you can want 
no good grass thereabouts, which, as 
they say here, grows so fast in some of 
your fields, that if one should put his 
horse there over night, he should not 
find him again the next morning. So 
with my very respectful commends to 
yourself, and to the partner of your 
couch and cares, I rest, my dear cousin, 
yours always to dispose of. 

LETTER XLVL 

From James Howel, Esq. to Mr. W. Price, 
at Oxon. 

London, 3d February. 
My precious nephew. 
There could hardly better news be 
brought to me, than to understand that 
you are so great a student, and that 
having passed through the briars of lo- 
gic, you fall so close to philosophy : yet 
I do not like your method in one thing, 
that you are so fond of new authors, and 
neglect the old, as I hear you do. It is 
the ungrateful genius of this age, that if 
any sciolist can find a hole in an old 
author's coat, he will endeavour to make 
it much more wide, thinking to make 
himself somebody thereby ; I am none 
of those ; but touching the ancients, I 
hold this to be a good moral rule, lau- 
dandum quod bene, ignoscendum quod ali' 
ier dixerunt: the older the author is, 
commonly the more solid he is, and the 
greater teller of truth. This makes me 
think on a Spanish captain, who being 
invited to a fish dinner, and coming 
late, he sat at the lower end of the ta- 
ble, where the small fish lay, the great 
ones being at the upper eiid ; thereupon 
he took one of the little fish, and held 
it to his ear ; his comrades asked him 
what he meant by that ; he answered in 
a sad tone, " Some thirty years since, 
my father, passing from Spain to Bar- 
bary, was cast away in a storm, and I 



am asking this little fish whether he 
could tell any tidings of his body ; he 
answers me, that he is too young to 
tell me any thing, but those old fish at 
your end of the table may say something 
to it :" so by that trick of drollery he 
got his share of them. The application 
is easy, therefore I advise you not to 
neglect old authors ; for though we be 
come as it were to the meridian of truth, 
yet there be many neoterical commen- 
tators and self-conceited writers, that 
eclipse her in many things, and go from 
obscurum to obscuris. 

Give me leave to tell you cousin, that 
your kindred and friends, with all the 
world besides, expect much from you in 
regard to the pregnancy of your spirit, 
and those advantages you have of others, 
being now at the source of all know- 
ledge. I waj told of a countryman, who 
coming to Oxford, and being at the 
town's end, stood listening to a flock of 
geese, and a few dogs that were hard 
by : being asked the reason, he answer- 
ed, " That he thought the geese about 
Oxford did gaggle Greek, and the dogs 
barked in Latin." If some in the world 
think so much of those irrational poor 
creatures, that take in University air, 
what will your friends in the country 
expect from you, who have the instru- 
ments of reason in such a perfection, 
and so well strung with a tenacious me- 
mory, a quick understanding, and rich 
invention ? all which I have discovered 
in you, and doubt not but you will em- 
ploy them to the comfort of your friends, 
your own credit, and the particular con- 
tentment of your truly affectionate uncle. 

LETTER XLVII. 

From the same to Mr. 11. Lee in Antwerp, 



London, 9th November. 



Sir, 



An acre of performance is worth the 
whole land of promise : besides, as the 
Italian hath it, " Deeds are men, and 
words women." You pleased to pro- 
mise me, when you shook hands with 
England, to barter letters with me ; but 
whereas I writ to you a good while since 
by Mr. Simons, I have not received a 
syllable from you ever since. 

The times here frown more and more 
upon the cavaliers, yet their minds are 
buoyed up still with strong hopes : some 



Sect. II. 



MODERN, OF EARLY DATE. 



151 



of them being lately in company of such 
whom the times favour, and reporting- 
some comfortable news on the royalists' 
side, one of the other answered, " Thus 
you cavaliers still fool yourselves, and 
build always castles in the air :" there- 
upon a sudden reply was made, " Where 
will you have us to build them else, for 
you have taken all our lands from us ?" 
I know what you will say when you read 
this : *' A pox on those true jests." 

This tale puts me in mind of another : 
There was a gentleman lately, who was 
offered by the parliament a parcel of 
church or crown lands, equal to his ar- 
rears ; and asking counsel of a friend of 
his which he should take, answered, 
*' Crown lands by all means ; for if you 
take them you run a hazard only to 
be hanged ; but if you take church land 
you are sure to be damned." Where- 
upon the other made him a shrewd re- 
ply : " Sir, I will tell you a tale : There 
was an old usurer not far from London, 
who had trained up a dog of his to bring 
his meat after him in a hand-basket, so 
that in time the shag dog was so well 
bred, that his master used to send him 
by himself to Smithfield shambles with 
a basket in his mouth, and a note in the 
bottom thereof to his butcher, who ac- 
cordingly would put in what joint of 
meat he writ for, and the dog would 
carry it handsomely home. It happened 
one day, that as the dog was carrying a 
good shoulder of mutton home to his 
master, he was set upon by a company 
of other huge dogs, who snatched away 
the basket, and fell to the mutton : the 
other dog measuring his own single 
strength, and finding he was too weak 
to redeem his master's mutton, said 
within himself (as we read the like of 
Chrysippus's dog), ' Nay, since there is 
no remedy, you shall be hanged before 
you have all ; I will have also my share :' 
and so fell a-eating amongst them. I 
need not," said he, " make the applica- 
tion to you, it is too obvious ; therefore, 
1 intend to have my share also of the 
church lands." 

In that large list of friends you have 
left behind you here, I am one who is 
very sensible that you have thus banish- 
ed yourself; it is the high will of Heaven 
that matters should be thus. Therefore, 
^uod divinitus accidit huiniliter, quod ab 
hominihus viriliter fcrendum ; "We must 
manfully bear what comes from men, 



and humbly what comes from above." 
The Pagan philosopher tells us, sluod 
divinitus contin<iit, homo a se nulla arte 
dispellet ; " There is no fence against 
that which comes from Heaven, whose 
decrees are irreversible." 

Your friends in Fleet-street are all 
well, both long coats and short coats, 
and 80 is your unalterable friend to love 
and serve you. 



LETTER XLVIII. 

From the same to Mr. T. C. at his house 
upon Toiver Hill. 

Sir, 
To inaugurate a good and jovial new 
year to you, I send you a morning's 
draught, viz. a bottle of metheglin. 
Neither sir John Barleycorn or Bacchus 
had any thing to do with it, but it is the 
pure juice of the bee, the laborious bee, 
and king of insects. The Druids and 
old British bards were wont to take a 
carouse hereof before they entered into 
their speculations ; and if you do so when 
your fancy labours with any thing, it 
will do you no hurt, and I know your 
fancy to be very good. 

But this drink always carries a kind 
of state with it, for it must be attended 
with a brown toast; nor will it admit 
but of one good draught, and that in the 
morning : if more, it will keep humming 
in the head, and so speak too much of 
the house it comes from, I mean the 
hive, as I gave a caution elsewhere ; and 
because the bottle might make more 
haste, I have made it go upon these 
poetic feet : — 

J. H. T. C. salutem, et annum Platonkum. 
Nfm vitisf sed apis succum tibi mi/to bihendum, 
2uem legimus burdos olim poiasse Bntnnnos. 
Qualibet in bacca vitis Megeru latescit, 
2ualibet in gulta melis Aglaia n'ltet. 

The juice of bees, not Bacchus, here hehold, 
Which British bards were wont to quaff of old j 
The berries of the grape with Furies s'vell, 
But in the honeycomb the Graces dwell. 

This alludes to a saying which the 
Turks have, " That there lurks a devil 
in every berry of the vine." So I wish 
you, as cordially as to myself, an auspi- 
cious and joyful new year, because you 
know I am your truly affectionate ser- 
vant. 



152 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book U, 



LETTER XLIX. 

Ladi/ RusseVs Letter to the King Charles II. 

{Indorsed by her : My letter to the king 
a few days after my dear lord's death.) 

May it please your Majesty, 
I FIND my husband's enemies are not ap- 
peased with his blood, and still continue 
to misrepresent him to your majesty. It 
is a great addition to my sorrows to hear 
your majesty is prevailed upon to be- 
lieve, that the paper he delivered to the 
sheriff at his death was not his own. I 
can truly say, and am ready in the so- 
lemnest manner to attest, that (during 
his imprisonment*) I often heard him 
discourse of the chiefest matters con- 
tained in that paper, in the same expres- 
sions he herein uses, as some of those 
few relations that were admitted to him 
can likewise aver. And sure it is an ar- 
gument of no great force, that there is 
a phrase or two in it another uses, when 
nothing is more common than to take 
up such words we like, or are accustom- 
ed to in our conversation. I beg leave 
further to avow to your majesty, that all 
that is set down in the paper read to your 
majesty on Sunday night, to be spoken 
in my presence, is exactly truef; as I 
doubt not but the rest of the paper is, 
which was written at my request, and 
the author of it in all his conversation 
with my husband, that I was privy to, 
shewed himself a loyal subject to your 
majesty, a faithful friend to him, and a 
most tender and conscientious minister 
to his soul. I do therefore humbly beg 
your majesty would be so charitable to 
believe, that he, who in all his life was 
observed to act with the greatest clear- 
ness and sincerity, would not at the 
point of death do so disingenuous and 
false a thing, as to deliver for his own 
what was not properly and expressly so. 
And if after the loss, in such a manner, 
of the best husband in the world, I were 
capable of any consolation, your majesty 
only could afford it by having better 
thought of him ; which when I was so 
importunate to speak with your majesty, 
I thought I had some reason to believe 

* The words included in the parenthesis are 
crossed out. 

f It contained an account of all that passed 
between Dr. Burnet and his lordship concern- 
ing his last speech and paper. It is called 
The Journal, in the History of his own Times, 
v<ol. i, p. 562. 



1 should have inclined you to, not from 
the credit of my word, but upon the evi- 
dence of what I had to say. I hope I 
have written nothing in this that will 
displease your majesty ; if I have, I hum- 
bly beg of you to consider it as coming 
from a woman amazed with grief; and 
that you will pardon the daughter of a 
person who served your majesty's father 
in his greatest extremities (and your ma- 
jesty in your greatest posts), and one that 
is not conscious of having ever done any 
thing to offend you (before). I shall 
ever pray for your majesty's long life and 
happy reign ; who am with all humility, 
may it please your majesty, &c. 

LETTER L. 

From the same to Dr. Fitzwilliam. 

31st January, 1684-5. 
You pursue, good doctor, all ways of 
promoting comfort to my afflicted mind, 
and will encourage me to think the bet- 
ter of myself for that better temper of 
mind you judge you found me in, when 
you so kindly gave me a week of your 
time in London. You are highly in the 
right, that as quick a sense of sharpness 
on the one hand, and tenderness on the 
other, can cause, I labour under, and 
shall, I believe, to the end of my life, so 
eminently unfortunate in the close of it. 

But I strive to reflect how large my 
portion of good things has been ; and 
though they are passed away no more to 
return, yet I have a pleasant work to do, 
dress up my soul for my desired change, 
and fit it for the converse of angels and 
the spirits of just men made perfect. 
Amongst whom my hope is my loved 
lord is one : and my often repeated 
prayer to my God is, that if I have a 
reasonable ground for that hope, it may 
give a refreshment to my poor soul. 

Do not press yourself, sir, too greatly 
in seeking my advantage, but when your 
papers do come, I expect and hope they 
will prove such. The accidents of every 
day tell us of what a tottering clay our 
bodies are made. Youth nor beauty, 
greatness nor wealth, can prop it up. 
If it could, the lady Ossory had not so 
early left this world ; she died (as an ex- 
press acquainted her father this morn- 
ing) on Sunday last, of a flux and mis- 
carrying. I heard also this day of a kins- 
man that is gone ; a few years ago I 
should have had a more concerned senbe. 



Sect. II. 



MODERN, OF EARLY DATE. 



153 



for sir Thomas Vernon*, his unfitness 
(as I doubt) I do lament indeed. 

Thus I treat you, as I am myself, with 
objects of mortification. But you want 
none such in your solitude ; and I , being 
unprovided of other, will leave you to 
your own thoughts, and ever continue, 
sir, your obliged servant. 

My neighbours and tenants are under 
some distress, being questioned about ac- 
counts, and several leaves found torn out 
of the books, so that Kingdome and 
Trant offered 40,000/. for atonement ; 
but having confessed two more were 
privy to this cutting out leaves, the king 
Avill have them discovered : till Monday 
they have time given them. You had 
given lady Julian one of those books. 



LETTER LL 

From the sa?ne to Dr. Fitzxvilliam. 

Southampton-hovise, 17th July, 1685. 
Never shaU I, good doctor, I hope, for- 
get your work (as I may term it) of la- 
bour and love ; so instructive and com- 
fortable do I find it, that at any time, 
when I have read any of your papers, I 
feel a heat within me to be repeating my 
thanks to you anew, which is all I can do 
towards the discharge of a debt you have 
engaged me in ; and though nobody loves 
more than I to stand free from engage- 
ments I cannot answer, yet I do not wish 
for it here, I would have it as it is, and 
although I have the present advantage, 
you will have the future reward : and if 
I can truly reap v/hat I know you design 
me by it, a religious and quiet submis- 
sion to all providences, I am assured you 

* Sir Thomas Vernon, on the jury against 
sir Samuel Barnardiston, knighted for his ser- 
vice in it, and then made foreman to convict 
Gates of perjury. Sir Sam. Barnardiston, 14th 
February, 1083-4, was fined 10,000/. for writ- 
ing some letters, in which he used these ex- 
pressions {inter alia): "The lord Howard ap- 
pears despicable in the eyes of all men. — The 
brave lord Russel is afresh lamented — It is ge- 
nerally said the earl of Essex was murdered — 
The plot is lost here — The duke of Monmouth 
said publicly, that he knew my lord Russel was 
as loyal subject as any in England, and that his 
majesty believed the same now — The printer 
of the late lord Russel's speech was passed 
over with silence — ^The sham protestant plot 
is quite lost and confounded, &c." He was 
committed for his fine to the King's Bench, 
continued prisoner four or five years, and 
great waste and destruction made ou his es- 
tate. 



will esteem to have attained it here in 
some measure. Never could you more 
seasonably have fed me with such dis- 
courses, and left me with expectations of 
new repasts, in a more seasonable time, 
than these my miserable months, and in 
those this very week in which I have 
lived over again that fatal day that de- 
termined what fell out a week after, and 
that has given me so long and so bitter 
a time of sorrow. But God has a com- 
pass in his providences that is out of our 
reach, and as he is all good and wise, 
that consideration should in reason 
slacken the fierce rages of grief. But 
sure, doctor, it is the nature of sorrow to 
lay hold on all things which give a new 
ferment to it ; then how could I choose 
but feel it in a time of so much confusion 
as these last weeks have been, closing so 
tragically as they have done ; and sure 
never any poor creature, for two whole 
years together, has had more awakers to 
quicken and revive the anguish of its soul 
than I have had : yet I hope I do most 
truly desire that nothing may be so bit- 
ter to me, as to think that I have in the 
least offended thee, O my God, and that 
nothing may be so marvellous in my eyes 
as the exceeding love of my Lord Jesus ; 
that heaven being my aim, and the long- 
ing expectations of my soul, I may go 
through honour and dishonour, good re- 
port and bad report, prosperity and ad- 
versity, with some evenness of mind. 
The inspiring me with these desires is, I 
hope, a token of his never-failing love 
towards me, though an unthankful crea- 
ture for all the good things I have en- 
joyed, and do still in the lives of hopeful 
children by so beloved a husband. God 
has restored me my little girl ; the sur- 
geon says she will do well. I should now 
hasten to give them the advantage of the 
country air, but am detained by the warn- 
ing to see my uncle Ruvigny here, who 
comes to me, so I know not how to quit 
my house till I have received him, at least 
into it ; he is upon his journey. 

My lady Gainsborough came to this 
town last night, and I doubt found nei- 
ther her own daughter nor lady Jane in 
a good condition of health. I had car- 
ried a surgeon on the day before to let 
my niece blood, by Dr. Loure's direction, 
who could not attend by reason my lord 
Radnor lay in extremity, and he was last 
night past hopes. My niece's complaint 
is a neglected cold, and he fears her to be 
bomething hectic, but I hope youth \Aill 



154 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IL 



struggle and overcome : they are child- 
ren whose least concerns touch me to 
the quick ; their mother was a delicious 
friend; sure nobody has enjoyed more 
pleasure in the conversations and tender 
kindnesses of a husband and a sister than 
myself, yet, how apt am I to be fretful 
that I must not still do so I but I must 
follow that which seems to be the will 
of God, how unacceptable soever it may 
be to me, 1 must stop, for if I let my 
pen run on, I know not where it will 
end. I am, good doctor, with great 
faithfulness, your affectionate friend to 
serve you. 



LETTER LIL 

From Lad J/ Russel to Dr. Fitzijoilliam. 

Woborne Abbey, £7th Nov. 1 G85. 
As you profess, good doctor, to take 
pleasure in your writings to me, from the 
testimony of a conscience to forward my 
spiritual welfare, so do 1 to receive them 
as one to me of your friendship in both 
worldly and spiritual concernments ; do- 
ing so, I need not waste my time nor 
yours to tell you they are very valuable 
to me. That you are so contented to 
read mine I make the just allowance 
for: not for the worthiness of them, I 
know it cannot be, but however, it ena- 
bles me to keep up an advantageous con- 
versation without scruple of being too 
troublesome. You say something some- 
times, by which I should think you sea- 
soned or rather tainted with being so 
much where compliment or praising is 
best learned ; but I conclude, that often 
what one heartily wishes to be in a friend, 
one is apt to believe is so. The effect is 
not nought towards me, whom it ani- 
mates to have a true not false title to the 
least virtue you are disposed to attribute 
to me. Yet I am far from such a vigour 
of mind as surmounts the secret discon- 
tent so hard a destiny as mine has fixed 
in my breast ; but there are times the 
mind can hardly feel displeasure, as while 
such friendly conversation entertaineth 
it ; then a grateful sense moves one to 
express the courtesy. 

If I could contemplate the conducts 
of providence with the uses you do, it 
would give ease indeed, and no disas- 
trous events should much affect us. The 
new scenes of each day make mc often 



conclude myself very void of temper and 
reason, that I still shed tears of sorrow 
and not of joy, that so good a man is 
landed safe on the happy shore of a 
blessed eternity ; doubtless he is at rest, 
though I find none without him, so true 
a partner he was in all my joys and 
griefs ; I trust the Almighty will pass by 
this my infirmity ; I speak it in respect 
to the world, from whose enticing de- 
lights I can now be better weaned. I 
was too rich in possessions whilst I pos- 
sessed him : all relish is now gone, I bless 
God for it, and pray, and ask of all good 
people (do it for me from such you know 
are so) also to pray that I may more and 
more turn the stream of my affections up- 
wards, and set my heart upon the ever- 
satisfying perfections of God ; not start- 
ing at his darkest providences, but re- 
membering continually either his glory, 
justice, or power, is advanced by every 
one of them, and that mercy is over all 
his works, as we shall one day with ra- 
vishing delight see : in the mean time, I 
endeavour to suppress all wild imagina- 
tions a melancholy fancy is apt to let in ; 
and say with the man in the Gospel, " I 
believe, help thou my unbelief." 

If any thing I say suggest to you mat- 
ter for a pious reflection, I have not hurt 
you but ease myself, by letting loose some 
of my crowded thoughts. I must not 
finish without telling you, I have not the 
book you mention of Seraphical Medita- 
tions of the bishop of Bath and Wells*, 
and should willingly see one here, since 
you design the present. I have sent you 
the last sheet of your papers, as the surest 
course ; you can return it with the book. 
You would, sir, have been welcome to 
lord Bedford, who expresses himself 
hugely obliged to the bishop of Ely f, your 
friend ; to whom you justly give the title 
of good, if the character he has very ge- 
nerally belongs to him. And who is good 
is happy ; for he is only truly miserable, 
or wretchedly so, that has no joy here, 
nor hopes for any hereafter. I believe 
it may be near Christmas before my lord 
Bedford removes for the winter, but I 
have not yet discoursed him about it, nor 
how long he desires our company ; so 



* Kenn, bishop' of Bath and Wells, of an 
ascetic course of life, and yet of a very lively 
temper. 

f Turner, bishop of Ely, sincere and good- 
natured, of too quick imagination, and too de- 
fective a judgment. 



Sect. II. 



MODERN, OF EARLY DATE. 



155 



whether I will come before him, or make 
one company, I know not ; he shall please 
himself, for I have no will in these mat- 
ters, nor can like one thing- or way bet- 
ter than another, if the use and conveni- 
encies be alike to the young creatures, 
whose service is all the business I have 
in this world ; and for their good I in- 
tend all diligence in the power of, sir, 
your obliged friend to serve you. 

I am mightily in arrear ; pray let me 
know what, and if I shall direct the pay- 
ing it, or stay till I see you. 



LETTER LIII. 

Dr, Tillotson to Lady HusseL 

[From Birch's Life of Tillotson.] 

Canterbury, Ncv. '21, 1685. 

Honoured madam, 
When I look back upon the date of 
your ladyship's letter, I blush to see it 
hath lain by me so long unanswered. 
And yet I assure you no day passeth, in 
which your ladyship and your children 
are not in my mind. But I know not 
how, in the hurry I am in, in London, 
one business presseth so hard upon an- 
other, that I have less time for the things 
to which I have most inclination. I am 
now for a while got out of the torment 
and noise of that great city, and do en- 
joy a little more repose. 

It was a great trouble to me to hear of 
the sad loss your dear friend sustained 
during his short stay in England*. But 
in some circumstances, to die is to live. 
And that voice from heaven runs much 
in my mind, which St. John heard in his 
vision of the last (as I think) and most 
extreme persecution, which should befal 
the faithful servants of God, before the 
final downfal of Babylon, " Blessed are 
the dead that die in the Lord from 
henceforth ;" meaning, that they were 
happy, who were taken away before that 
terrible and utmost trial of the faith and 
patience of the saints. But however that 
be, I do greatly rejoice in the preser- 
vation of your children from the great 
danger they were in upon that occasion, 
and thank God heartily for it, because, 

* The death of her cousin, niece of Mens. 
Ruvigny. 



whatever becomes of us, I hope they 
may live to see better things. 

Just now came the news of the pro- 
rogation of the parliament to the 10th 
of February, which was surprising to us. 
We are not without hopes, that in the 
mean time things will be disposed to a 
better agreement against the next meet- 
ing. But when all is done, our greatest 
comfort must be, that we are all in the 
hands of God, and that he hath the care 
of us. And do not think, madam, that 
he loves you the less for having put so 
bitter a cup into your hand. He, whom 
he loved infinitely best of all mankind, 
drank much deeper of it. 

I did hope to have waited upon my 
lord of Bedford at my return to Lon- 
don ; but now I doubt this prorogation 
will carry him into the country before 
that time. I intreat you to present my 
most humble service to his lordship, to 
dear little master, and the young ladies. 
I am not worthy the consideration you 
are pleased to have of me ; but I pray 
continually for you all, and ever shall 
be, madam, your ladyship's most faith- 
ful and humble servant. 



LETTER LIV. 

Lady Russcl to Dr. Fiizwilliam. 

15th January^ 1685-6. 
I PRESUME, doctor, you are now so set- 
tled in your retirement (for such it is in 
comparison of that you can obtain at 
London) that you are at leisure to peruse 
the inclosed papers ; hereafter I will 
send them once a week, or oftener if 
you desire it. 

Yesterday the lord Delamere passed 
his trial, and was acquitted*. I do bless 
God that he has caused some stop to the 
effusion of blood has been shed of late 
in this poor land. But, doctor, as dis- 
eased bodies turn the best nourishments, 
and even cordials, into the same sour hu- 
mour that consumes and eats them up, 
just so do I. When I should rejoice with 
them that do rejoice, I seek a corner to 

f Henry Booth, lord Delamere, tried for 
partaking in Monmouth's rebellion. Finch, 
solicitor-general, was very violent against 
him ; but Saxon, the only positive evidence, 
appearing peijured, he was acquitted by his 
peers. He afterwards strenuously promoted 
the Revolution; in 1690 was created earl of 
Warrington; and died 1693. 



156 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IL 



weep in. I find! am capable of no more 
gladness ; but every new circumstance, 
the very comparing my night of sorrow 
after such a day, with theirs of joy, does, 
from a reflection of one kind or other, 
rack my uneasy mind. Though I am 
far from wishing the close of theirs like 
mine, yet I cannot refi-ain giving some 
time to lament mine was not like theirs ; 
but I certainly took too much delight in 
my lot, and would too willingly have 
built my tabernacle here ; for which I 
hope my punishment will end with 
life. 

The accounts from France are more 
and more astonishing ; the perfecting the 
work is vigorously pursued, and by this 
time completed it is thought ; all with- 
out exception having a day given them ; 
only these I am going to mention have 
found so much grace as I will tell you. 
The countess du Roy* is permitted 
with two daughters to go within fourteen 
days to her husband, who is in Denmark, 
in that king's service ; but five other of 
her children are put into monasteries, 
Mareschal Schombergf and his wife are 
commanded to be prisoners in their house, 
in some remote part of France appointed 
them. My uncle and his wife are per- 
mitted to come out of France. This I 
was told for a truth last night, but I hope 
it needs a confirmation. 

It is enough to sink the strongest heart 
to read the relations are sent over. How 
the children are torn from their mothers 
and sent into monasteries ; their mothers 
to another : the husband to prison, or 
the gallies. These are amazing provi- 
dences, doctor ! God out of infinite 
mercy strengthen weak believers. I am 
too melancholy an intelligencer to be 

* Countess du Roy, wife of Frederic Charles 
du Roy, knight of the Elephant, and general- 
issimo to the king of Denmark ; his daugliter, 
Henrietta, was the second wife of William 
Wentworth, earl of Strafford. 

f Frederic deSchomberg, marshal of Franco 
was created by king William, duke Schomberg, 
&c. 1689, killed at" the battle of the Boyne, 1st 
July, 1690. He was son of count Schomberg, 
by lord Dudley's daughter. The count was 
killed, with several sons, at the battle of 
Prague, 1620. The duke was a man of great 
calmness, application, and conduct; of true 
judgment, exact probity, and an humble oblig- 
ing temper. The persecution of the Protes- 
tants induced him to leave France and enter 
into king William's service. He was 82 years 
old at his death. His son Charles was mortally 
wounded at the battle of Marsiglia, 24th Sept. 
169.3. 



very long, sowUl hasten to conclude, first 
telling you lord Talbot | is come out of 
Ireland, and brought husbands for his 
daughters-in-law ; one was married on 
Tuesday to a lord Roffe, the other lord 
is Dungan; WalgTave that married the 
king's daughter is made a lord§. The 
brief for the poor Protestants was not 
sealed an Wednesday, as was hoped it 
would be : the chancellor bid it be laid 
by when it was offered him to seal. 1 
am very really, doctor, your affectionate 
friend and servant. 

LETTER LV. 

Lady Russel to Dr. Fitzwillia?n, 

22d January, 1685-6. 
I HAVE received and read your letters, 
good doctor. As you never fail of per- 
forming a just part to your friend, so 
it were pity you should not consider 
enough to act the same to yourself. I 
think you do : and all you say, that con- 
cerns your private affairs, is justly and 
wisely weighed ; so let that rest. I ac- 
knowledge the same of the distinct paper 
which touches more nearly my sore ; per- 
haps I ought to do it with some shame 
and confusion of face ; and perhaps 1 do 
so, doctor, but my weakness is invin- 
cible, which makes me, as you phrase it, 
excellently possess past calamities : but 
he who took upon him our nature, felt 
our infirmities, and does pity us ; and I 
shall receive of his fulness at the end of 
days, which I will silently wait for. 

If you have heard of the dismal acci- 
dent in this neighbourhood, you will 
easily believe Tuesday night was not a 
quiet one with us. About one o'clock in 
the night I heard a great noise in the 
square, so little ordinary, I called up a 
servant and sent her down to learn the 
occasion. She brought up a very sad one, 
that Montague house was on fire ; and 
it was so indeed ; it burnt with so great 
violence, the whole house was consumed 
by five o'clock. The wind blew strong 
this way, so that we lay under fire a great 
part of the time, the sparks and flames 
continually covering the house, and fill- 

X Lord Richard Talbot, afterwards earl of 
Tyrconnel, a papist. 

§ Henry lord Waldgrave of Chewton mar- 
ried the lady Henrietta Fitz-James, natural 
daughter to king James II. by Arabella Church- 
ill, sister to John Duke of Marlborough ; he 
retired to France in 1689, and died at Paris 
the same ygar. 



Sect. II. 



MODERN, OF EARLY DATE. 



157 



ing" the court. My boy awaked, and said 
lie was almost stifled with smoke, but, 
being told the reason, would see it, and 
so was satisfied without fear ; took a 
strange bed-fellow very mllingly, lady 
Devonshire's youngest boy, whom his 
nurse had brought wrapt in a blanket. 
Lady Devonshire * came towards morn- 
ing and lay here ; and had done so still, 
but for a second ill accident : Her bro- 
ther, lord x^rranf, who has been iU of a 
fever twelve days, was despaired of yes- 
terday morning, and spots appeared, so 
she resolved to see him, and not to re- 
turn hither, but to Somerset house, 
where the queen offered her lodgings. 
He is said to be dead, and I hear this 
morning it is a great blow to the famUy : 
and that he was a most dutiful son and 
kind friend to all his family. 

Thus we see what a day brings forth ! 
and how momentary the things we set 
our hearts upon ! O I could heartily cry 
out, " When will longed-for eternity 
come ! " but our duty is to possess our 
souls with patience. 

I am unwilling to shake off all hopes 
about the brief, though I know them 
that went to the chancellor:!: since the 
refusal to seal it, and his answer does 
not encourage one's hopes. But he is not 
a lover of smooth language, so in that 
respect we may not so soon despair §. 

I fancy I saw the young man you men- 
tioned to be about my son. One brought 
me six prayer books as from you ; also 
distributed three or four in the house. I 
sent for him and asked him if there was 
no mistake ? He said, No. And after 
some other questions I concluded him the 
same person. Doctor, I do assure you I 
put an entire trust in your sincerity to ad- 
vise ; but, as I told you, I shall ever take 

* Mary, daughter to James Butler, duke of 
Ormond ; married to William Cavendish, earl, 
afterwards duke, of Devonshire. 

f He died January 26, 1685-6. 

X George lord Jefferies, baron of Wem, very 
inveterate against lord Russel : He was, says 
Burnet, scandalously vicious, drunk every day, 
and furiously passionate, and, when lord chief 
justice, he even betrayed the decencies of his 
post, by not affecting to appear impartial, as 
became a judge, and by running upon all oc- 
casions into noisy declamations. He died in 
the Tower, April 18, 1G89. 

§ Dr. afterwards bishop Beveridge, objected 
to the reading the brief in the cathedral of 
Canterbury, as contrary to the rubric. Tillot- 
son replied, " Doctor, doctor, Charity is above 
rubrics." 



lord Bedford along in all the concerns 
of the child. He thinks it early yet to 
put him to learn in earnest ; so do you, I 
believe. My lord is afraid, if we take 
one for it, he will put him to it ; yet I 
think perhaps to overcome my lord in 
that, and assui'e him he shall not be 
pressed. But I am much advised, and 
indeed inclined, if I could be fitted to 
my mind, to take a Frenchman, so I 
shall do a charity, and profit the child 
also, who shall learn French. Here are 
many scholars come over, as are of all' 
kinds, God knows. 

- 1 have still a charge with me, lady 
Devonshire's daughter, who is just come 
into my chamber ; so must break off. I 
am, sir, truly your faithful servant. 

The young lady teUs me lord Arran 
is not dead, but rather better. 

LETTER LVI. 

Dean Tillotson to Lady Rtissel. 

Honoured madam, 
I RECEIVED both your letters ; and be- 
fore the latter came to my hands, I 
gave your ladyship some kind of answer 
to the first, as the time would let me, for 
the post staid for it. But having now a 
little more leisure, you will, I hope, give 
me leave to trouble you with a longer 
letter. 

I was not at Hampton Court last Sun- 
day, being almost tired out with ten weeks 
attendance, so that I have had no oppor- 
tunity to try further in the business I 
wrote of in my last, but hope to bring it 
to some issue the next opportunity I can 
get to speak with the king. I am sorry 
to see in Mr. Johnson || so broad a mix- 

|] In a paper to justify lord RussePs opinion, 
" Tliat resistance may be used in case our reli- 
gion and rights should be invaded," as an an- 
swer to the dean's letter to his lordship of 20th 
July 1683, Johnson observes, that this opinion 
could not be wrested from his lordship at his 
death, notwithstanding the disadvantages at 
which he was taken, when he was practised up- 
on to retract that opinion, and to bequeath a 
legacy of slavery to his country ; and indeed 
the dean was so apprehensive of lady RussePs 
displeasure at his pressing his lordship, though 
with the best intentions, upon that subject, that 
when he was first admitted to her after her 
lord's death, he is said to have addressed her iu 
this manner, " That he first thanked God, and 
then her ladyship, for that opportunity of justi- 
fying himself to her:" and they soon returned 
to the terms of a cordial and unreserved friend- 
ship. Mr. Johnson wrote Julian the Apostate 
to prove the legality of resistance, and an ad- 
dress to king James lid's army; he was fined. 



Us 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book 11. 



ture of human frailty, with so consider- 
able virtues. But when I look into my- 
self, I must think it pretty well, when 
any man's infirmities are in any measure 
overbalanced by his better qualities. 
This good man I am speaking of has at 
some times not used me over well ; for 
which I do not only forgive him, when I 
consider for whose sake he did it, but 
do heartily love him. 

The king, besides his first bounty to 
Mr. Walker *, whose modesty is equal 
to his merit, hath made him bishop of 
Londonderry, one of the best bishoprics 
in Ireland ; that so he may receive the 
reward of that great service in the place 
where he did it. It is incredible how 
much every body is pleased with what 
the king hath done in this matter, and 
it is no small joy to me to see that God 
directs him to do so wisely. 

I will now give your ladyship a short 
account of his majesty's disposal of our 
English Church preferments, which I 
think he has done as well as could be ex- 
pected, in the midst of the powerful im- 
portunities of so many great men, in 
whom I discern too much of court art 
and contrivance for the preferment of 
their friends ; yea, even in my good lord 
Nottingham, more than I could wish. 
This is a melancholy consideration to one 
in my situation, in which I do not see 

imprisoned, pilloried, and whipt, after being 
degraded. The Revolution restored him to his 
liberty; the judgment against him in 1686 was 
declared illegal and cruel, and his degrada- 
tion null ; and the House of Lords recom- 
mended him to king William. He died 1703. 
He refused the rich deanery of Durham. 

* Mr. Geo. Walker, justly famous for his de- 
fence of Londonderry, in Ireland (when Lunde 
the governor would have surrendered it to king 
James the lid), was born of English parents in 
the county of Tyrone in that kingdom, and edu- 
cated in the university of Glasgow in Scotland ; 
he was afterwards rector of Donoughmore, not 
many miles from the city of Londonderry. 
Upon the Revolution, he raised a regiment for 
the defence of the Protestants; and upon in- 
telligence of king James having a design to be- 
siege Londonderry, retired thither, being atlast 
chosen governor of it. After the raising of that 
siege, he came to England, where he was most 
graciously received by their majesties ; and on 
the 19th of Nov. 1689, received the thanks of 
the House of Commons, having just before pub- 
lished an account of that siege, and a present of 
5000/. He was created D.D. by the University 
of Oxford on the 26th Feb. 1689-90, in his re- 
turn to Ireland, where he was killed the begin- 
ning of July 1690, at the passage of the Boyne, 
having resolved to serve that campaign before 
he. took possession of his bishopric. 



how it is possible so to manage a man's 
self between civUity and sincerity, be- 
tween being willing to give good words to 
all, and able to do good to very few, as 
to hold out an honest man, or even the 
reputation of being so, a year to an end. 

I promised a short account, but I am 
long before I come to it. The dean of 
St. Paul's t, the bishop of Worcester ; 
the dean of Peterborough J, of Chi- 
chester. An humble servant of yours, 
dean of St. Paul's. The dean of Nor- 
wich § is dean of Canterbury ; and Dr. 
Stanley, clerk of his majesty's closet, is 
residentiary of St. Paul's ; and Dr. Fair- 
fax, dean of Norwich. The warden of 
All Souls II in Oxford, is prebendary of 
Canterbury ; and Mr. Nixon hath the 
other prebend there, void by the death 
of Dr. Jeffreys. These two last merited 
of the king in the West : Mr. Finch by 
going in early to him, and Mr. Nixon, 
who is my lord of Bath's chaplain, by 
carrying messages between the king and 
my lord of Bath, as the king himself 
told me, with the hazard of his life. St. 
Andrew's and Covent Garden are not yet 
disposed. Dr. Birch (which I had al- 
most forgot) is prebendary of Westmin- 
ster : and, which grieves me much, 
Mons. AUix put by at present ; but my 
lord privy seal^ would not be denied. 
The whole is as well as could easily be 
in the present circumstances. 

But now begins my trouble. After I 
had kissed the king's hand for the dean- 
ery of St. Paul's, I gave his majesty my 
most humble thanks, and told him, that 
now he had set me at ease for the remain- 
der of my life. He replied ; " No such 
matter, I assure you ;" and spoke plainly 
about a great place, which I dread to 
think of, and said. It was necessary for 
his service, and he must charge it upon 
my conscience." Just as he had said 
this, he was called to supper, and I had 
only time to say, that when his majesty 
was at leisure, I did believe I could satis- 
fy him that it would be most for his ser- 
vice that I should continue in the station 
in which he had now placed me. This 
hath brought me into a real difficulty. 
For on the one hand it is hard to decline 
his majesty's commands, and much 



f Dr. Stillingfleet. 
§ Dr. John Sharp. 



+ Dr. St. Patrick. 



II Leopard Wm. Finch, fifth son of Heneage, 
carl of Winchelsea. 

^ Marquis of Halifax. 



Sect. II. 



MODERN, OF EARLY DATE. 



150 



harder yet to stand out against so much 
goodness as his majesty is pleased to use 
towards me. On the other, I can neither 
bring my inclination nor my judgment to 
it. This I owe to the bishop of Salis- 
bury, one of the worst and best friends I 
know ; best, for his singular good opi- 
nion of me ; and the worst, for directing 
the king to this method, which I know 
he did ; as if his lordship and I had 
concerted the matter how to finish this 
foolish piece of dissimulation, in running 
away from a bishopric* to catch an 
archbishopric. This fine device hath 
thrown me so far into the briars, that, 
without his majesty's great goodness, I 
shall never get oflF without a scratched 
face. And now I will tell your lady- 
ship the bottom of ray heart. I have of 
a long time, I thank God for it, devoted 
myself to the public service without any 
regard for myself; and to that end have 
done the best I could in the best manner 
I was able. Of late God hath been 
pleased by very severe waysf, but in 
great goodness to me, to wean me per- 
fectly from the love of this world ; so 
that worldly greatness is now not only 
undesirable, but distasteftil to me. And 
I do verily believe, that I shall be able to 
do as much or more good in my present 
station than in a higher, and shall not 
have one jot less interest or influence 
upon any others to any good purpose ; 
for the people naturally love a man that 
will take great pains and little prefer- 
ment. But, on the other hand, if I 

* Tillotson wrote before to a nobleman (sup- 
posed the earl of Portland) begging he might 
be excused from accepting a bishopric. Birch 
remarks, instances of this kind of self-denial 
will perhaps be thought rare in any age; but 
there was a remarkable one under Henry the 
Fighth of another dean of Canterbu.y, well 
known by his embassies and public negocia- 
tions, Dr. Nicholas Wotton, great uncle of sir 
Henry Wotton ; this great politician, as well as 
divine, being informed of an intention to ad- 
vance him to the mitre, wrote to doctor Bellasis 
from Dusseldorp, Nov. 11th, 1539, requesting 
him, for the passion of God, to convey that 
bishopric from him. So I might (addshe) avoid 
it without displeasure, I would surely never 
meddle with it: there be enough that be meet 
for it, and will not refuse it. I cannot marvel 
enough, cur ohtrudatur non cupienti immo ne 
idoneo quidem. My mind is as troubled as my 
writing is. Yours to his little power, Nicholas 
Wotton; add whatsoever you will more to it, if 
you add not Bishop. 

f The loss of his children, and having been 
seized with an apoplectic disorder. 



could force my inclination to take this 
great place, I foresee that I should sink 
under it, and gTow melancholy and good 
for nothing, and after a little while die 
as a fool dies. 

But this, madam, is a great deal too 
much, upon one of the worst and nicest 
subjects in the world— a man's self. 

As I was finishing this long letter, 
which if your goodness wiU forgive I 
hope never to have occasion to try it so 
far again, I received your letter, and shall 
say no more of Dr. More, of whose preach- 
ing I always knew your ladyship's opi- 
nion. The person I mentioned was 
Mr. Kidder, on whom the king has be- 
stowed the deanery of Peterborough, and 
therefore cannot have it. I am fully of 
your ladyship's opinion, that what my 
lord Bedford does in this matter must 
not appear to be done by him, for fear of 
bringing other importunities upon the 
king. If my lord thinks well of Dr. 
Horneck, Dr. More would then cer- 
tainly have St. Andrew's. 

I thank God for the health your fa- 
mily enjoys, as for that of my own ; and 
equally pray for the continuance of it, 
and all other blessings. I would fain find 
room to tender my humble service to my 
lord Bedford, my lord Russel, and two 
of the best young ladies I know. I am, 
honoured madam, more than I can ex- 
press, your most obliged and obedient 
servant. 

LETTER LVII. 

Ladi/ Russel to the dean of St. Paul's. 

September, 1689. 
Whenever, Mr. Dean, you are disposed, 
and at leisure to give it me, I can be 
well content, I assure you, to read the 
longest letter you can write. But I had 
not so soon told you a truth you cannot 
choose but know, if this paper was not 
to be hastened to you with a little 
errand that I am well enough pleased to 
be employed in ; because the eff*ect will 
be good, though the cause does not 
please me ; being you said Mr. Kidder X 
cannot have Covent Garden, because he 
is dean of Peterborough (though I do 
not conceive why, unless it is because he 
is great and others are not). But lord 

X Rd. Kidder, afterwards bishop of Bath and 
Wells (in Kenn's stead, 1691), was killed with 
his lady at Wells, by the fall of a stack of chim- 
neys during the high wind, 27th Nov. 1703. 



160 



ELEGANT EPI>STLES. 



Book II. 



Bedford leans strongly to offer Mm to the 
king : it is from what you said to me has 
made him do so. Yet if you judge he 
should not now be the man, I am en- 
joined to obtain from you some charac- 
ter of one Mr. Freeman*, and Mr. 
Williams t : the last I have heard you 
speak well of, but I did not heed his just 
character. What you think fit to say to 
me shall not be imparted but in general 
terms, if you like that best ; though 
lord Bedford is as close as can be de- 
sired, and as well inclined as possible to 
do the best, and will have me say some- 
thing of these men before he fixes, which 
my lord Shrewsbury advises him to do 
quickly. 

More X he is averse to ; Horneck § 
the parish is also, as he is well informed, 
to a high degree. So Kidder, Williams, 
and Freeman are before him. I desire 
two or three lines upon this subject, by 
the first post if you please. 

Though my paper is full enough, espe- 
cially to a man that has no more spare 
time than you have, yet I must just 
touch upon some other parts of your let- 
ter, being they touch me most sensibly. 
I bless God that inclines the heart of our 
king to do well ; it looks as if God 
meant a full mercy to these long threat- 
ened kingdoms. I thank Mr. Dean very 
heartily for those thoughts that influence 
and heighten his charity to Mr. J — — n. 
I wiU not say that I do more, but you 
must needs know. Mr. Dean, now a 
few words to your own concern, that 
bears so heavy upon your mind, and I 
have done. I know not if I should use 
the phrase, " Integrity is my idol," but 
1 am sure I admire and love it hugely 
wherever I meet it. I would never have 
a sincere passion crossed. I do pity you, 
Mr. Dean, and think you have a hard 
game upon your hands, which, if it 
should happen you cannot play off your 
own way, you can do "better than a 
man less mortified to the world could ; 
being if you serve the interest of religion 
and the king's, you are doing what you 
have dedicated yourself to, and therefore 

* Dr. Freeman died dean of Peterborough, 
1707. 

f Williams, afterwards bishop of Chiches- 
ter, died 1709. 

X More died bishop of Ely, 1714. 

§ Horneck died prebendary of Westnii aster, 
1 696-7. 



can be more regardless of the ignorant 
or wicked censurer ; for, upon my word, 
I believe you will incur no other : your 
character is above it, if what you fear 
should come upon you. But as I con- 
ceive there are six months yet to delibe- 
rate upon this matter, you know the old 
saying, " Many things fall out between 
the cup and the lip : " and pray do not 
fill your head with the fears of a trouble, 
though never so great, that is at a dis- 
tance, and may never be ; for if you 
think too much on a matter you dread, 
it will certainly disturb your quiet, and 
that wiU infallibly your health, and you 
cannot but see, sir, that would be of a 
bad consequence. The king is willing 
to hear you. You know your own heart 
to do good, and you have lived some 
time, and have had experience. You 
say well that such an one is the best and 
worst friend. I think I should have had 
more tenderness to the will or temper of 
my friend : and for his justification, one 
may say, he |)refers good to many, be- 
fore gratifying one single person, and a 
public good ought to carry a man a great 
way. But I see your judgment (if your 
inclination does not bias too far) is hear- 
tily against him in this matter, that you 
think you cannot do so much good then 
as now. We must see if you can con- 
vince him thereof ; and when he is mas- 
ter of that notion, then let him labour to 
make your way out of those briars he 
has done his part to bring you into ; 
though something else would have done 
it without him, I believe, if I am not 
mistaken in this, no more than I am that 
this letter is much too long, from, &c. 

LETTER LVIII. 

Dean Tillotson to Lady Russel. 

Edmonton, Sept. 24, 1681>. 
Hon. madam, 
Just now I received your ladyship's let- 
ter. Since my last, and not before, I 
understand the great averseness of the 
parish from Dr. Horneck : so that if my 
lord of Bedford had liked him, I could 
not have thought it fit, knowing how ne- 
cessary it is to the good effect of a man's 
ministry, that he do not lie under any 
great prejudice with the people. The 
two, whom the bishop of Chichester hath 
named, are, I think, of the worthiest of 
the city ministers, since Mr. Kidder de- 
clines it, for the reason given by the bi- 



Sect. IL 



MODERN, OF EARLY DATE. 



161 



shop, and, if he did not, could not have 
it ; not because of any inconsistency in 
the preferments, but because the king, 
having so many obligations yet to an- 
swer, cannot at the same time give two 
such preferments to one man. For the 
persons mentioned, if comparison must 
be made between two very good men, 
I will tell your ladyship my free thoughts 
of them. 

Mr. Williams is really one of the best 
men I know, and most unwearied in do- 
ing good, and his preaching very weighty 
and judicious. The other is a truly 
pious man, and of a winning conversa- 
tion. He preaches well, and hath much 
the more plausible delivery, and, I think, 
a stronger voice. Both of them (which 
I had almost forgot) have been steady in 
all changes of times. This is the plain 
truth ; and yet I must not conceal one 
particular and present advantage on Dr. 
Freeman's side. On Sunday night last 
the king asked me concerning a city mi- 
nister, whose name he had forgot ; but 
said, he had a very kind remembrance 
of him, having had much conversation 
with him, when his majesty was very 
young in Holland, and wondered he had 
never seen him since he came into Eng- 
land. 

I could not imagine who he should be, 
till his majesty told me he was the Eng- 
li^i ambassador's chaplain above twenty 
years ago ; meaning sir William Tem- 
ple's. Upon that I knew it was Dr. 
Freeman. The king said, that was his 
name, and desired me to find him out, 
and tell him that he had not forgot him, 
but remembered with pleasure the ac- 
quaintance he had with him many years 
ago ; and had charged me, when there 
was an opportunity, to put him in mind 
of him. This I thought both great 
goodness in the king, and modesty in 
Dr. Freeman* never to shew himself to 
the king all this while. By this your 
ladyship will judge who is like to be 
most acceptable to the king, whose sa- 
tisfaction, as well as service, I am obliged 
to regard, especially in the disposal of 
his own preferments, though Mr. Wil- 
liams be much more my friend. 

1 mentioned Mr. Johnson again, but 
his majestj put on other discourse, and 
my lord privy seal told me yesterday 
morning, that the king thought it a little 

* Dr. Freeman was instituted to the rectory 
of Covtnt Garden; Dec. 28, 1689. 



hard to give pensions out of his purse, 
instead of church preferments ; and tells 
me Mr. Johnson is very sharp upon me. 
His lordship called it railing, but it shall 
not move me in the least. His lordship 
asked me, whether it would not be well 
to move the king to give him a good 
bishopric in Ireland, there being several 
void. I thought it very well, if it would 
be acceptable. His lordship said, that 
was all one ; the oifer would stop many 
mouths as well as his ; which, I think, 
was well considered. 

I will say no more of myself, but only 
thank your ladyship for your good ad- 
vice, which I have always a great dispo- 
tion to follow, and a great deal of rea- 
son, being assured it is sincere as well as 
wise. The king hath set upon me again, 
with greater earnestness of persuasion 
than is fit for one that may command. 
I begged as earnestly to be considered in 
this thing, and so we parted upon good 
terms. I hope something will happen to 
hinder it. I put it out of my mind as 
much as I can, and leave it to the good 
providence of God for the thing to find 
its own issue. To that I commend you 
and yours, and am, madam, yours, by 
all possible obligations. 

If Mr. Johnson refuse this offei*, and it 
should be my hard fortune not to be 
able to get out of this difficulty, which I 
will, if it be possible to do it without 
provocation, I know one that will do 
more for Mr. Johnson than was desired 
of the king, but still as from the king, 
for any thing that he shall know. But 
I hope some much better way will be 
found, and that there will be neither oc- 
casion nor opportunity for thisf. 



LETTER LIX. 

Lady Russel to hady Sunderland. 

I THINK I understand almost less than 
any body, yet I knew better things than 
to be weary of receiving what is so good 
as my lady Sunderland's letters ; or not 
to have a due regard of what is so valu- 
able as her esteem and kindness, with 
her promises to enjoy it my whole life. 
Truly, madam, I can find no fault but 

* The king granted Johnson 300^. a'yearfor 
his own and his son's life, with U)()0^. in iijoney, 
and a place of IdO/. a year for his son. 

"M 



162 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IL 



one, and that is constantly in all the fa- 
vours you direct to me, an unfortunate 
useless creature in the world, yet your 
ladyship owns me as one had been of 
some service to you. Alas ! I know I 
was not, but my intention was pure ; I 
pitied your sorrow, I was hearty in wish- 
ing- you ease, and if I had an occasion 
for it, I could be diligent, but no further 
ability ; and you are very good to re- 
ceive it kindly. But so unhappy a soli- 
citor as I was once for my poor self and 
family, my heart misgives me when I 
aim at any thing of that kind any more. 
Yet I hope I have at last learned to make 
the will of God, when declared, the rule 
of my content, and to thank him for all 
the hard things 1 suffer, as the best as- 
surances of a large share in that other 
blessed state ; and if what is dear to us 
is got thither before us, the sense what 
they enjoy, and we in a little while shall 
with them, ought to support us and our 
friends. 

LETTER LX. 

Lady Russel to Dr. Fitzwilliam. 

Woborne Abbey, 28th August, 1690. 
1 ASSURE you, good doctor, I was very 
weU pleased this evening to receive ano- 
ther letter from you ; and much more 
than ordinary, because your last had 
some gentle hints in it, as if you thought 
1 had taken some offence, though you 
kindly again said you could not, or 
would not, imagine it, not being con- 
scious of omission or commission, and in- 
deed you have good reason for saying so ; 
I will at any time justify you in it, and 
do more commend your belief, that I 
either had not your letters, or was not 
well, than I could your mistrust of me 
for what will never liappen. But an old 
dated paper has convinced you, and a 
newer had, if I had known where to 
have found you ; for in yours of the 5th 
of August you intimate that you meant 
(if it did not too much offend the eyes 
of a friend of mine that were weak) to 
make a stay at Windsor of ten days 
longer, and made no mention then whi- 
ther you went. Now truly I had that 
letter, when I was obliged to write much 
to such as would congratulate my being 
well again, some in kindness, and some 
in ceremony. But so it was, that when 
I went to write, I found I should not 



know where to send it, so I deferred it 
tiU I had learnt that. I sent to JNIrs. 
Smith, she could not tell ; I bid John 
send to Richard at Straton to know if 
you were at Chilton, for I know lady 
Gainsborough was not there then, but 
now you have informed me yourself. 

By report I fear poor lady Gainsbo- 
rough is in neAv trouble, for though she 
has all the help of religion to support her, 
yet that does not shut us out fiom all 
sorrow ; it does not direct us to insensi- 
bility, if we could command it, but to a 
quiet submission to The will of God, 
making his ours as much as we can : in- 
deed, doctor, you are extremely in the 
right to think that my life has been so 
embittered, it is now a very poor thing 
to me ; yet I find myself careful enough 
of it. I think I am useful to my chil- 
dren, and would endure hard things, to 
do for them till they can do for them- 
selves ; but, alas ! I am apt to conclude 
if I had not that, yet I should still find 
out some reason to be content to live, 
though I am weary of every thing, and 
of the folly, the vanity, the madness of 
man most of all. 

There is a shrinking from the separa- 
tion of the soul from the body, that is 
implanted in our natures, which enforces 
us to conserve life ; and it is a wise pro- 
vidence ; for who would else endure 
much evil, that is not taught the great 
advantages of patient suffering ? I am 
heartily sorry, good doctor, that you 
are not exempt, which I am sure you are 
not, when you cannot exercise your care 
as formerly among your flock at Coten- 
ham^'. But 1 will not enlarge on this 
matter, nor any other at this time. That 
I might be certain not to omit this re- 
spect to you, I have begun with it, and 
have many behind, to which 1 must 
hasten, but first desire you wiU present 
my most humble service to my lady ; I 
had done myself the honour to write to 
her, just as I believe she was wTiting to 
me, but 1 Mill thank her yet for that fa- 
vour ; either trouble, or the pleasure of 
her son's settlement, engrosses her, I 
apprehend, at this time, and business I 
know is an attendant of the last. I am, 
sir, your constant friend and servant. 

* Ejected as a nonjuror. 



Sect. II. 



MODERN, OF EARLY DATE. 



163 



LETTER LXI. 

Dean Tillotson to Lady RusseL 

Edmonton, Oct. D, 1690. 

Hon. madam, 
Since I had the honour of your letter, 
I was tempted to have troubled you 
with one of mine upon the sad occasion 
of your late great loss of two so near re- 
lations, and so near together^. But I 
considered, why should I pretend to be 
able either to instruct or comfort my lady 
Russel, who hath borne things much 
more grievous with so exemplary a meek- 
ness and submission to the will of God, 
and knows, as well as I can tell her, that 
there is no remedy in these cases but pa- 
tience, nor any comfort but in the hopes 
of the happy meeting of our deceased 
friends in a better life, in which sorrow 
and tears shall have no more place to all 
eternity ! 

And BOW I crave leave to impart 
something of my own trouble to your 
ladyship. On Sunday last the king 
commanded me to wait upon him the 
next morning at Kensington. I did so, 
and met with what I feared. His ma- 
jesty renewed his former grasious oflTer, 
in so pressing a manner, and with so 
much kindness, that I hardly knew how 
to resist it. I made the best acknow- 
ledgments I could of his undeserved 
grace and favour to me, and begged of 
him to consider aU the consequences of 
this matter, being well assured, that all 
that storm which was raised in convoca- 
tion the last year by those who v»^ill be 
the Church of England was upon my ac- 
count, and that the bishop of L ■ 

was at the bottom of it, out of a jealousy 
that I might be a hindrance to him in at- 
taining what he desires, and what, I call 
God to witness, I would not have. And 
I told his majesty, that I was still afraid 
that his kindness to me would be greatly 
to his prejudice, especially if he carried 
it so far as he was then pleased to speak. 
For I plainly saw they could not bear it ; 
and that the effects of envy and ill-will 
towards me would terminate upon him. 
To which he replied, that if the thing 
were once done, and they saw no remedy, 
they would give over, and think of making 
the best of it ; and therefore he must de- 

* The death of her sister, the countess of 
Montague, and of her nephew, Wriothesley 
Baptist, earl of Gainsborough. 



sire me to think seriously of it ; with 
other expressions not fit for me to re- 
peat. To all which I answered, that in 
obedience to his majesty's commands I 
would consider of it again, though I was 
afraid I had already thought more of it 
than had done me good, and must 
break through one of the greatest reso- 
lutions of my life, and sacrifice at once 
all the ease and contentment of it ; 
which yet I would force myself to do, 
were I really convinced that I was in any 
measure capable of doing his majesty 
and the public that service which he was 
pleased to think I was. He smiled and 
said, " You talk of trouble ; I believe you 
will have much more ease in it than in 
the condition in which you now are." 
Thinking not fit to say more, I humbly 
took leave. 

And now, madam, what shall I do? 
My thoughts were never at such a plunge. 
I know not how to bring my mind to it ; 
and, on the other hand, though the com^ 
parison is very unequal, when I remem- 
ber how I saw the king affected in the 
case of my lord Shrewsbury f, I find 
myself in great strait, and would not for 
all the world give him the like trouble. 
I pray God to direct me to that which 
he sees and knows to be best, for I know 
not what to do. I hope I shall have your 
prayers, and would be glad of your ad 
vice, if the king would spare me so long. 
I pray God to preserve you and yours. 
I am, honoured madam, &c. 



LETTER LXII. 

Lady Russel to the Dean of St. PauVs. 

About the middle of October, 1690. 
Your letters will never trouble me, 
Mr. Dean ; on the contrary, they are 
comfortable refreshments to my, for the 
most part, orer-burdened mind, which, 
both by nature and by accident, is made 
so weak, that I cannot bear, with that 
constancy I should, the losses I have 
lately felt ; I can say. Friends and ac- 
quaintances thou hast hid out of my 
sight ; but I hope it shall not disturb my 
peace. These Avere young, and as they 
had begun their race of life after me, so 
I desired they might have ended it also. 

-f- When the earl resigned the post of secre- 
tary of state, about 1690; to divert him from 
which, dean Tillotson had been sent to his 
lordship bv the kins?^. 

M2 



164 



FLEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book II. 



But liPtppy are those whom God retires 
in his grace ; 1 trust these were so ; and 
then no age can be amiss ; to the young 
it is not too early, nor to the aged too 
late. Submission and prayer is all we 
know that we can do towards our own 
relief in our distress, or to disarm God's 
anger, either in our public and private 
concerns. The scene will soon alter to 
that peaceful and eternal home in pro- 
spect. But in this time of our pilgrimage, 
vicissitudes of all sorts is every one's lot. 
And this leads me to your case, sir. 

The time seems to be come that you 
must put anew in practice that submis- 
sion * you have so powerfully both tried 
yourself, and instructed others to. I see 
no place to escape at ; you must take up 
the cross and bear it : I faithfully be- 
lieve it has the figure of a very heavy 
one to you, though not from the cares of 
it ; since, if the king guesses right, you 
toil more now. But this work is of your 
own choosing, and the dignity of the 
other is v/hat you have bent your mind 
against, and the strong resolve of your 
life has been to avoid it. Had this even 
proceeded to a vow, it is, I think, like 
the virgins of old, to be dissolved by the 
father of your country. Again, though 
contemplation, and a few friends well 
chosen, would be your grateful choice, 
yet, if charity, obedience, and necessity, 
call you into the great world, and where 
enemies compass round about, must not 
you accept it? And each of these, in 
my mean apprehension, determines you 
to do it. In short, it will be a noble 
sacrifice you will make ; and I am con- 
fident you will find as a reward, kind 
and tender supports, if you do take the 
burthen upon you : there is, as it were, 
a commanding Providence in the man- 
ner of it. Perhaps I do as sincerely wish 
your thoughts at ease as any friend you 
have, but I think you may purchase 
that too dear ; and if you should come 
to think so too, they would then be as 
restless as before. 

Sir, I believe you would be as much a 
common good as you can : consider how 
few of ability and integrity this age pro- 
duces.^ Pray do not turn this matter too 
much in your head ; when one has once 

* Submission alludes to Tillotson's letter to 
lord Russel against resistance: — a shrewd hint 
of the dean's endeavours to persuade lord 
Kussel to snbnnit to the doctrine of passive 
obrdienre. 



turned it everyway, you know that more 
does but perplex, and one never sees the 
clearer for it. Be not stiff, if it be s4;in 
urged to you. Conform to the Divine 
Will, which has set it so strongly into the 
other's mind, and be content to endure ; 
it is God calls you to it. I believe it 
was wisely said, that when there is no re- 
medy they will give over, and make the 
best of it, and so I hope no ill will ter- 
minate on the king : and they will lay 
up their arrows, when they perceive 
they are shot in vain at him or you, up- 
on whom no reflection that I can think 
of can be made that is ingenious ; and 
what is pure malice you are above be- 
ing affected with. 

I wish, for many reasons, my prayers 
were more worthy ; but such as they are, 
I offer them witli a sincere zeal to the 
Throne of Grace for you, in this strait, 
that you may be led out of it, as shall 
best serve the great ends and designs of 
God's glory. 



LETTER LXIII. 



Ladi/ Russel to 



{supposed the 



Bishop of Snlishury). 

lOLh October, 1690, 
I HAVE, my lord, so upright an heart 
to my friends, that though your great 
weight of business had forced you to a 
silence of this kind, yet I should have 
had no doubt, but that one I so distin- 
guish in that little number God has left 
me, does join with me to lament my 
late losses : the one was a just, sincere 
man, and the only son of a sister and a 
friend I loved with too much passion ; 
the other my last sister, and I ever loved 
her tenderly. 

It pleases me to think that she deserves 
to be remembered by all those who knew 
her. But after above forty years ac- 
quaintance with so amiable a creature, 
one must needs, in reflecting, bring to 
remembrance so many engaging endear- 
ments as are yet at present imbittering 
and painful ; and indeed we may be sure, 
that when any thing below God is the 
object of our love, at one time or an- 
other it will be matter of our sorrow. 
But a little time will put me again into 
my settled state of mourning; for a 
mourner I must be all my days upon 
earth, and there is no need I should be 
other. My glass runs low. The world 



Sect. II, 



MODERN, OF EARLY DATE. 



165 



does not v/aiit me, nor I want that : my 
business is at home, and within a narrow 
compass. I must not deny, as there was 
something so glorious in the object of my 
biggest sorrow, I believe that, in some 
measure, kept me from being then over- 
whelmed. So now it affords me, toge- 
ther with the remembrance how many 
easy years we lived together, thoughts 
that are joy enough for one who looks 
no higher than a quiet submission to her 
lot ; and such pleasures in educating my 
young- folks as surmount the cares that it 
^vill afford. If I shall be spared the trial, 
where I have most thought of being pre- 
pared to bear the pain, I hope I shall be 
thankful, and I think I ask it faithfully, 
that it may be in mercy not in judgment. 
Let me rather be tortured here, than 
they or I be rejected in that other bless- 
ed peaceful home to all ages, to which 
my soul aspires. Tliere is something in 
the younger going before me, that I have 
observed all my life to give a sense I can- 
not describe ; it is harder to be borne 
than a bigger loss, where there has 
been spun out a longer thread of life. 
Yet I see no cause for it, for every day 
we see the young fall with the old : but 
methinks it is a violence upon nature. 

A troubled mind has a multitude of 
these thoughts. Yet I hope I master all 
murmurings : if I have had any, I am 
sorry, and will have no more, assisted by 
Ood's grace ; and rest satisfied, that 
whatever I think, I shall one day be en- 
tirely satisfied what God has done and 
shall do will be best, and justify both 
his justice and mercy. I meant this as 
a very short epistle : but you have been 
some years acquainted with my infirmi- 
ty, and have endured it, though you 
never had waste time, I believe, in your 
life ; and better times do not, I hope, 
make your patience less. However, it 
will become me to put an end to this, 
which I will do, signing myself cordially 
your, &c. 

LETTER LXIV. 

Lady Russel io Lord Cavendish. 

29th October, 1690- 
Though I know my letters do lord 
Cavendish no service, yet, as a respect I 
love to pay him, and to thank him also 
for his last from Ivimbeck, I had not 
been so long silent, if the death of two 



persons both very near and dear to me 
had not made me so uncomfortable to 
myself, that I knew I was utterly unfit 
to converse where I would never be ill 
company. The separation of friends is 
grievous. My sister Montague was one 
I loved tenderly ; my lord Gainsborough 
was the only son of a sister I loved with 
too much passion : they both deserved to 
be remembered kindly by all that knew 
them. They both began their race long 
after me, and I hoped should have ended 
it so too ; but the great and wise Dis- 
poser of all things, and who knows 
where it is best to place his creatures, 
either in this or in the other world, has 
ordered it otherwise. The best improve- 
ment we can make in these cases, and 
you, my dear lord, rather than I, whose 
glass runs low, while you are young, and 
I hope have many happy years to come, 
is, I say, that we should all reflect there 
is no passing through this to a better 
world without some crosses, and the 
scene sometimes shifts so fast, our course 
of life may be ended before we think 
we have gone half way ; and that an 
happy eternity depends on our spending- 
well or ill that time allotted us here for 
probation. 

Live virtuously, my lord, and you 
cannot die too soon, nor live too long. I 
hope the last shall be your lot, with 
many blessings attending it. Your, &c. 

LETTER LXV. 

Archbishop Tihlotson to Lady Russel. 

June 23, 1691*. 

Honoured madam, 
I RECEIVED your ladyship's letter, to- 
gether with that to Mr. Fox, which I 
shall return to him on Wednesday morn- 
ing, when I have desired Mr. Kemp to 
send him to me. 

I entreat you to give my very humble 
service to my lord of Bedford, and to let 
his lordship know how far I have been 
concerned in this affair. I had notice 
first from Mr. Attorney-general and Mr. 

Solicitor, and then from my lord , 

that several persons, upon the account of 
publishing and dispersing several libels 
against me, were secured in order to pro- 
secution. Upon which I went to wait 
upon them severally, and earnestly de- 

* From his drausht in short-hand. 



166 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book 11. 



sired of them, that nobody mi^ht be 
punished upon my account : that this was 
not the first time I had experience of this 
kind of malice, which, how unpleasant 
soever to me, I thought it the wisest way 
to neglect, and the best to forgive it*. 
None of them said any thing to me of 
my lord Russel, nor did it ever come 
into my thought to hinder any prosecu' 
tion upon his account, whose reputation, 
I can truly say, is much dearer to me 
than mine own ; and I was much more 
troubled at the barbarous usage done to 
his memory, and especially since they 
have aggravated it by dispersing more 
copies ; and, as I find by the letter to 
Mr. Fox, are supported in their insolence 
by a strong combination, I cannot but 
think it very fit for my lord Bedford to 
bring them to condign punishment. 

Twice last week I had my pen in my 
hand to have provoked you to a letter ; 
and that I might once in my life have 
been beforehand with you in this way of 
kindness. I was both times hindered by 
the breaking in of company upon me. 
The errand of it would have been to 
have told you, that whether it be from 
stupidity, or from a present astonishment 
at the danger of my condition, or from 
some other cause, I find, that I bear the 
burden I dreaded so much a good deal 
better than I could have hoped. David's 
acknowledgment to God runs in my 
mind, " Who am I, O Lord God, or 
what is my house, that thou hast brought 
me hitherto ; and hast regarded me ac- 
cording to the estate of a man of high 
degree, O Lord Godf." I hope that the 
same providence of God which hath once 
overruled me in this thing will some way 
or other turn it to good. 

The queen's extraordinary favour to 
me, to a degree much beyond my expec- 
tation, is no small support to me ; and 
I flatter myself with hopes, that my 
friends will continue their kindness to 
me ; especially that the best friend 1 ever 
had will not be the less so to me now 
that I need friends most. 

I pray to God continually to preserve 
you and yours, and particularly at this 
time to give my lady Cavendish a happy 

* Upon a bundle of libels found among his 
papers after his death he put no other inscrip- 
tion than this; "These are libels; I pray God 
forgive the authors : I do." 

f 1 Chron. xvii. 16, 17. 



meeting vfith her lord, and to grant 
them both a long and happy life toge- 
ther. I am, madam, your most faithful 
and humble servant. 



LETTER LXVL 

Lat/y Russel to {supposed Arch- 

bishop Tdlotson). 

24th July, ir)9l. 
In wants and distresses of all kinds, one 
naturally flies to a sure friend, if one is 
blessed with any such. This is the rea- 
son of the present address to you, which 
is burthened with this request, if you 
think it fit, to give the inclosed to the 
queen. My letter is a petition to her 
majesty, to bestow upon a gentleman a 
place, that is now fallen by the death of 
Mr. Herbert ; it is auditor of Wales, va- 
lue about 400/. a year. He is, if I do not 
extremely mistake, fit for it, and worthy 
of it ; he is knight of the shire for 
Carmarthenshire ; it would please me on 
several accounts, if I obtain it. Now 
every thing is so soon chopt upon and 
gone, that a slow way would defeat me, 
if nothing else does ; and that I fear from 
lord Devonshire if he was in town ; be- 
sides, I should not so distinctly know the 
queen's answer, and my success, as I shall 
I know do by your means, if you have 
no scruple to deliver my letter ; if you 
have, pray use me as I do you, and in the 
integrity of your heart tell me so. I 
could send it to lady Darby ; it is only 
the certainty of some answer makes me 
pitch as I do. Nay perhaps it were more 
proper to send it to the queen's secre- 
tary ; but I am not versed in the court 
ways, it is so lately since I have loved 
them. Therefore be free, and do as you 
think most fit. 

I intend not to detain you long ; but 
the many public and signal mercies we 
have of late received are so reviving, 
notwithstanding the black and dismal 
scenes which are constantly before me, 
and particularly on these sad months, I 
must feel the compassions of a wise and 
good God, to these late sinking nations, 
and to the Protestant interest all the 
world over, and all good people also. I 
raise my spirits all I can, and labour to 
rejoice in the prospect of more happy 
days, for the time to come, than some 
ages have been blessed with. The good- 



Sect. II. 



MODERN, OF EARLY DATE. 



167 



ness of those instruments God has called 
forth to work this great work by, swells 
one's hopes. 



LETTER LXVII. 



From the same to hady 



Arlington*). 



{supposed 



lOth October, 1691. 

My dear sister, I have not yet had reso- 
lution to speak to you this way, nor know 
1 now what to say. Your misfortune is 
too big- to hope that any thing I oifer 
can allay the present rage of your sor- 
row. I pray for you, and I pity you, 
which is all I can do : and that I do most 
feelingly, not knowing how soon your 
case may be mine : and I v.ant from you 
what I would most willingly furnish you 
with, some consolation and truce from 
your extreme lamentation. 

I hope that by this time your reason 
begins to get a power over your wasted 
spirits, and that you will let nature re- 
lieve herself. She will do it if you do 
not obstruct her. There is a time and 
period for all things here. Nature will 
first prevail ; but as soon as we can we 
must think what is our duty, and pursue 
it as well as we are able. I beseech God 
to teach you to submit to this unlooked 
for, and to appearance sadly severe provi- 
dence, and endue you with a quiet spirit, 
to wait for the day of consolation, when 
joy will be our portion to all eternity : in 
that day we shall meet again all our pious 
friends, aU that have died in their inno- 
cence, and with them live a life of inno- 
cence, and purity, and gladness for ever. 
Fit your thoughts with these undoubted 
truths, my dear sister, as much and as 
often as is possible. I know no other 
cure for such diseases ; nor shall we miss 
one, if we endeavour, with God's grace 
assisting, which he certainly gives to 
such as ask. God give you refreshments. 
I am your, &c. 

LETTER LXVIII. 

FroTfi the same to . 



18th October, 1691. 

The misfortunes of such as one ex- 
tremely esteems grow our own ; so that 
if my constant sad heart were not so 

* On the death of one of her daughters. 



soon touched as it is with deplorable ac- 
cidents, I should yet feel a great deal of 
your just mourning ; if sharing a cala- 
mity coidd ease you, that burden would 
be little : for as depraved an age as we 
live in, there is such a force in virtue and 
goodness, that all the world laments 
mth you ; and yet sure, madam, when 
we part from what we love most that is 
excellent, it is our best support, that 
nature, who wall be heard first, does 
suffer reason to take place. 

What can relieve so much, as that our 
friend died after a well-spent life ? Some 
losses are so surprising and so gi-eat, 
one must not break in too soon, and 
therefore my sense of your calamit}^ con- 
fined me to only a solicitous inquiry; 
and I doubt it is still a mistaken respect 
to dwell long upon such a subject. I 
will do no more than sign this truth, 
that I am your, &c. 



LETTER LXIX. 

From the same to Dr. Fittwilliam. 

July 2 1st, 1692. 
I WILL but say very little for myself, 
why you are so long without hearing 
from me, yet I could say much to my 
justification, but am more willing to 
come to the more touching and serious 
part of your last letter : not but I should 
be very sorry indeed, if I suspected you 
had a thought I were unworthy towards 
you ; I dare say you raise none upon ap- 
pearances, and other reasons you shall 
never have. In short, my daughter Ca- 
vendish being ill, carried me twice a 
day to Arlington house, where I stayed 
till twelve and one o'clock at night, and 
much business, being near leaving Lon- 
don, and my eyes serving me no longer 
by candle-light, which, perhaps, was the 
biggest let of all, and hindered my doing 
what I desired and ought to do. 

But to come to the purpose of yours, 
which I received the 13tli of this lament- 
able month, the very day of that hard 
sentence pronounced against my dear 
friend and husband : it was the fast day, 
and so I had the opportunity of retiring 
without any taking notice of it, which 
pleases me best. W[\^t shall I say, 
doctor ? That I do live by your rules ? 
No : I should lie. I bless God it has 
long been my purpose, with some endea- 



168 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book 11, 



vour, through mercy to do it. I hope I 
may conclude I grieve without sinning ; 
yet I cannot attain to that love of God 
and submission to all his providences 
that I can rejoice in : however, I bless 
him for his infinite mercy, in a support 
that is not wrought from the world 
(though my heart is too much bound up 
in the blessings I have yet left) : and I 
hope chiefly he has enabled me to rejoice 
in him as my everlasting portion, and in 
the assured hope of good things in the 
other world. 

Good doctor, we are travelling the 
same way, and hope through mercy to 
meet at the same happy end of all our 
labours here, in an eternal rest ; and it 
is of great advantage to that attainment, 
communicating pious thoughts to each 
other : nothing on this side heaven goes 
so near it ; and being where God is, it 
is heaven. If he be in our hearts there 
will be peace and satisfaction, when one 
recollects the happiness of such a state 
(which, if my heart deceives me not, I 
hope is mine) ; and I will try to expe- 
rience more and more that blessed pro- 
mise, " Come unto me, all ye that are 
heavy laden, and I will give you ease." 
This day, and this subject, induces me to 
be very long, and might to another be 
too tedious ; but 1 know it is not so to 
Dr. Fitzwilliam, who uses to feast in the 
house of mourning. However, my time 
to open my chamber door is near ; and I 
take some care not to affect in these re- 
tirements. In all circumstances I re- 
main, sir, your constantly obliged friend 
and servant. 



LETrER LXX. 



Lady Russel to Lady 



Russei. 



If ever I could retaliate with my sister 
Russel, it would be now, on the subject 
of death, when I have all this my saddest 
month been reflecting on what I saw and 
felt ; and yet what can I say more than 
to acquiesce with you, that it is a solemn 
thing to think of the consequences of 
death to believers and unbelievers ! That 
it is a contemplation ought to be of force 
to make us diligent for the approaching 
change, I must own ; yet I doubt it does 
so but on a few. That you are one of 
those happy ones I conclude, if I knew 
no more reason for it than the bare con- 



clusion of yours, that the bare meditation 
is sufficient to provoke to care : for when 
a heart is so well touched it will act : 
and who has perhaps by an absolute sur- 
render of herself so knit her soul to God, 
as will make her dear in his sight. We 
lie under innumerable obligations to be 
his entirely ; and nothing should be so 
attracting to us as his miraculous love 
in sending his Son ; but my still smart 
sorrow for earthly losses makes me know 
I loved iiiordinately, and my profit in the 
school of adversity has been small, or I 
should have long since turned my mourn- 
ing into rejoicing thankfulness, that I had 
such a friend to lose ; that I saw him I 
loved as my own soul take such a pro- 
spect of death as made him, when brought 
to it, walk through the dark and shaded 
valley (notwithstanding the natural aver- 
sion to separation) without fearing evil : 
for if we in our limited degrees of good- 
ness will not forsake those that depend 
on us, much less can God cast us from 
him when we seek to him in our cala- 
mity. And though he denied my greatest 
and repeated prayers, yet he has not de- 
nied me the support of his holy Spirit, in 
this my long day of calamity, but enabled 
me in some measure to rejoice in him as 
my portion for ever ; who has provided 
a remedy for all our griefs, by his sure 
promises of another life, where there is 
no death, nor any pain or trouble, but a 
fulness of joy in the presence of God, 
who made us and loves us for ever. 

LETTER LXXI. 

Archbishop Tillotson to Lady RusseL 

Lambeth House, August 2Gth, 1693. 
Madam, 
Though nobody rejoices more than my- 
self in the happiness of your ladyship 
and your children, yet in the hurry in 
which you must needs have been, I could 
Tiot think it fit for to give you the dis- 
turbance so much as of a letter, which 
otherwise had, both in friendship and 
good manners, been due upon this great 
occasion. But now that busy time is in a 
good measure over, I cannot forbear after 
so many as, I am sure, have been before 
me, to congratulate with your ladyship 
this happy match of your daughter; for 
so I heartily pray it may prove, and have 
great reason to believe it will, because I 
(!annot but look upon it as part of the 



Sect. II. 



MODERN, OF EARLY DATE. 



1611 



comfort and reward of your patience and 
submission to the will of God, under that 
sorest and most heavy affliction that could 
have befallen you ; and when God sends 
and intends a blessing, it shall have no 
sorrow or evil with it. 

I entreat my lord Ross and his lady to 
accept of my humble service, and my 
hearty wishes of great and lasting hap- 
piness. 

My poor wife is at present very ill, 
which goes very near me : and having 
said this, I know we shall have your 
prayers. I entreat you to give my hum- 
ble service to my lord of Bedford, and 
my lord of Cavendish and his lady. I 
could upon several accounts be melan- 
choly, but I will not upon so joyful an 
occasion. I pray God to preserve and 
bless your ladyship, and all the good fa- 
mily at Woborne, and to make us all 
concerned to prepare ourselves with the 
greatest care for a better life. I am, 
with all true respect and esteem, madam, 
your ladyship's most faithful and most 
humble servant. 



LETTER LXXIL 



what to do when he is come. I was never 
so much at my wit's end concerning the 
public. God only can bring us out of 
the labyrinth we are in, and I trust he 
will. 

My wife gives her most humble service 
and thanks to you for your concernment 
for her, and does rejoice equally with ine 
for the good news of your recovery. 

Never since I knew the world had I so 
much reason to value my friends. In the 
condition I now am I can have no new 
ones, or, if I could, I can have no assur- 
ance that they are so. I could not at a 
distance believe that the upper end of the 
world was so hollow as I find it. I ex- 
cept a very few, of whom I can believe 
no ill till I plainly see it. 

I have ever earnestly coveted your 
letters ; but now I do as earnestly beg of 
you to spare them for my sake, as well as 
your own. With my very humble ser- 
vice to my good lord of Bedford, and to 
all yours, and my hearty prayers to God 
for you all, I remain, madam, your 
ladyship's most obliged and obedient 
servant *. 

LETTER LXXIII. 



Archbishop Tillotson to Lady Russel. The Bishop of Salisbury to Lady Russel. 

Lambeth-house, October 13th, 1G93. 
I HAVE forborne, madam, hitherto, even 
to acknowledge the receipt of your lady- 
ship's letter, and your kind concernment 
for mine and my wife's health, because 
I saw how unmerciful you were to your 
eyes in your last letter to me : so that I 
should certainly have repented the pro- 
vocation I gave you to it by mine, had 
not so great and good an occasion made 
it necessary. 

I had intended this morning to have 
sent Mr. Vernon to Woborne, to have 
inquired of your ladyship's health, hav- 
ing but newly heard, that since your re- 
turn from Belvoir, a dangerous fever had 
seized upon you. But yesterday morn- 
ing, at council, I happily met with Mr. 
Russel, who, to my great joy, told me 
that he hoped that danger was over ; for 
which I thank God with all my heart, 
because I did not know how fatal the 
event might be, after the care and hurry 
you had been in, and in &o sickly a 
season. 

The king's return is now only hin- 
dered by contrary winds. I pray God to 
scud him safe to ks, ami to direct him 



Salisbury, 31st October, 1(390. 
I DO heartily congratulate with your 
ladyship for this new blessing. God has 
now heard your prayers with relation to 
two of your children, which is a good 
earnest that he will hear them in due 
time with relation to the third. You 
begin to see your children's children, 
God grant you may likewise see peace 
upon Israel. And now that God hath so 
built up your house, I hope you will set 

* The archbishop's correspondence with lady 
Russel had been interrupted on her part for 
many months, by the disorder in her eyes in- 
creasing to such a degree, that she was obliged, 
on the 27th of June, 1694, to submit to the ope- 
ration of couching. Upon this occasion his 
grace drew up a prayer two days after, in 
which he touched upon the death of her husband, 
" whom the holy and righteous Providence,^ 
says he, " permitted [under a colour of law 
andjustice] to be [unjustly] cutofffrom the land 
of the living." But over the words betv/een the 
brackets, after the first writing, he drew a line, 
as intending to erase them, probably from a re- 
flection that the^' might be too strons-, or less 
suitable to a prayer. June '28th he wrote to the 
bishop of Salisbury, " I cannot forbear to tell 
you, that my lady Kusb^tl's eye was couched 
yesterday morning witli very good success ; 
<^.'od be praised for it." 



170 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Boox IL 



yourself to build a house of prayer for the 
honour of his name. 

You have passed through very diflferent 
scenes of life. God has reserved the best 
to the last. 1 do make it a standing part 
of my poor prayers twice a day, that as 
now your family is the greatest in its 
three branches that has been in England 
in our age, so that it may in every one 
of these answer those blessings by an ex- 
emplary holiness, and that both you and 
they may be public blessings to the age 
and nation. 

I do not think of coming up yet this 
fortnight, if I am not called for*. I 
humbly thank your ladyship for giving 
me this early notice of so great a bless- 
ing to you. I hope it shall soon be com- 
pleted by my lady Ross's full recovery. 
Mrs. Burnet is very sensible of the ho- 
nour your ladyship does her in thinking 
of her, and does particularly rejoice in 
God's goodness to you. I am, with the 
highest sense of gratitude and respect 
possible, madam, your ladyship's most 
humble, most obedient, and most ob- 
liged servant. 

LETTER LXXIV. 

Lady Russel to King William, 

Sir, 
I RATHER choose to troublc your majesty 
with a letter, than be wanting in my 
duty, in the most submissive manner ima- 
ginable, to acknowledge the honour and 
favour I am told your majesty designs 
for lord Rutland and his family, in which 
I am so much interested. 

It is an act of great goodness, sir, in 
you ; and the generous manner you have 

* The marquis of Halifax said of bishop Bur- 
net, " He makes many enemies, by setting an 
ill natured example of living, which they are not 
inclined to follow. His indifference for pre- 
ferment, his contempt not only of splendour, 
but of all unnecessary plenty, his degrading 
himself into the lowest and most painful duties 
of his calling, are such uiiprelatical qualities, 
that let him be never soorthodox in other things, 
in these he must be a Dissenter. Virtues of such 
a stamp are so many heresies in the opinion of 
those divines who have softened the primitive 
injunctions, so as to make them suit betterwith 
the present frailty of mankind. No wonder 
then if they are angry, since it is in their own 
defence ; or that, from a principle of self-pre- 
servation, they should endeavour to suppress a 
man whose parts are a shame, and whose life is 
a scandal to them." Both he and Tillotson, as 
well as many other Christian bishops, were 
averse to pluralities and non-residence. 



been pleased to promise it in, makes the 
honour, if possible, greater. As you 
will lay an eternal obligation on that fa- 
mily, be pleased to allow me to answer 
for all those I am related to ; they will 
look on themselves equally honoured 
with lord Rutland, by your favour to his 
family, and I am sure will express their 
acknowledgments to your majesty in the 
most dutiful manner, to the best of their 
services; in which I earnestly desire my 
son Bedford may exceed, as he has been 
first and early honoured with the marks 
of your favour. And I hope I may live 
to see your majesty has bestowed one 
more upon him, who appears to me to 
have no other ambition, except what he 
prefers above all others, making him- 
self acceptable to your majesty, and 
living in your good opinion. 

I presume to say, 1 believe there is no 
fault in his intentions of duty towards 
your majesty, nor I trust ever will be : 
and that as his years increase, his per- 
formances will better declare the faith- 
fulness of his mind, which will hugely 
enlarge the comforts of your majesty's 
most humble, most dutiful, and most 
obedient servant, 

N.B. Lady RusseVs indorsement on the 

foregoing letter is in these words : 

To the King, 1701-2, about first of 
March, and found in his pocket 
when dead. 



LETTER LXXV. 



Lady Russel 



to (Rouvigny) 
Galxvayf. 



Earl of 



June, 1711. 
Alas ! my dear lord Galway, my thoughts 
are all yet disorder, confusion, and 
amazement ; and I think I am very in- 
capable of saying or doing what I should. 
I did not know the greatness of my 

f Lady Russel's only son Wriothesley, duke 
of Bedford, died of the small-pox in May, 1711, 
in the 3 1 St year of his age, upon which occasion 
this letter was written. To this affliction suc- 
ceeded, in November, 1711, the loss of her 
daughter the duchess of Rutland, who died in 
childbed. Lady Russel, after seeing her in the 
coffin, went to her other daughter, married to 
the duke of Devonshire, from whom it was ne- 
cessary to conceal her grief, she being at that 
time in childbed likewise; therefore she as- 
sumed a cheerful air, and with astonishing reso- 
lution, agreeable to truth, answered her anxious 
daughter's inquirieswith these words; "I have 
seen yonr sister out of bed to-day." 



Sect. II. 



MODERN, OF EARLY DATE. 



171 



love to his person till I could see it no 
more. Wlien nature, who will he mis- 
tress, has in some measure with time re- 
lieved herself, then, and not till then, 
I trust the Goodness which hath no 
hounds, and whose power is irresistible, 
will assist me by his grace to rest con- 
tented with what his unerring provi- 
dence has appointed and permitted. And 
I sliaU feel ease in this contemplation, 
that there was nothing uncomfortable in 
his death, but the losing him. His God 
was, I verily believe, ever in his thoughts. 
Towards his last hours he called upon 
him, and complained he could not pray 
his prayers. To what I answered, he 
said, he wished for more time to make 
up his accounts with God. Then, with 
remembrance to his sisters, and telling 
me how good and kind his wife had been 
to him, and that he should have been 
glad to have expressed himself to her, 
said something to me and my double 
kindness to his wife, and so died away. 
There seemed no reluctancy to leave this 
world, patient and easy the whole time, 
and I believe knew his danger, but, loth 
to grieve those by him, delayed what he 
might have said. But why all this ? 
The decree is past. I do not ask your 
prayers, I know you offer them with 
sincerity to our Almighty God for your 
afflicted kinswoman. 



LETTER LXXVI. 



From Lord Shaftesbury'*' to 



Feb. 24th, 17G6-7, 

I ACCEPT kindly the offer of your cor- 
respondence, and chiefly as it comes from 
you with heartiness and (the best of cha- 
racters) simplicity. When this disposi- 
tion of heart attends our searches into 
learning and philosophy, we need not 
fear being " vainly puffed up," or falling 
into that false way of wisdom, which the 
Scripture calls " vain philosophy." When 
the improvement of our minds, and the 
advancement of our reason, is aU we 
aim at ; and this only to fit us for a per- 
fecter, more rational, and worthier ser- 
vice of God ; we can have no scruples 
whether or no the work be an acceptable 
one to him. But where neither our duty 

♦ These letters were written before the Cha- 
racteristics, which were first published 1711. 



to mankind, nor obedience to our Crea- 
tor, is any way the end or object of our 
studies or exercises, be they ever so cu- 
rious or exquisite, they may be justly 
styled " vain ; " and often the vainer, for 
carrying with them the false show of ex- 
cellence and superiority. 

On this account, though there be no 
part of learning more advantageous even 
towards divinity than logics, metaphy- 
sics, and what we call university-learn- 
ing ; yet nothing proves more dangerous 
to young minds unforewarned, or, what 
is worse, prepossessed with the excel- 
lency of such learning : as if all wisdom 
lay in the solution of those riddles of the 
school-men, who in the last ages of the 
church, found out an excellent way to 
destroy religion by philosophy, and ren- 
der reason and philosophy ridiculous, 
under that garb they had put on it. If 
your circumstances or condition suffer 
you to enter into the world by a uni- 
versity, well is it for you that you have 
prevented such prepossession. 

However, I am not sorry that I lent 
you Mr. Locke's Essay of Human Un- 
derstanding, which may as well qualify 
for business and the world, as for the 
sciences and a university. No one has 
done more towards the recalling of phi- 
losophy from barbarity, into use and 
practice of the world, and into the com- 
pany of the better and politer sort ; who 
might well be ashamed of it in its other 
dress. No one has opened a better or 
clearer way to reasoning. And above all, 
I wonder to hear him censured so much 
by any Church-of-England men, for ad- 
vancing reason and bringing the use of 
it so much into religion ; when it is by 
this only that we fight against the enthu- 
siasts, and repel the great enemies of oui* 
church. It is by this weapon alone that 
we combat those visionaries, who in the 
last age broke in so foully upon us, and 
are now (pretendedly at least) esteemed 
so terrible and dangerous. 

But though I am one of those who, in 
these truly happy times, esteem our 
church as wholly out of danger: yet 
should we hearken to those men who dis- 
claim this use of reason in religion, we 
must lay ourselves open afresh to all fa- 
natics. For what else is fanaticism? 
Wliere does the stress of their cause lie ? 
Are not their unintelligible motions of 
the spirit ; their unexpressible pretend 
ed feelings, apprehensions j and lights 



m 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book 1L 



within ; their inspirations in prophecy, 
extempore prayer, preaching, &c . ; are not 
these, I say, the foundations on which 
they build their cause ? Are not our cokl 
dead reasonings (as they call them) a re- 
proach and stumbling-block to them ? if 
you will believe their leaders, who are 
instantly cut off from all their pretences 
to gifts and spirits, and supernatural 
graces, if they are once brought to the 
test of cool reason and deliberate exa- 
mination. And can we thus give up our 
cause, by giving up reason ? Shall we 
give them up our Tillotsons, our Bar- 
rows, our Chillingworths, our Ham- 
monds? For what less is it to give 
up this way of reason so much decried by 
those condemners of Mr. Locke ? But 
such is the spirit of some men in contro- 
versial matters. A certain noted clergy- 
man of learning and ability, and great 
reputed zeal, a great enemy of Master 
Locke, has (I am lately told) turned 
rigid Calvinist, as to all the points of pre- 
destination, free-grace, &c.; and not only 
this clergyman, but several more in the 
university of that high party, who ran as 
high in opposition to Calvinism but one 
reign or two since. The reason of this is 
but too obvious. Our bishops and dig- 
nified churchmen (the most worthily and 
justly dignified of any in any age) are, 
as they ever were, inclinable to mode- 
ration in the high Calvinistic points. 
But they are also inclinable to mode- 
ration in other points. 

Hirtc nice lachrymce. 

They are for toleration, inviolable tole- 
ration (as our queen nobly and Chris- 
tianly said it, in her speech a year or two 
since) ; and this is itself intolerable with 
our high gentlemen, who despise the 
gentleness of their Lord and Master, and 
the sweet mild government of our queen, 
preferring rather that abominable blas- 
j)hemous representative of church power, 
attended with the worst of temporal go- 
vernments, as we see it in perfection of 
each kind in France. From this, and 
from its abettors of every kind, and in 
every way, I pray God deliver us, whilst 
we are daily thankful for what in his 
providence he has already done towards 
it, and to the happiness and glory of our 
excellent queen and country. So fare- 
well. 1 am your good friend to serve 
vou. 



LETTER LXXVII. 

From Lord Shafteshiiry to — 



May irtli, 1707. 

Since your disposition inclines you so 
strongly towards university-learning ; 
and your sound exercise of your reason, 
and the integrity of your heart, give 
good assurance against the narrow prin- 
ciples 'and contagious manner of those 
corrupted places, whence all noble and 
free principles ought rather to be propa- 
gated ; I shall not be wanting to you on 
my part, when 1 shall see the fruit of your 
studies, life, and conversation, answer- 
able to those good seeds of principles you 
seem to carry in you. 

I am glad to find your love of reason 
and free-thought. Your piety and vir- 
tue, I know, you wiU always keep ; espe- 
cially since your desires and natural in- 
clinations are towards so serious a sta- 
tion in life, which others undertake too 
slightly, and without examining their 
hearts. 

Pray God direct you, and confirm your 
good beginnings, and in the practice of 
virtue and religion ; assuring yourself 
that the highest principle, which is the 
love of God, is best attained, not by dark 
speculations and monkish philosophy, 
but by moral practice, and love of man- 
kind, and a study of their interests : the 
chief of which, and that which only raises 
them above the degree of brutes, is free- 
dom of reason in the learned world, and 
good government and liberty in the civil 
world. Tyranny in one is ever accom- 
panied, or soon followed, by tyranny in 
the other. And when slavery is brought 
upon a people, they are soon reduced to 
that base and brutal state, both in their 
understandings and morals. 

True zeal therefore for God or religion, 
must be supported by real love for man- 
kind : and love of mankind cannot con- 
sist but with a right knowledge of man's 
great interests, and of the only ways and 
means (that of liberty and freedom) which 
God and nature has made necessary and 
essential to his manly dignity and cha- 
racter. They therefore who betray these 
principles, and the rights of mankind, 
betray religion even so as to make it an 
instrument against itself. 

But I must have done, and am your 
good friend to serve you. 



Sect. II. 



MODERN, OF EARLY DATE. 



173 



LETTER LXXVIII. 

From the same to the same. 

November 19th, 1707. 
Truly if your heart correspond en- 
tirely with your pen, and if you tho- 
roughly feel those good principles you 
have expressed, I cannot but have a 
great increase of kindness and esteem 
for you. 

Imagine not that I suspect you of so 
mean a thing as hypocrisy or aiFected 
virtue : I am fully satisfied you mean and 
intend what you write. But, alas ! the 
misfortune of youth, and not of youth 
merely, but of human nature, is such, 
that it is a thousand times easier to frame 
the highest ideas of virtue and goodness, 
than to practise the least part. And per- 
haps this is one of the chief reasons why 
virtue is so ill practised ; because the im- 
pressions, which seem so strong at first, 
are too far relied on. We are apt to 
think, that what appears so fair, and 
strikes us so forcibly, at the first view, 
will surely hold with us. We launch 
forth into speculation ; and after a time, 
when we look back and see how slowly 
practice comes up to it, we are the sooner 
led to despondency the higher we had 
carried our views before. 

Remember therefore to restrain your- 
self within due bounds ; and to adapt 
youi' contemplation to what you are ca- 
pable of practising. For there is a sort 
of spiritual ambition; and in reading 
those truly divine authors whom you 
have sometimes cited to me, I have ob- 
served many to have miscarried by too 
fervent and eager a pursuit of such per- 
fection. 

Glad I am, however, that you are not 
one of those dull souls that are incapable 
of any spiritual refinement. I rejoice to 
see you raise yourself above the rank of 
sordid and sensual spirits, who, though 
set apart and destined to spirituals, under- 
stand not that there is any thing prepa- 
ratory to it, beyond a little scholarship 
and knowledge of forms. I rejoice to 
see that you think of other preparations, 
and another discipline of the heart and 
mind, than what is thought of amongst 
that indolent and supine race of men. 

You are sensible, I perceive, that there 
is another sort of study, a profounder 
meditation, which becomes those wlio 
are to set an example to mankind, and 



fit themselves to expound and teach those 
short and summary precepts and divine 
laws, delivered to us in positive com- 
mands by our sacred Legislator. 

It is our business, and of all, as many 
as are raised in knowledge above the 
poor, illiterate, and laborious vulgar, to 
explain as far as possible the reasons of 
those laws ; their consent with the law 
of nature ; their suitableness to society, 
and to the peace, happiness, and enjoy- 
ment of ourselves. It is there alone that 
we have need of recourse to fire and 
brimstone, and what other punishments 
the Divine Goodness (for our good) has 
condescended to threaten us with, where 
the force of these arguments cannot 
prevail. 

Our business within ourselves is to set 
ourselves free according to that perfect 
law of liberty, which we are bid to look 
into. And I am delighted to read these 
words from you, viz. that we are made 
to contemplate and love God entirely, 
and with a free and voluntary love. But 
this you will see is a mystery too deep 
for those souls whom' you converse with, 
and see around you. They have scarce 
heard of what it is to combat with their 
appetites and senses. They think them- 
selves sufiiciently justified as men, and 
sufficiently qualified as holy men, and 
teachers of religion, if they can compass 
matters by help of circumstances and 
outward fortune, so as happily to re- 
strain these lusts and appetites of theirs 
within the bounds of ordinary hmnan 
laws. Hence those allurements of ex- 
ternal objects (as you well remark) they 
are so far from declining, that they 
rather raise and advance them by all 
possible means, without fear of adding 
fuel to their inflamed desires, in a heart 
which can never burn towards God till 
those other fires are extinct. 

God grant that since you know this 
better way, this chaste and holy disci- 
pline, you may 'still pursue it with that 
just and pious jealousy over your own 
heart, that neither your eyes, nor any of 
your senses, may be led away to serve 
themselves, or any thing but that Creator 
who made them for his service, and in 
whom alone is happiness and rest. 

I wisli you well, and shall be glad to 
hear still of you. 



174 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IL 



LETTER LXXIX. 

JProw Lord Shaftesbury to - 



April 2d, 170S. 
1 HAVE received yours every week, and 
am highly satisfied with your thoughts ; 
not doubting but they are truly your own 
and natural, as well as your manner of 
expressing them ; for in this I would 
have you keep an entire freedom, and 
deliver your sentiments still nakedly, and 
without art or ornament. For it is the 
heart I look for : and though the orna- 
ments of style are what you are obliged 
to study and practise on other occasions, 
the less you regard them, and the greater 
simplicity you discover in writing pri- 
vately to myself, the greater my satisfac- 
tion is, and the more becoming the part 
you have to act. 

I was particularly pleased with your 
thoughts and reasonings on Christian li- 
berty, and the zeal you shew for that no- 
ble principle, by which we cease to be 
slaves and drudges in religion ; and by 
being reconciled to our duty, and to the 
excellence of those precepts and injunc- 
tions, which tend absolutely to our good 
and happiness in every respect, we be- 
come liberal servants and children of 
God. 

A mind thus released and set at li- 
berty, if it once sees its real good, will 
hardly be deprived of it, or disheartened 
in the pursuit, whatever discourage- 
ment surrounds it. It is the inward 
enemy alone can stop it. For when a 
mind, set free from voluntary error and 
self-darkening conceit, aspires to what 
is generous and deserving, nothing but 
what is vile and slavish from within can 
deaden it ; nothing but a base love of 
inward slavery, and an adherence to our 
vices and corruptions, is able to effect 
this. 

In some, who are horridly degenerate, 
this submission is wholly voluntary. Self- 
interest leads them, whether it be a pri- 
vate one of their own, or in society and 
confederacy with some faction or party, 
to the support of temporal ends. In this 
case it carries a specious shew of public 
good ; whether it be in church or state. 
And thus it is often the occasion of an 
open denial of reason, and of a bare- 
faced opposition to the glorious search 
of truth. 

In others, it is mere sloth and lazi- 



ness, or sordid appetite and lust, which, 
bringing them under the power of sin 
and ignorance, fits them for political 
servitude by moral prostitution. For 
when the tyranny of lust and passion 
can be indulgently permitted, and even 
esteemed a happiness, no wonder if li- 
berty of thought be in little esteem. 
Every thing civil or spiritual of this kind 
must needs be disregarded, or rather 
looked upon with jealousy and appre- 
hension. 

For one tyranny supports another : 
one slavery helps and ministers to ano- 
ther. Vice ministers to superstition ; 
and a gainful ministress she is : super- 
stition on the other hand returns the 
kindness, and will not be ungrateful. 
Superstition supports persecution, and 
persecution superstition. 

Vice and intemperance is but an in- 
ward persecution. It is here the vio- 
lence begins. Here the truth is first 
held in unrighteousness, and the yvos-cuv, 
" reason knowable, the intelligible, the 
divine part," is persecuted and impri- 
soned. Those who submit to this ty- 
ranny, in time not only come to it, but 
plead for it, and think the law of virtue 
tyrannical and against nature. 

So in the absolute governments of the 
world : nations, that submit to arbitrary 
rule, love even their form of government : 
if one may call that a form which is with- 
out any, and, like vice itself, knows 
neither law nor order. 

In this state the mind helps forward 
the ill work. For when reason, as an 
antagonist to vice, is become an inward 
enemy, and has once lost her interest with 
the soul by opposing every favourite pas- 
sion, she will then be soon expelled an- 
other province, and lie under suspicion 
for every attempt she makes upon the 
mind. She is presently miscalled and 
abused. She is thought notional in the 
understanding, whimsical in company, 
seditious in the state, heretical in the 
church. Even in philosophy, her own 
proper dominion, she is looked upon as 
none of the best of companions ; and here 
also authority is respected as the most 
convenient guide. 

This we find to be the temper of cer- 
tain places ; where wit and sense, how- 
ever, are not wanting, nor learning of a 
certain kind. So that what is at the 
bottom of all this is easily seen by those 
who see those places, and can but make 



Sect. II. 



MODERN, OF EARLY DATE. 



175 



use of their eyes to observe manners and 
morals. 

It is pretty visible indeed that the ori- 
ginal of all is in those sordid vices of 
sloth, laziness, and intemperance. This 
makes way for ambition ; for how should 
these be so illustriously maintained and 
vindicated, v/ithout large temporal power, 
and the umbrage of authority ? Hence 
it is that those mother-vices are so in- 
dulgently treated in those places, and 
that temperance and virtue are looked 
upon with an evil eye, as fanatically in- 
clined. For who that is morally free, and 
has asserted his inward liberty, can see 
truth thus held, reason and ingenuity 
suppressed, without some secret abhor- 
rence and detestation ? 

But this you are happily apprized of ; 
nor can you miscarry or be turned aside 
by imposture, or assuming formality and 
pride of any kind. You know your li- 
berty : use it and be free. But use it as 
becomes you, with all due meekness and 
submission as to outward carriage. It 
is the inward man that is to be relieved 
and rescued from his chains. Others 
need not your admonition ; nor is this 
your duty, but far contrary. Preserve 
yourself from the contagion, and it is 
enough : a great task it is, and will ap- 
pear so to you, if you are hearty in it, 
and concerned for the thing itself, not 
the appearance. For the inclination to- 
wards rebuke and rectifying of others, 
which feels like zeal in us, is often the 
deceit of pride and self-conceit, which 
finds this way to screen itself and ma- 
nage undiscovered. 

Keep your virtue and honesty to 
yourself; for if it be truly such, it will 
be in no pain for being kept secret. 
And thus you may be safe, and in due 
time, perhaps, useful also to others. 
Learn to discourse and reason with 
yourself, or, as you honestly do, in let- 
ters to me. Trouble not others ; nor 
be provoked to shew your sentiments, 
and betray noble and generous truths to 
such as can neither bear them, nor those 
whom they suspect to be in possession 
of them. 

Mind that which is the chief of all, 
liberty ; and subdue early your own 
temper and appetites. It will then be 
time for higher speculations, when those 
wandering imaginations, vain conceits, 
and wanton thoughts of youth, are 
mortified and subdued. Religion then 



will have no enemy opposed to her ; and 
in spite of superstition^ and all spiritual 
tyrannies of the world, will soon be 
found a joyful task, the pleas ante st of all 
lives, quite other than is commonly re- 
presented. 

Look chiefly to this practice ; for this 
is always permitted you ; this you can 
be employed in every hour, even when 
books and privacy are denied you, and 
business and attendance required. The 
more you are a servant in this sense, the 
more you will partake of that chief li- 
berty which is learnt by obedience and 
submission. And thus even they who 
perhaps, by their haughtiness and harsh- 
ness, would render you a slave, and awe 
you into servile thoughts, will most of 
all contribute to your manumission ; if 
by their sad example they teach you (in 
meekness still and humility) to detest 
the more their narrow, persecuting, and 
bitter spirit, supported by their vices, 
and shew you evidently that great truth, 
that ' ' tyranny can never be exercised 
but by one who is already a slave." 

Be assured, therefore, that where the 
heart disdains this original corruption, 
the mind will be its friend : and by de- 
livering it from all spiritual bondage, 
will qualify it for a further progress, re- 
warding virtue by itself. For of virtue 
there can be no reward but of the same 
kind with itself; nothing can be super- 
added to it : and even heaven itself can 
be no other than the addition of grace 
to grace, virtue to virtue, and know- 
ledge to knowledge ; by which we may 
still more and more comprehend the 
chief virtue, and highest excellence, the 
Giver and Dispenser of all : to whom I 
commit you, and pray your studies may 
be eiFectual. So farewell. 



LETTER LXXX. 



Froiti the same to 



January 28th, 1708-0. 

I WAS that morning thinking with my- 
self what was become of you ; and al- 
most resolved to have you inquired of at 
your father's ; when I received your very 
surprising letter, which brought so good 
an account of yourself, and a proof how 
well you had spent your time, during 
this your long silence. 

It was providential, surely, that I 



176 



ELEGANT E P I S T L E Sv 



Book II. 



should happen once to speak to you of 
the Greek language, when you asked 
concerning the foundations of learning, 
and the source and fountain of those 
lights we have, whether in morality or 
divinity. It was not possible for me to 
answer you deceitfully or slightly. I 
could not but point out to you where 
the spring-head lay. But, as well as I 
can remember, I bad you not be discou- 
raged ; for by other channels, derived 
from those fountains, you would be suf- 
ficiently supplied with the knowledge 
necessary for the solemn character that 
lay before you. 

You hearkened to me, it seems, with 
great attention and belief, and did re- 
solve to take no middle way. But little 
could I have thought that you dared to 
have made your attempt on the other 
side, instead of drawing in your forces, 
and collecting your strength and the re- 
mainder of your precious time for what 
lay on this hither side. But since God 
would have it so, so be it : and I pray 
God prober you in your daring at- 
tempt, and bless you with true modesty 
and simplicity in all the other endea- 
vours and practices of your life, as you 
have had courage and mighty boldness 
in this one. 

And so indeed it may naturally hap- 
pen by the same good providence ; since 
at the instant that you began this enter- 
prise, you have fallen into such excel- 
lent reading. And if, as you shew by 
your letter, Simplicius's Comment be 
your delight, even that alone is a suffi- 
cient earnest of your soul's improve- 
ment as well as of your mind's, if such a 
distinction may well be made : for alas ! 
all that we call improvement of our 
minds in dry and empty speculation, all 
learning or whatever else, either in theo- 
logy or other science, which has not a 
direct tendency to render us honester, 
milder, juster, and better, is far from 
being justly so called. And even all 
that philosophy which is built on the 
comparison and compounding of ideas, 
complex, implex, reflex, and all that din 
and noise of metaphysics ; all that pre- 
tended study and science of nature 
called natural philosophy, Aristotelian, 
Cartesian, or v/hatever else it be; all 
those high contemplations of stars, and 
spheres, and planets ; and all the other 
inquisitive curious parts of learning, are 
so far from being necessary improve- 



ments of the mind, that without the 
utmost care they serve only to blow 
it up in conceit and folly, and render 
men more stiff in their ignorance and 
vices. 

And this brings into my thoughts a 
small piece of true learning, which I 
think is generally bound up with Sim- 
plicius and Epictetus : it is the Table (or 
Picture) of Cebes the Socratic, and elder 
disciple of Plato. This golden piece I 
would have you study, and have by 
heart; the Greek too being pure and 
excellent : and by this picture you will 
better understand my hint, and know 
the true learning from that which falsely 
passes under the name of wisdom and 
science. 

As for the divine Plato, I would not 
wish you, as yet, to go beyond a dia- 
logue or two ; and let those be the first 
and second Alcibiades : for now I will 
direct and assist you all 1 can, that you 
may gradually proceed, and not meet 
with stumbling-blocks in your way, or 
what instead of forwarding may retard 
you. 

Read these pieces again and again. 
Suspend for a while the reading of Epic- 
tetus, and read of Marcus Antoninus 
only what you perfectly understand. 
Look into no commentator ; though he 
has two very learned ones, Gataker 
and Casaubon : and by no means study 
or so much as think on any of the pas- 
sages that create any difficulty or hesi- 
tation : but, as I tell you, keep to the 
plain and easy passages, which you may 
mark or write out, and so use on occa- 
sion, as you walk or go about. For I 
reckon you are a good improver of your 
time, and that you manage every mo- 
ment to advantage ; else you could never 
have thus suddenly advanced so far as 
you have done. 

But, in this case, you must take care 
of your health, by moving and using ex- 
ercise, which makes me speak of walk- 
ing. For the mind must suffer, in some 
sense, when the body does. And stu- 
dents who are over-eager, and neglect 
this duty, hurt both their health and 
temper : the latter of which has a sad 
influence on their minds ; and makes 
them, like ill vessels, sour whatever is 
put into them, though of ever so good a 
land. For never do we more need a 
just cheerfulness, good humour, or ala- 
crity of mind, than when we are con- 



Sect. 11, 



MODERN, OF EARLY DATE. 



177 



templating' God and virtue. So that it 
may be assigned as one cause of the au- 
sterity and harshness of some men's di- 
vinity, that in their habit of mind, and 
by that very morose and sour temper, 
which they contract with their hard stu- 
dies, they make the idea of God so much 
after the pattern of their own bitter 
spirit. 

But, as i was saying concerning your 
progress, it is better for you to read in 
a small compass what is good and excel- 
lent, and of easy conception (without 
stop or difficulty, as to the speculation), 
than to read much in many. 

And having thus confined you, as to 
three of your authors mentioned, and 
set your bounds ; 1 proceed to the 
fourth, which is Lucian ; with whom, 
for a very different reason, I would have 
you also read but here and there. For 
though he is one of the politest writers 
of the latter age ; he only has set him- 
self out like the jay in the fable, with 
the spoils of those excellent and divine 
w^orks by way of dialogue (which was 
the way that anciently all the philo- 
sophers wrote in) ; most of which works 
are now lost and perished : and I fear 
the true reason why Lucian was pre- 
served, instead of any of the other, was 
because of the envy of the Christian 
church, which soon began to be so cor- 
rupt; and finding this author to be so 
truly profane, and a scoffer of his own 
and all religions, they were contented 
to bear his immorality and dissolute 
style and manners, only for the satis- 
faction of seeing the heathen religion 
ridiculed by a heathen, and the good 
and pious writers (unjustly styled pro- 
fane) most monstrously abused by a 
wretch, who was truly the most profane 
and impious : and who, at the same 
time, even in the pieces that are left of 
him in the same book, treats both Moses 
and our Saviour, and the whole Chris- 
tian religion, as contemptibly as he does 
his own. Therefore, as his dialogues of 
his courtezans are horridly vicious and 
licentious, and against all good man- 
ners ; and as his dialogues of the gods 
are mere buffoonery, and liis abuse of 
Plato, Socrates, and the rest of those 
divine heathens, as unjust and wicked, 
as really they are mean and ridiculous, 
I would not by any means have you 
to learn Greek at such a cost. There 
are some dialogues bound up, which 



are not of Jjucian's : and these are the 
best. One concerning the cynics (whom 
he elsev/here so abuses) is of that 
number, as I take it : and some plea- 
sant treatises there are besides, all in 
pure Greek. 

But here is the great and essential 
matter, of the last consequence to our 
souls and minds, to keep them from the 
contagion of pleasure. And to shew you 
that 1 am not by this an imitator of the 
severe ascetic monastic race of divines, 
or an admirer of any thing that looks 
like restraint in knowledge, or learning, 
or speculation ; consider of this that I 
am going to say to you, and carry your 
reflection as far back as to that first little 
glimmering of ingenuity, which shewed 
itself in you in your childhood ; I mean 
the art of painting. Had you been to 
have made one of those artists of the no- 
bier kind, who paint history, and actions, 
and nature ; and had you been sent 
by me into Italy, or elsewhere, to learn 
the style and manner of the great mas- 
ters ; what advice, think you, should 1 
have given you ? I say, what advice ? 
not as a Christian, or philosopher, or 
man of virtue ; but merely as a lover of 
the art : supposing I had ever been of a 
very vicious life ; and had had no other 
end in sending you abroad, than to h?„ve 
procured pictures, and have got you a 
masterly hand in that kind, and to have 
employed you afterwards for my own 
use, and for the ornament of my house : 
most certainly my advice must have been 
this (and thus any other master or pa- 
tron of common sense would have ac- 
costed you) : 

" You are now going to learn what 
is excellent and beautiful in the way of 
painting. You will go where there are 
many pictures of many different hands, 
and quite contrary in their manner and 
style. You wiU find many judges of 
different opinions ; and the worst mas- 
ters, the worst pieces, the worst styles 
and manners, will have their admirers. 
How is it you should form your relish ? 
By what means shall you come to have a 
right admiration yourself, and praise 
and imitate only what is truly exquisite 
and good in the kind? If you follow 
your sudden fancy and bent ; if you fix 
your eye on that ^^hich most strikes and 
pleases you at the first sight ; you will 
most certainly never come to have a 
good eve at all. You will be led aside, 
N 



178 



iSLEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book II. 



and have a florid, gay, foolish fancy ; and 
any lewd tawdry piece of dawhing will 
make a stronger impression on you, than 
the most majestic chaste piece of the 
soberest master ; and a Flemish or a 
French manner will more prevail with 
you than a true Italian. 

" How sliall we do then in this case ? 
— Why even thus : (for what way is 
there else?) make it a solemn iiile to 
yourself, to cheek your own eye and 
fancy, which naturally leads to gaiety, 
and turn it strongly on that which it 
cares not at first to dwell upon. Be sure 
that you pass by, on every occasion, 
whatever little idle piece of a negligent 
loose kind may be apt to detain your 
eye ; and fix yourself upon the nobler, 
more masterly, and studied pieces of 
such as were known virtuosos, and ad- 
mired by all such. If you find no grace 
or charm at the first looking, look on ; 
continue to observe all that you possibly 
can ; and when you have got one 
glimpse, improve it, copy it, cultivate 
the idea, and labour till you have 
worked yourself into a right taste, and 
formed a relish and understanding of 
what is truly beautiful in the kind." 

This is what an ordinary master or 
patron of common good sense would 
have said to you upon your enterprise 
on painting : and this is what I now 
say to you on your great enterprise on 
knowledge and learning. This is the 
reason I cry out to you against plea- 
sure ; to beware of those paths which 
lead to a wrong knowledge, a wrong 
judgment of what is supremely beautifid 
and good. 

Your endeavour and hope is to know 
God and goodness, in which alone there 
is true enjoyment and good. The way 
to this is not to put out your eyes, or 
hoodwink yourself, or lie in the dark, 
expecting to see visions. No, you need 
not apologize for yourself (as you do) 
for desiring to read Origen, the good 
Father, and best of aU those they call so. 
You shall not only, by my consent, read 
Origen, but even Celsus himself, who 
was a heathen and writ zealously against 
the Christians, whom Origen defends : 
so far am I from bidding you fly hereti- 
cal or heathen books, where good man- 
ners, honesty, and fair reason shew 
themselves. But where vice, ill man- 
ners, abusive wit, and buffoonery appear, 
the prejudice is just ; pronounce against 



such authors, fly them, and condemn 
them. 

Preserve yourself, and keep your eye 
and judgment clear. But if the eye be 
not open to all fair and handsome spec- 
tacles, how should you learn what is fair 
and handsome ? You would praise God : 
But how would you praise him? and 
for what? Know you, as yet, what true 
excellence is? The attributes, as you 
call them, which you have learnt in your 
catechism, or in the higher schools of 
the school-men and divines ; — the attri- 
butes, I say, of justice, goodness, wis- 
dom, and the like, are they really under- 
stood by you ? or do you talk of these 
by rote ? If so ; what is this but giving 
words to God, not praise, nor honour, 
nor glory? If the Apostle appeals to 
whatsoever is lovely, whatsoever is ho- 
nest (or comely), whatsoever is virtue, 
or praise-worthiness ; how shaU we 
understand his appeal till we have stu- 
died ? Or do we know these things from 
our cradles? For since we were men, 
we never vouchsafed to inquire ; but took 
for granted that we were knowing in the 
matter ; which yet, without philosophy, 
it is impossible we should be ; so that 
when, without philosophy, we make use 
of these high terms, and praise God in 
these philosophical characters, we may 
be very good and pious, and v/ell-mean- 
ing ; but indeed we are little better than 
parrots in devotion. 

To return therefore to the picture, and 
the advice I am to give you in your study 
of that great and masterly hand which 
has drawn all things, and exhibited this 
great master- piece of nature, this world 
or universe. The first thing is, that you 
prepare and clear your sight ; that your 
eye be simple, pure, uncorrupted, and 
ready and fit to receive that light which 
is to shine into it. This is done by vir- 
tue, meekness, modesty, sincerity. And 
way being thus made, your resolution 
standing towards truth, and you being 
conscious to yourself, that whilst you seek 
truth you cannot offend the God of truth ; 
be not afraid of viewing all and com- 
paring all. For without comparison of 
the false with the true, of the ugly with 
the beauteous, of the dark and obscure 
with the bright and shining, we can 
measure nothing, nor apprehend any 
thing that is excellent. We m.ay be as 
well pagan, heathen, Turk, or any thing 
else ; if being at Constantinople, Ispahan, 



Sect. II. 



MODERN, OF EARLY DATE. 



179 



or wherever the seat of any great em- 
pire is we refuse to look on Christian 
authors, or hear their sober apologists, as 
being contrary to the history imposed on 
us, with an utter destruction and can- 
celling of all other history or philosophy 
whatsoever. 

But this fear being set aside, which is 
so wholly unworthy of God, and so de- 
basing to his standard of reason which he 
has placed in us ; our next concern is, to 
look impartially into all authors, and 
upon all nations, and into all parts of 
learning and human life ; to seek and find 
out the true pidchrwn, the honestum, the 
yiOiKoY : by which standard and measure 
we may know God ; and know how to 
praise him, when we have learnt what 
is praiseworthy. 

Be this your search, and by these 
means, and by this way I have shewn 
you. Seek for the xaAov in every thing, 
beginning as low as the plants, the fields, 
or even the common arts of mankind, to 
see what is beauteous, and what contrary. 
Thus, and by the original fountains you 
are arrived to, you will, under Provi- 
dence, attain beauty and true wisdom 
for yourself, being true to virtue ; and 
so God prosper you. 



LETTER LXXXI. 



lation be not perfectly good and conform- 
able to this standard. For, if so, the very 
end of the Gospel proves its truth. And 
that which to the vulgar is only know- 
able by miracles, and teachable by posi- 
tive precepts and commands, to the wise 
and virtuous is demonstrable by the na- 
ture of the thing. So that how can we 
forbear to give our assent to those doc- 
trines, and that revelation, which is de- 
livered to us, and enforced by miracles 
and wonders ? But to us, the very test 
and proof of the divineness and truth of 
that revelation is from the excellence of 
the things revealed : otherwise the won- 
ders themselves would have little efi'ect 
or power ; nor could they be thoroughly 
depended on, were we even as near to 
them as those who lived more than a 
thousand years since, when they were 
freshly wrought, and strong in the me- 
mory of men. This is what alone can 
justify our easiness of faith ; and in this 
respect we can never be too resigned, 
too willing, or too complaisant. 

Meanwhile let your eye be simple, and 
turn it from the oMsov to the ^siov. View 
God in goodness, and in his works, 
which have that character. Dwell with 
honesty, and beauty, and order : study 
and love what is of this kind ; and in time 
you will know and love the Author. 
Farewell. 



Lord Shafteshwy to . 

Februar_v 8, 1 709. 
I COMMEND your honest liberty : and 
therefore in the use of it recommend 
to you the pursuit of the same thoughts, 
that you have so honestly and naturally 
grafted upon the stock afforded you : 
to which God grant a true life and in- 
crease. 

Time v/ill be, when your greatest dis- 
turbance will arise from that ancient dif- 
ficulty TToSev ro Tcaxov. But when you 
have well inured yourself to the precepts 
and speculation which give the view of its 
noble contrary (ro xaAov), you will rest 
satisfied. But be persuaded, in the mean 
time, that wisdom is more from the heart, 
than from the head. Feel goodness, and 
you will see all things fair and good. 

Let it be your chief endeavour to make 
acquaintance with what is good : that by 
seeing perfectly, by the help of reason, 
what good is, and what ill, you may 
prove whether that which is from reve- 



LETTER LXXXIL 

Frotn the same to the sajjie. 

May 5, 1709. 
I A3I mightily satisfied with your writing 
to me as you do : pray continue. 

I like your judgment and thoughts on 
the books you mention ; the bishop of 
Salisbury's Exposition of the Articles is, 
no doubt, highly worthy of your study. 
None can better explain tiie sense of the 
church, than one who is the greatest pil- 
lar of it since the first founders ; one who 
best explained and asserted the Reforma- 
tion itself, was chiefly instrumental in 
saving it from popery before and at the 
Revolution, and is now the truest ex- 
ample of laborious, primitive, pious, 
and learned episcopacy. Tlie antidote, 
indeed, recommended to you, was very 
absurd, as you remark yourself; and pray 
have little to do with controversy of any 
sort. 

N2 



180 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IL 



Chilling'worth against Popery is suffi- 
<iieiit reading- for you, and Avill teach you 
the best manner of that polemic divinity. 
It is enough to read what is good ; and 
what you find bad lay aside. The good 
you read will be a sufficient prevention 
and anticipation against any evil that 
may chance come across you impercep- 
tibly. Fill yourself with good ; and you 
will carry within you sufficient answer 
to the bad ; and by a sort of instinct 
soon discern the one from the other. 

Trust your own heart whilst you keep 
it honest, and can lift it up to the God 
of truth, as seeking that, and that only. 
But keep yourself from wrangling, and a 
controversial spirit ; for more harm is 
taken by a fierce, sour answer to an ill 
book, than from the book itself 5 be it ever 
so ill. Therefore remember, I charge 
you to avoid controversial writers. 

If the ancients in their purity are as 
yet out of your reach, search the mo- 
derns that are nearest to them. If you 
cannot converse with the most ancient, 
use the most modern. For the authors 
of the middle age, and all that sort of 
philosophy, as well as divinity, will be 
of little advantage to you. Gain the 
purity of the English, your OAvn tongue ; 
and read whatever is esteemed polite or 
well writ that comes abroad. You may 
give me an account of this. 

Meanwhile I am glad you read those 
modern divines of our nation who lived 
in this age, and were remarkable for mo- 
deration, and the Christian principle of 
charity and toleration. 

Do as your genius directs you ; and if 
you are virtuous and good, your genius 
will guide you right. But whatever it 
be, either ancient or modera, that you 
choose or read ; or however you change 
your opinion or course of study ; com- 
municate, and you shall be heard will- 
ingly, and advised the best I am able. 

I think your genius has dictated right 
to you about a little pamphlet, which, 
it seems, is commonly sold with the re- 
flections lately writ upon it ; which, if 
short, I would not for once debar you 
from, but have you hear what is said in 
answer, lest you should seem to yourself 
mistaken or diffident as to the truth. 
For my own part, I cannot but think 
from my heart, that the author of the 
pamphlet (whatever air of humour he 
may give himself, the better to take with 
the polite world) is most sincere to vir- 



tue and religion, and even to the interest 
of our church. For many of our modern 
asserters of toleration have seemed to 
leave us destitute of what he calls a 
public leading, or ministry ; which no- 
tion he treats as mere enthusiasm, or 
horrid irreligion . For, in truth , religion 
cannot be left thus to shift for itself, 
without the care and countenance of the 
magistrate. But in the remarks, or re- 
flections, I find the answerers are so far 
from understanding this plain sense of a 
leading, that they think it means only a 
leading by the nose. So excellent are 
these gentlemen at improving ridicule 
against themselves. They care not who 
defends religion, or how it is defended, 
if it be not in their way. They cry out 
upon a deluge of scepticism breaking 
out and overwhelming us, in this witty 
knowing age ; and yet they will allow 
no remedy proper in the case, no appli- 
cation to the world in a more genteel, 
polite, open, and free way. They for 

their parts (witness Dr. A y against 

the good Mr. H y) have asserted 

virtue upon baser principles, and more 
false and destructive by far, than Epi- 
curus, Democritus, Aristippus, or any of 
the ancient atheists. They have sub- 
verted all morality, all grounds of ho- 
nesty, and supplanted the whole doctrine 
of our Saviour, under pretence of mag- 
nifying his revelation. In philosophy 
they give up all foundations, all princi-^ 
pies of society, and the very best argu- 
ments to prove the being of a Deity. 
And, by the way, this pamphlet, which 
they are so offended at, is so strong on 
this head, that the author asserts the 
Deity even on the foundations of his in- 
nate idea, and the power of this notion 
even over atheists themselves, and by the 
very concession of Epicurus and that sect. 
But no more now. Continue to inform 
me of your reading and of new books : 
and God be with you. 



LETTER LXXXIII. 

Lord Shaftesbury to 



J)ecember 30, 1709. 

I HEARTILY approvcd your method and 
design, and continue to do so. Get what 
you can of the Greek language : it is the 
fountain of all ; not only of polite learn- 
ing and philosophy, but of divinity also, 



8ect. II. 



M D E R N, OF EARLY DATE. 



181 



as being the language of our sacred ora- 
cles. For even the Old Testament is in 
its best and truest language in the Sep- 
tuagint. All that you can get of leisure 
from other exercise and the required 
school-learning, apply to Greek. 

The few good books of our divines 
and moralists, which you have discovered 
by your own sagacity, will serve you both 
for language and thought. 

Dr. More's Enchiridion Etldcuiii is a 
right good piece of sound morals ; though 
the doctor himself, in other English 
pieces, could not abide by it, but made 
different excursions into other regions, 
and was perhaps as great an enthusiast 
as any of those whom he wrote against. 
However, he was a learned and a good 
man. 

Remember my former cautions and 
recommendations, and endeavour above 
all things to avoid the conceit and pride 
which is almost naturally inherent to the 
function and calling you are about to 
undertake. And since we think fit to 
call it priesthood, see that it be of such 
a kind, as may not make you say or think 
of yourself in the presence of another, 
that you are holier than he. It is a so- 
lemn part ; but see and beware that the 
solemnity do not abuse you. And re- 
member, that He, whom you own to be 
your master and legislator, made no 
laws relating to civil power or interfer- 
ing with it. So that all the pre-emi- 
nence, wealth, or pension, which you re- 
ceive, or expect to receive, by help of this 
assumed character, is from the public, 
whence both the authority and profit 
is derived, and on Avliich it legally de- 
pends ; all other pretensions of priests 
being Jewish and heathenish, and in our 
state seditious, disloyal, and factious ; 
such as is that spirit which now reigns 
in our universities, and where the high- 
church-men (as they are called) are pre- 
valent. But to this (thank God) our 
parliament, interposing at this instant, 
gives a check,' by proceeding against 

Dr. S 1, and advancing Mr. H y, 

of v/hom I have often spoken to you. 

No more now ; but God bless your 
studies and endeavours. Never was more 
need of a spirit of moderation and Chris- 
tianity among those who are entering on 
the ministerial function : since the con- 
trary spirit has possessed almost the 
whole priesthood beyond all former fa- 
natics. God send you all true Chris- 



tianity, with that temper, life, and man- 
ners, which become it. Farewell. 



LETTER LXXXIV. 

From the same to the same. 

July 10, ]710. 

I BELIEVED indeed it was your expect- 
ing me every day at -^ * * *, that pre- 
vented your writing, since you received 
orders from the good bishop, my lord 
of Salisbury ; who, as he had done more 
than any man li\ang for the good and 
honour of the church of England and 
the reformed religion, so he now suffers 
more than any man from the tongues and 
slander of those ungrateful churchmen ; 
who may well call themselves by that 
single term of distinction, having no 
claim to that of Christianity or Protest- 
ant, since they have thrown off all the 
temper of the former, and all concern or 
interest with the latter. 

I hope whatever advice the great and 
good bishop gave you will sink deeply 
into your mind : and that your receiving 
orders from the hands of so worthy a 
prelate will be one of the circumstances 
which may help to insure your steadiness 
in honesty, good principles, moderation, 
and true Christianity ; which are now set 
at naught and at defiance by the far 
greater part and numbers of that body 
of clergy called the Church of England ; 
who no more esteem themselves a Pro- 
testant church, or in union with those of 
Protestant communion ; though they 
pretend to the name of Christian, and 
would have us judge of the spirit of 
Christianity from theirs : which God 
prevent ! lest good men should in 
time forsake Christianity through their 
means. 

As for my part of kindness and friend- 
ship to you, I shall be sufficiently recom- 
pensed, if you prove (as you have ever 
promised) a virtuous, pious, sober, and 
studious man, as becomes the solemn 
charge belonging to you. But you have 
been brought into the world, and (5ome 
into orders, in the worst times for in- 
solence, riot, pride, and presumption of 
clergymen that I ever knew, or have 
read of; though I have searched far into 
the characters of high churchmen from 
the first centuries, in which they grew 
to be dignified with crowns and purple. 



182 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



B< 



H. 



to the late times of our reformation, 
and to our present age. 

The thorough knowledge you have 
had of me, and the direction of all my 
studies and life to the promotion of reli- 
gion, virtue, and the good of mankind, 
will (I hope) he of some good example 
to you ; at least it will be a hinderance 
to your being seduced by infamies and 
calumnies ; such as are thrown upon the 
men called moderate, and in their style 
indiflferent in religion, heterodox, and 
heretical. 

I pray God to bless you in your new 
function with all the true virtue, humi- 
lity, moderation, and meekness, which 
becomes it. I am your hearty friend. 



LETTER LXXXV. 

Lojd Shaftesbury to Robert Molesworth, 
Esq. 

Chelsea, Sept. 30, 1708. 
Dear sir. 
Two reasons have made me delay an- 
swering yours ; I was in hopes of seeing 
our great lord, and I depended on Mr. 
Micklethwayt's presenting you with my 
services, and informing you of all mat- 
ters public and private. The queen is 
but just come to Kensington, and my 
lord* to town. He promised to send 
me word, and appoint me a time, when 
he came. But I should have prevented 
him, had it been my weather for town 
visits. But having owed the recovery of 
my health to the method I have taken 
of avoiding the town smoke, 1 am kept 
at a distance, and like to be removed 
even from hence in a little while : 
though I have a project of staying 
longer here than my usual time, by re- 
moving now and then cross the water, 
to my friend sir John Cropley's in Sur- 
rey, where my riding and airing recruits 
me. I am highly rejoiced, as you may 
believe, that I can find myself able to do 
a little more public service, than what 
of late years I have been confined to, 
in my country : and I own the circum- 
stances of a court were never so inviting 
to me, as they have been since a late 
view I have had of the best part of our 
ministry. It may perhaps have added 

* The earl of Godolphin, tlicn lord trea- 
surer. 



more of confidence and forwardness in 
my way of courtship, to be so incapaci- 
tated as I am from taking any thing 
there for myself. But I hope I may 
convince some persons, that it is possi- 
ble to serve disinterestedly ; and that 
obligations already received (though on 
the account of others) are able to bind 
as strongly as the ties of self-interest. 

I had resolved to stay till I had one 
conference more with our lordf before 
I writ to you : but a letter, which I have 
this moment received from Mr. Mickle- 
thwayt, on his having waited on you in 
the country, has made me resolve to 
write thus hastily (without missing to- 
night's post) to acknowledge, in the 
friendliest and freest manner, the kind 
and friendly part you have taken in my 
private interests. If I have ever endured 
any thing for the public, or sacrificed 
any of my youth, or pleasures, or inter- 
ests to it, I find it is made up to me in 
the good opinion of some few : and per- 
haps one such friendship as yours may 
counterbalance all the malice of my 
worst enemies. It is true, what I once 
told you I had determined with myself, 
never to think of the continuance of a 
family, or altering the condition of life 
that was most agreeable to me, whilst I 
had (as I thought) a just excuse : but 
that of late I had yielded to niy friends, 
and allowed them to dispose of me, if 
they thought that by this means I could 
add any thing to the poAver or interest I 
had to serve them or .my country. I 
was afraid, however, that I should be so 
heavy andunactive in this affair, that my 
friends would hardly take me to be in 
earnest. But though it be so lately that 
I have taken my resolution, and that you 
were one of the first who knew it, I have 
on a sudden such an affair thrown across 
me, that I am confident I have zeal 
enough raised in me to hinder you from 
doubting whether I sincerely intend what 
I profess. There is a lady whom chance 
has thrown into my neighbourhood, and 
whom I never saw till the Sunday before 
last, who is in every respect that very 
person I had ever framed a picture of 
from my imagination, when I wished the 
best for my own happiness in such a cir- 
cumstance. I had heard her character 
before ; and her education, and every 
circumstance beside, suited exactly, all 

f Earl of Godolphirio 



I 



Sect. II 



MODERN, OF EARLY DATE. 



183 



but her fortune. Had she but a ten 
thousand pounds, my modesty would 
allow me to apply without reserve, where 
it was proper. And I would it were in 
my power, without injury to the lady, 
to have her upon those terms, or lower. 
I flatter myself too, by all appearance, 
that the father has long" had and yet re- 
tains some regard for me ; and that the 
disappointments he has had in some 
higher friendships may make him look 
as low as on me, and imagine me not 
wholly unworthy of his relation. But, 
if by any interest I had, or could possi- 
bly make with the father, I should in- 
duce him to bestow his daughter, per- 
haps with much less fortune (since I 
would gladly accept her so) than what 
in other places he would have bestowed, 
I shall draw a double misfortune on the 
lady ; unless she has goodness enough 
to think, that one who seeks her for 
what he counts better than a fortune, 
may possibly by his worth or virtue make 
her sufficient amends. And were I but 
encouraged to hope or fancy this, I 
would begin my offers to-morrow ; and 
should have greater hopes, tliat my dis- 
interestedness would be of some service 
to me in this place, as matters stand. 

You see my scruple ; and being used 
to me, and knowing my odd temper (for 
I well know you believe it no affecta- 
tion), you may be able to relieve me, 
and have the means in your hands : for 
a few words with one, who has the ho- 
nour to be your relation, would resolve 
me in this affair. I cannot stir in it till 
then, and should be more afraid of my 
good fortune than my bad, if it should 
hap])en to me to prevail Avith a father for 
whom the lady has so true a duty, that, 
even against her inclination, she would 
comply with any thing he required. I 
am afraid it will be impossible for you to 
read, or make sense of, what I write thus 
hastily: but I fancy with myself, I make 
you the greater confidence, in trust- 
ing to my humour and first thought, 
without staying till I have so much as 
formed a reflection. 1 am sure there is 
hardly anyone besides you, I should lay 
myself thus open to ; but I am secure in 
your friendship, which I rely on (for ad- 
vice) in this affair. I beg to hear from 
you in answer by the first post, being, 
with great sincerity, your faithful friend 
and humble servant. 



LETTER LXXXVI 

Fi'om the same to the same. 

Beachwoith, in Surrey, Oct. 12, 17; 8. 

Dear sir, 
From the hour I liad writ you that 
hasty letter from Chelsea I was in pain 
till I had heard from you ; and could not 
but often wish I had not writ in that 
hurry and confusion. But since I have 
received yours in answer, I have all the 
satisfaction imaginable. I see so sincere 
a return of friendship, that it cannot any 
more concern me to have laid myself so 
open. 

I would have a friend see me at the 
worst ; and it is a satisfaction to find, 
that if one's failures or weaknesses were 
greater than really they are, one should 
still be cherished, and be supplied even 
with good sentiments and discretion, 
when they were wanting. One tiling only 
I beg you would take notice of, that 1 
had never any thoughts of applying to 
the young lady before I applied to the 
father. My morals are rather too strict 
to let me have tiiken such an advantage, 
had it been ever so fairly offered. But 
my drift was, to learn whether there 
had been an inclination to any one be- 
fore me ; for many offers had been, and 
some I know very great, vdtliin these 
few months. And though the duty of 
the daughter might have acquiesced in 
the dislike of the father, so as not to 
shew any discontent ; yet there might 
be something of this lying at the heart, 
and so strongly, that my application and 
success (if I had any) might be looked on 
with an ill eye, and cause a real trouble. 
This vvould have caused it, I am sure, in 
me ; when I should have come, perhaps 
too late, to have discovered it. But there 
is nothing of this in the case, by all that 
I can judge or learn. Never did I hear 
of a creature so perfectly resigned to 
duty, so innocent in herself, and so con- 
tented imder those means which have 
kept and still keep her so innocent as to 
the vanities and vices of the world ; 
though with real good parts, and im- 
provement of them at home ; for of this 
my lord has wisely and handsomely taken 
care. Never was any thing so unfortu- 
nate for me, as that she should be such 
a fortune ; for that I know is wliat every 
body will like, and I perhaps have tlie 
worst relish of, and least deserve. The* 



184 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IL 



other qualities I should prize more than 
any, and the generality of mankind, in- 
stead of prizing would he apt to con- 
temn ; for want of air and humour, and 
the wit of general conversation, and 
the knowledge of the town, and fashions, 
and diversions, are unpardonable dul- 
nesses ■ in young wives ; who are taken 
more as companions of pleasure, and to 
he shewn abroad as beauties in the world, 
than to raise families, and support the 
honour and interest of those they are 
joined to. 

But to shew you that I am not want- 
ing to myself, since your encouraging 
and advising letter, 1 have begun my 
application, by what you well call the 
right end*. You shall hear with what 
success, as soon as I know myself. I 
could both be bolder and abler in the ma- 
nagement of the affair, and could pro- 
mise myself sure success, had I but a 
constitution that would let me act for 
myself, and bustle in and about that 
town which, by this winter season com- 
ing on so fiercely, is by this time in 
such a cloud of smoke, that I can nei- 
ther be in it nor near it. I stayed but 
a day or two too long at Chelsea, after 
the setting in of these east and north- 
east winds, and I had like to have fallen 
into one of my short-breathing fits, 
which would have ruined me. But by 
flying hither and keeping my distance, 
I keep my health, but (I may well fear) 
shall lose my mistress. For who ever 
courted at this rate ? Did matters lie so 
as to the fortune, that I could be the 
obliging side, it might go on with toler- 
able grace ; and so 1 fear it must be, 
whenever I marry, or else am likely to 
remain a bachelor. 

However, you can never any more 
arraign my morals after this. You can 
never charge me, as you .have done, for 
a remissness and laziness, or an indul- 
gence to my own ways, and love of re- 
tirement ; which (as you thought) might 
have me made averse to undertake the 
part of wife and children, though my 
country or friends ever so much required 
it of me. You see it will not be my 
fault ; and you shall find I will not act 
booty for myself. If I have any kind of 
success at this right end, I will then beg 
to use the favour of your interest in your 
cousin, as I shall then mention to you ; 

^- The father. 



but instead of setting me off for other 
things, I would most earnestly beg that 
you would speak only of your long and 
thorough knowledge of me, and (if you 
think it true) of my good temper, ho- 
nesty, love of my relations and country, 
sobriety and virtue. For these I hope 1 
may stand to as far as I am possessed of 
them. They will not, I hope, grow 
worse as I grov/ older. For though I 
can promise little of my regimen, by 
which I hold my health ; I am per- 
suaded to think no vices will grow upon 
me, as I manage myself; for in this I 
have been ever sincere, to make myself 
as good as I was able, and to live for no 
other end. 

1 am ashamed to have writ such a long 
letter about myself, as if I had no con- 
cern for the public ; though I may truly 
say to you, if I had not the public in 
view, I should hardly have these thoughts 
of changing my condition at this time of 
day, that I can better indulge myself in 
the ease of a single and private life. The 
weather, which is so unfortunate for me 
by these settled east winds, keeps the 
country dry ; and if they are the same 
(as is likely) in Flanders, I hope ere 
this Lisle is ours, which has cost us 
so dear, and held us in such terrible 
anxiety. 

-I have been to see lord treasurer that 
little while he was in town, but could 
not find him. 

Pray let me hear in your next, what 
time you think of coming up*. I shall 
be glad to hear soon from you again. 
Wishing you delight and good success 
in your country affairs, and all happi- 
ness and prosperity to your family, I re- 
main, dear sir, your obliged friend and 
faithful humble servant. 

Sir John Cropley, with whom I am 
here, presents his humble service to you. 

LETTER LXXXVIL 

Lord Shafiesbuiy to Robert Molesworth^ 

Esq. 

Beachworth, in Surrey, Oct. 23, 1708. 

Dear sir. 

You guessed right as to the winds, 

which are still easterly, and keep me 

here in winter-quarters, from all public 

* From Edlington, a seat the lord Moles- 
worth had in Yorkshire. 



Sect. 11. 



MODERN, OF E A U L Y DAT 11. 



185 



and private affairs. I have neither seen 
lord treasurer, nor been at Chelsea* to 
prosecute my own affair ; though as for 
this latter, as great as my zeal is, I am 
forced to a stand. I was beforehand 
told, that as to the lord, he was in some 
measure engaged ; and the return I had 
from him, on my application, seemed to 
imply as much. On the other side I 
have had reason to hope, that the lady, 
who had before bemoaned herself for 
being destined to greatness without vir- 
tue, had yet her choice to make ; and, 
after her escapes, sought for nothing so 
much as sobriety and a strict virtuous 
character. How much more still this 
adds to my zeal you may believe ; and by 
all hands I have received the highest cha- 
racter of your relation, who seems to 
have inspired her with these and other 
good sentiments, so rare in her sex 
and degree. My misfortune is, I have 
no friend in the world by whom I can in 
the least engage, or have access to your 
relation, but only by yourself; and I 
have no hopes of seeing you soon, or of 
your having any opportunity to speak 
of me to her. If a letter could be pro- 
per, I should fancy it more so at this time 
than any other ; provided you would 
found it on the common report which is 
abroad, of my being in treaty for that 
lady. This might give you an occasion 
of speaking of me as to that part which 
few besides can know so well — I mean 
my heart ; which, if she be such as really 
all people allow, will not displease her to 
hear so well of, as perhaps in friendship 
and from old acquaintance you may re- 
present. If the person talked of be 
really my rival, and in favour with the 
father, I must own my case is next to 
desperate ; not only because I truly think 
him, as the world goes, likely enough to 
make a good (at least a civil) husband ; 
but because as my aim is not fortune, 
and his is, he being an old friend too, I 
should unwillingly stand between him 
and an estate ; which his liberality has 
hitherto hindered him from gaining, as 
great as his advantages have been hi- 
therto in the government. By what I 
have said, I believe you may guess who 
my supposed rival is f ; or if you want a 
farther hint, it is one of the chief of the 

* He had a pretty retreat at Little Chelsea, 
which he fitted up according to his own fancy. 

f Charles Montague, late earl of Halifax. 



Junto, an old friend of yours and mine^ 
whom we long sat with in the House of 
Commons (not often voted with), but 
who was afterwards taken up to a higher 
house ; and is as much noted for wit and 
gallantry, and magnificence, as for his 
eloquence and courtier's character. But 
whether this be so suited to this meek 
good lady's happiness, I know not. Fear 
of partiality and self-love makes me not 
dare determine, but rather mistrust my- 
self, and turn the balance against me. 
Pray keep this secret, for I got it by 
chance ; and if there be any thing in it, 
it is a great secret between the two lords 
themselves. But sometimes I fancy it 
is a nail which will hardly go, though I 
am pretty certain it has been aimed at 
by this old acquaintance of ours, ever 
since a disappointment happened from a 
great lord beyond sea, who was to have 
had the lady. 

Nothing but the sincere friendship you 
shew for me could make me to continue 
thus to impart my privatest affairs : and 
in reality, though they seem wholly pri- 
vate and selfish, I will not be ashamed to 
own the honesty of my heart to you ; in 
professing that the public has much the 
greatest part in all this bustle I am en- 
gaging in. You have lately made me 
believe, and even proved too by expe- 
rience, that I had some interest in the 
world ; and there, where I least dreamt 
of it, with great men in power. I had 
always something of an interest in my 
country, and with the plain honest peo- 
ple : and sometimes I have experienced 
both here, at home, and abroad, where I 
have long lived, and made acquaintance 
(in Holland especially), that with a plain 
character of honesty and disinterested- 
ness, I have on some occasions, and in 
dangerous urgent times of the public, 
been able to do some good. If the in- 
crease of my fortune be the least motive 
in this affair before me (as sincerely 1 do 
not find), I will venture to say, it can 
only be in respect of the increase of my 
interest, which I may have in my coun- 
try in order to serve it. 

One who has little notion of magni- 
ficence, and less of pleasure and luxury, 
has not that need of riches which otliers 
have. And one who prefers tranquillity ^ 
and a little study, and a few friends, to 
all other advantages of life, and all the 
flatteries of ambition and fame, is not like 
to be naturally so very fond of engaging 



186 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book II. 



in the circumstances of marriage : I do 
not go swimmingly to it, I assure you ; 
nor is the great fortune a great bait. 
Sorry I am, that nobody with a less for- 
tune, or more daughters, has had the 
wit to order such an education. A very 
moderate fortune had served my turn ; 
or perhaps quality alone, to have a little 
justified me, and kept me in countenance 
had I chose so humbly. But now that 
which is rich ore, and would have been 
the most estimable had it been bestowed 
on me, will be mere dross, and flung away 
on others, who will pity and despise 
those very advantages which I prize so 
much. But this is one of the common- 
places of exclamation, against the distri- 
bution of things in this world ; and, upon 
my word, whoever brought up the pro- 
verb, it is no advantageous one for a 
Providence to say, " Matches are made 
in heaven." I believe rather in favour 
of Providence, that there is nothing 
which is so merely fortune, and more 
committed to the power of blind chance. 
So I must be contented, and repine the 
less at my lot, if I am disappointed in 
such an affair. If I satisfy my friends 
that I am not wanting to myself, it is 
sufficient. I am sure you know it, by 
the sound experience of all this trouble I 
have given and am still like to give you. 
Though I confess myself, yet even in 
this too I do but answer friendship, as 
being so sincerely and affectionately 
your most faithful friend and humble 
servant. 



LET^PER LXXXVIII. 

Lord S/iaficsbiay to R. Molesivorth, Esq. 
Beachworth, Nov. 4, 1708. 

Dear sir, 
1 WAS at Chelsea when 1 received yours 
with the enclosed, and was so busied 
in the employment you had given me, by 
your encouragement and kind assistance 
in a certain affair, that I have let pass 
two posts without returnhig you thanks, 
for the greatest marks of your friendship 
that any one can possibly receive. Indeed 
I might well be ashamed to receive them 
in one sense, since the character you 
have given of me* is so far beyond what 
I dare think suitable ; though in these 

* This relates to a letter the lord Moles- 
worth had written in his favour. 



cases, one may better perhaps give way 
to vanity than in any other. But though 
friendship has made you over favourable, 
there is one truth, however, which your 
letter plainly carries with it, and must do 
me service. It shews that I have a real 
and passionate friend in you ; and to have 
deserved such a friendship, must be be- 
lieved some sort of merit. I do not say 
this as aiming at a fine speech, but in 
reality, where one sees so little friendshi}) 
and of so short continuance, as com- 
monly in mankind it must be, one would 
think, even in the sex's eye, a pledge of 
constancy, fidelity, and other merit, to 
have been able to engage and preserve so 
lasting and firm a friendship with a man 
of worth. So that you see, I can find 
a way to reconcile myself to all you have 
said in favour of me, allowing it to have 
been spoken in passion ; and in this re- 
spect the more engaging with the sex ; 
who are as good or better judges than we 
ourselves of the sincerity of affection. 

But in the midst of my courtship came 
an east wind, and with the tOAvn smoke 
did my business, or at least would have 
done it efl'ectually, had I not fled hither 
with what breath I had left. Indeed I 
could have almost laughed at my own 
misfortune ; there is something so odd in 
my fortune and constitution. You may 
think me melancholy if you will. I 
own there was a time in public affairs 
when I really was ; for, saving yourself, 
and perhaps one or two more (I speak 
the most), I had none that acted with me, 
against the injustice and corruption of 
both parties ; each of them inflamed 
against me, particularly one, because of 
my birth and principles ; the other, be- 
cause of my pretended apostasy, which 
was only adhering to those principles on 
which their party was founded. There 
have been apostates indeed since that 
time. But the days are long since past 
that you and I were treated as Jacobitesf. 
What to say for some companions of ours, 
as they are now changed J, I know not : 



f The truly apostate Whigs, who became 
servile and arbitrary to please court empirics, 
branded all those as Jacobites who adhered to 
those very principles that occasioned and jus- 
fied the revolution. 

X Here he means some who voted with him 
in his favourite bills, and who were originally 
Whigs ; but out of pique and disappointment, 
became, if not real Jacobites (which was 
scarce possible), yet in effect as bad, by pro- 



Sect. II. 



MODERN, OF EARLY DATE. 



187 



but as to my own particular, I assure you, 
that since those sad days of the public, 
which might have helped on perhaps with 
that melancholy or spleen which you fear 
in me, and for certain have helped me 
to this ill state of health ; I am now, how- 
ever, as free as possible ; and even in re- 
spect of my health too, excepting only 
the air of London, I am, humanly speak- 
ing, very passable ; but gallantly speak- 
ing, and as a courtier of the fair sex, God 
knows I may be very far from passing. 
And I have that sort of stubbornness and 
wilfulness (if that be spleen) that I can- 
not bear to set a better face on the mat- 
ter than it deserves ; so 1 am like to be 
an iU courtier, for the same reason that 
I am an ill jockey. It is impossible for 
me to conceal my horse's imperfections 
or my own, where I mean to dispose of 
either. I think it unfair ; so that could 
any quack, by a peculiar medicine, set 
me up for a month or two, enough to 
go through with my courtship, I would 
not accept his offer, unless I could mira- 
culously be made v/hole. Now for a 
country health and a town neighbour- 
hood, I am sound and well ; but for a 
town life, whether it be for business or 
diversion, is out of my compass. 

I say all this, that you may know my 
true state, and how desperate a man you 
serve, and in how desperate a case. 
Should any thing come of it, the fi'iend- 
ship will appear the greater ; or if no- 
thing, the friendship will appear the 
same still, as to me myself. Your let- 
ter was delivered ; I hope you will hear 
soon in answer to it. The old lord con- 
tinues wonderfully kind to me, and I 
hear has lately spoken of me so to others. 
Our public affairs at home will be much 
changed by the late death of the prince*. 
But I have been able to see nobody ; 
so will not attempt to write, and will 
end here with the assurance of my be- 
ing, dear sir, your most obliged and 
faithful friend and servant. 

LETTER LXXXIX. 

Fro7n the same to the sa?)ie. 

St. Giles's, March 7, 1708-9. 
Dear sir, 
I SHOULD indeed have been concerned 

moling all the designs peculiar to that despe- 
rate party. 

* The prince of Denmark. 



very much at your silence, had I not 
known of your health by your friends 
and mine, with whom you lately dined. 
I feared your constitution would suffer by 
this extremity of weather we have had. 
The town smoke, I think, is no addition 
to this evil in your respect ; but with me 
it would have been destruction. The 
happiness of a most healthy and warm, as 
Aveli as pleasant situation where I am, and 
Avhicli I may really praise beyond any I 
have known in England, has preserved 
me in better health this winter than I 
could have imagined. And I design to 
profit of the stock I have laid up, and 
come soon where I may have the happi- 
ness of conversing with you. But now 
you have led me into the talk of friend- 
ship, and have so kindly expostulated with 
me about my thanks, let me in my turn 
expostulate too about your excuses for 
your letters, or even for your omission. 
I well know you would not forget me, 
were there any thing that friendship re- 
quired. For the rest, friendship requires 
that we should be easy, and make each 
other so. It is an injustice to a real friend 
to deny one's self the being lazy, when 
one has a mind to it. I have professed 
to you, that I take that liberty myself, 
and would use it if there were occasion. 
But besides other inequalities that are 
between us, over and above those you 
reckoned up, consider that, together with 
my full leisure and retreat here in the 
country (by which means I have choice 
of hours to write when I fancy), I have 
also a secret and private interest that 
pushes me forward to be writing to you 
as often and as much as I can. I am 
ashamed things should stand so unequally 
between us ; for yoa have not yet had a 
fair trial, what a correspondent I should 
prove upon equal terms, nor can I im- 
pute a single letter of mine to mere 
friendship. But I am more ashamed 
still, when I, who should make excuses, 
am forced to receive them. See if you 
are not over-generous ! for any one be- 
sides yourself would be apt to use a little 
raillery with a man in my circumstances, 
that had such an affair depending, and 
wholly in your hands. But I find you 
have too much gallantry, as well as 
friendship, to take the least advantage of 
a lover ; and are vvilling to place more to 
the account of friendship than I can suf- 
fer without blushing. However, be se- 



188 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book U. 



cure of this, that when you take inten- 
tions instead of facts, you can never im- 
pute more to me in the way of friend- 
ship than I really deserve. And if I 
have not yet had the occasion of proving 
myself as I would do to you in this re- 
pect, I am satisfied, if the occasion of- 
fered, you would not find me remiss : in 
the mean time, pray use me with more 
indulgence, and shew me that you can 
use me as a friend, by writing only when 
you have a fancy, and ho more than you 
have a fancy for. You cannot imagine 
what a favour I should take it to receive 
a shorter and a worse letter from you, 
than you would write perhaps to any 
friend you had in the world besides. It 
is a law I set myself with my near and 
intimate friends to write in every hu- 
mour, or neglect writing, as I fancy ; 
and from this settled negligence I grow 
a right correspondent, and write when 
I scarce think of it, by making thus 
free with those I write to : if you will 
take my humour as it runs, you shall 
have hearty thanks too into the bar- 
gain, for taking it off at this rate. Let 
me but have a small scrap or scrawl 
(three or four sizes below the first of 
your letters, after the late conference), 
and I shall think myself not only fa- 
vourably, but kindly and friendly dealt 
with. 



Nardi parvus onyx elide t caelum. 

Hor. Lib. 4. Od. 12. ver. 17. 



The truth is, I long for another such 
precious scrap as I had after your first 
attempt for me ; that if you are as suc- 
cessful in a second, and find that your 
good advice has made impression, and 
that there be a real foundation of hope, 
I may come up quickly to make my se- 
cond attempt upon my old friend. 

Your story of friendship could not but 
delight me, it being one of my darling 
pieces * ; especially being in an author, 
who, though he perpetually does all he 
can to turn all morality and virtue into 
ridicule, is yet forced to pay this, and 
one or two more remarkable tributes of 
acknowledgment, to the principle of so- 
ciety and friendship, which is the real 
principle of life, the end of life, and 

* This story, which is well worth perusing, 
is in Lucian's Toxaris, or discourse of friend- 



ship. 



not (as some philosophers would have it) 
the means. Horace in his wild days was 
of another opinion ; but when he came 
in a riper age to state the question, 

Quiche ad amicitias, usus rectumve, trahnt nos f 
Hor. Lib. 2. Sat. 6. ver. 75. 

he always gives it for the latter, and 
would not allow virtue to be a mere 
name. Let who will despise friendship, 
or deny a social principle, they will, if 
they are any thing ingenuous, be urged 
one time or another to confess the power 
of it ; and if they enjoy it not themselves, 
will admire or envy it in others. And 
when they have inverted the whole mat- 
ter of life, and made friendships, and ac- 
quaintances, and alliances serve only as a 
means to the great and sole end of inter- 
est, they will find, by certain tokens, 
within their own breasts, that they are 
short of their true and real interests of 
life, for this is in reality. 

Propter vitam vivendi perdere causas. 

Your judgment, too, of the first of the 
parts in the story of friendship, is in my 
opinion perfectly just. My natural am- 
bition in friendship made me wish to be 
the poor man rather of the two, though 
since I have lately had to deal with a 
rich one, I have wished often to change 
parts ; and keeping the wealth I have, 
would fain have my old friend to be 
heartily poor, and accordingly make an 
experiment of me by such a legacy. But 
I am afraid he hardly thinks me capable 
of accepting of it ; or if he did, I know 
not whether he would think the more fa- 
vourably of me. Mine is a hard case in- 
deed, when I am on one side obliged to 
act so disinterested a part ; and yet must 
be careful on the other side, lest, for not 
loving money, I should be thought an ill 
son-in-law, and unfit to be intrusted with 
any thing. Thus you see I mix love and 
philosophy, and so I should politics and 
public affairs with private, if my place 
at this time was not the country and 
yours the town. However, I cannot 
forbear entreating you to send me word 
whether the proposal about Dunkirk '^ 
was from our friend in the ministry or 
not, for I heard he disliked it, or seemed 

f The demolishing of its fortifications and 
ruining of its harbour, which was first pro- 
posed in the unaccomplished treaties of the 
Hague and Gertruydenburgh, 1703. 



Sect. 11 



MODERN, OF EARLY DATE. 



IS9 



to do so ; and for the last there may he 
g-ood reason, as he is a statesman ; for the 
former, I can see none, hut am rather 
inclined to think, that as a generous and 
true statesman, he had for many reasons 
(in respect of foreign and home affairs) 
contrived that the proposal should seem 
tfl have its rise from a popular heat, ra- 
ther than from the cahinet council, and 
as a deliberate thought. But if my own 
thought of it be fond, it is in the way of 
friendship stiU ; for I could wish a friend 
the happiness of being author of every 
public good that was possible for him, 
and not to be a hinderance or obstruc- 
tion to any. 

To conclude, one Avord about my pri- 
vate affair, and I have done for this time. 
I beg you, when you have been your vi- 
sits, and made your utmost effort to see 
what foundation I may hope for, you 
would write me a line instantly. For 
though I have private affairs of some 
consequence, that should keep me here 
at least a month or six weeks longer, I 
will despise all of that kind ; and now 
the roads are passable and weather to- 
lerable, wiUcome up at a week's warning ; 
if a man, who loves and admires, is known 
though never seen, can possibly be fa- 
voured or thought to deserve. For if so, 
the cause is nobler, and there is a better 
foundation for acting boldly. Adieu, 
adieu. 

LETTER XC. 

Lord Shaftesbury to R. Molesiuorih, Esq. 

Beachworth, Sept. 3, 1708. 

Dear sir. 
It is now long since I had fixed my 
thoughts OJi nothing but the happiness 
of seeing you, and profiting of those ad- 
vantages which the perfectest friendship, 
with the greatest address, and indefatiga- 
ble pains, had compassed in my behalf. 
There was nothing I might not have 
hoped from such a foundation as you had 
laid ; and all the enchantments in the 
world could not have held proof, had my 
sad fate allowed me but to have followed 
my guide, and executed what my general 
had so ably designed. But not a star, 
but has been my enemy. I had hardly 
got over the unnatural winter, but with 
all the zeal imaginable I dispatched my 
affairs and came up from the west, think- 
ing to surprise you by a visit. The hurry 



I came away in, and the fatigue of more 
than ordinary business I was forced to 
dispatch that very morning I set out, 
joined with the ill weather which returned 
again upon my journey, threw me into 
one of my ill fits of the asthma, and al- 
most killed me on the road. After a few 
weeks I got this over, and my hopes re- 
vived ; and last week I Avent to Chelsea, 
paid my visit next day to the old man, 
found him not at home, resolved to re- 
double my visits, and once more endea- 
vour to move him. But the Avinds re- 
turned to their old quarter, I had Lon- 
don smoke on me for a day or two, grew 
extremely ill with it, and was forced to 
retire hither, Avhere I have but just re- 
covered breath. 

^\liat shall I do in such a case ? To 
trouble you further I am ashamed t 
ashamed too that I should have pushed 
such an affair to which my strength was 
so little suitable ; and yet ashamed to de- 
sist, after what I have done, and the vast 
trouble I have put you to. But fortime 
has at length taught me tliat lesson of 
philosophy, " to know myself," my con- 
stitution I mean ; for my mind (in this 
respect at least) I know fuU well. And 
I Avish in all other things I could be as 
unerring and perfect as I have been in 
this affair, in which I am certain no am- 
bition, or thought of interest, has had 
any part ; though it may look as if all 
my aim had been fortune, and not the 
person and character of the lady, as I 
have pretended. But in this I dare al- 
most say Avith assurance, you know my 
heart. Whether the lady does, or ever 
aatII, God knoAvs ; for I have scarce the 
heart left to teU it her, had I the oppor- 
tunity. 

So much for my sad fortune. 

I hope however to be at Chelsea again 
in a few days, and I long for the happi- 
ness of seeing you there ; for I have no 
hopes of being able to wait on you at 
your lodgings. 

If the queen goes soon to Windsor, I 
hope soon to see the great man, our 
friend, whom I can easier visit there 
than at St. James's. He has been so 
kind to inquire after me with particular 
favour, and has sent me a kind message 
in relation to public affairs. I am, dear 
sir, your most obliged friend and faith- 
ful humble servant. 



\90 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IF. 



LETTER XCL 

Lord Shaftesbury to R. Jlolesworth, Esq. 

Chelsea, June 15, 17(;9. 
My dear friend, 
1 WAS this day to wait again on my old 
lord. 1 found him as civil and obliging 
as ever. But when I came to make 
mention of my affair, I found the subject 
was uneasy to him. I did but take oc- 
casion, when he spoke in praise of my 
little house and study, to tell him I built 
it in a different view from what his 
lordship knew me to have of late ; for 
1 had then (I told him) no thoughts 
beyond a single life. I would have 
added, that since I was unhappy in my 
first offer, and had turned my thoughts 
as I had lately done, when I flattered 
myself in the hopes of his favour, I 
could no longer enjoy the place of his 
neighbourhood with the satisfaction I 
had done before. But I found he was 
deaf on this ear. He seemed to express 
all the uneasiness that could be, and I 
could go no further. I see there is no 
hope left for me. If he thought any one 
sincere, I believe I might be as likely as 
any one to be trusted by him. But I am 
afraid he thinks but the worse of me for 
pretending to value his daughter as I do, 
and for protesting that I would be glad 
to take her without a farthing, present 
or future, and yet settle all I have, as I 
have offered him. He will not easily find 
such a friend and son-in-law ; one that 
has such a regard for him and his. 

But so it must be. He may suffer 
perhaps as well as I. There is no help 
for this, when men are too crafty to see 
plain, and too interested to see their real 
friends and interest. I shall soon shew 
my sincerity in one respect, if I live ; 
for since I cannot have the woman I have 
seen and liked, I may determine perhaps 
on one I have never seen ; and take a 
lady for a character only without a for- 
tune (which I want not), since you and 
other friends are so kindly importunate 
and pressing on this concern of mine. 

But of this more when I see you next, 
with a thousand acknowledgments and 
thanks for the thorough friendship you 
have shewn ; and what is so truly friend- 
ship, that I almost think I injure it 
when I speak of thanks and acknowledg- 
ments. 

You will have mc take all of this k*nd 



in another manner ; and tlierefore, on 
the same foot, I expect you should take 
all that I have done, or ever can do, 
without ceremony, and as your faithful 
friend and humble servant. 



LETTER XCII. 

Fro?n the same to the same. 

BeachworUi, July 9, 1709. 
My dear friend, 
I CAN hardly be reconciled to you, for 
saying so much as you have done, to 
express your concern for the disappoint- 
ment of my grand affair. I am not so 
ill a friend, nor have lived so little in the 
world, as not to know by experience, 
that a disappointment in a friend's con- 
cern is often of more trouble to one than 
in one's own. And I was so satisfied 
this was your case, that I was willing 
to diminish the loss, and make as slight 
of it as possible, the better to comfort 
you, and prevent your being too much 
concerned at what had happened. As 
to the fortune, T might sincerely have 
done it ; but as to the lady, I own the 
loss is great enough : for, besides her 
character and education, she was the first 
I turned my thoughts upon after the 
promise you had drawn from me the 
year before, when you joined with some 
friends of mine in kindly pressing me to 
think of the continuance of a family. 
Methinks now I might be acquitted, 
after this attempt I have made. But 
you have taken occasion from the ill suc- 
cess of it to prove how much more still 
you are my friend, in desiring to make 
the most of me while I live, and keep 
what you can of me for memory sake 
afterwards. This is the kindest part in 
the world ; and I cannot bring myself so 
much as to suppose a possibility of your 
flattering me. I have an easy faith in 
friendship. My friends may dispose of 
me as they please, when they thus lay 
claim to me ; and whilst they find me of 
any use to them, or think I have any 
power still to serve mankind or my coun- 
try in such a sphere as is yet left for me, 
I can live as happy in a crazy state of 
health, and out of the way of pleasures 
and diversions, as if I enjoyed them in 
the highest degree. If marriage can be 
suitable to such a circumstance of life, I 
am content to engage. I must do my 



Sect. II. 



MODERN, OF E A R L Y D A T E. 



191 



best to render it agreeable to those I en- 
gage with; and my choice, I am sensi- 
ble , ought for this reason to be as you 
have wisely prescribed for me. 1 must 
resolve to sacrifice other advantages, to 
obtain what is principal and essential in 
my case. 

What other people will say of such a 
match, I know not ; nor what motive 
they will assign for it, v/lien interest is 
set aside. Love, I fear, will be scarce 
a tolerable pretence in such a one as I 
am : and for a family, I have a brother 
still alive, whom I may still have some 
hopes of. What a weakness then would 
it be thought in me, to marry with little 
or no fortune, and not in the highest 
degree of quality neither ! Will it be 
enough that I take a breeder out of a 
good family, with a right education, fit 
for a mere wife ; and with no advantage 
but simple innocence, modesty, and the 
j)lain qualities of a good mother and a 
good nurse ? This is as little the mo- 
dern relish as that old-fashioned wife of 
Horace's, 

Sabina quulis, a'lt perusta solihus 
Fernicis uxor Appuli. 

Epod. ii. ver. 41. 

Can you, or my friends, who press me 
to this, bear me out in it ? See, if with 
all the notions of virtue (which you, 
more than any one, have helped to pro- 
pagate in this age) it be possible to 
make such an affair pass tolerable in the 
world ! The experiment however shall 
be made, if I live out this summer ; and 
you shall hear me say, as the old ba- 
chelor in the Latin Menander, with a 
little alteration, 

Etsi hoc molestum, — atque aliemim a vita mca 
Videtnr; si vos tantopere ishic voids, jiut. 

Terent. Adelph. Act v. sc. viii. ver. 21. 

You see upon what foot of friendship 
I treat you. Judge whether it be ne- 
cessary for you hereafter to say much in 
order to convince me what a friend 
you are ; and for my own part, I have 
reduced you, I am confident, to the 
necessity of believing me either the 
most insincere of all men, or the 
most faithfully your friend and humble 
servant. 

I missed our great friend, when I was 
last to visit him at St. James's. I intend 
for Windsor very soon, if I am able. 



LETTER XCIII. 

From the same to the same. 

Ryegate in Surrey, Nov. 1, 1709. 
Dear sir, 
If I have had any real joy in any new 
state, it was then chiefly when I received 
yours that wished it me. The two or 
three friends whom, besides yourself, 
I pretend to call by that name, were so 
mucii parties to the affair, and so near 
me, that their part of congratulation was 
in a manner anticipated. Happily you 
were at a good distance and point de 
vue to see right ; for as little trust as I 
allow to the common friendship of the 
world, I am so presumptuous in this case 
of a near and intimate friend, that in- 
stead of mistrusting their affection, 1 am 
rather afraid of its rendering them too 
partial. The interest and part which I 
believe them ready to take in my concern, 
makes me wish them sometimes to see 
me (as they should do themselves) from 
a distance, and in a less favourable light. 
So that, although I have had godfathers 
to my match, I have not been confirmed 
till I had your approbation ; and though 
(thank God) I have had faith to believe 
myself a good Christian without episco- 
pal confirmation, I should have thought 
myself an ill husband, and but half mar- 
ried, if I had not received your concluding 
sentence and friendly blessing. In good 
earnest (for to you I am not ashamed to 
say it) I have for many years known no 
other pleasure, or interest, or satisfac- 
tion, in doing any thing, but as I thought 
it right, and what became me to my 
friends and country. Not that I think 
I had the less pleasure for this reason ; 
but honesty will always be thought a 
melancholy thing to those who go but 
half way into the reason of it, and are 
honest by chance or by force of nature, 
not by reason or conviction. Were I 
to talk of marriage, and forced to speak 
my mind plainly, and without the help 
of humour or raillery, I should doubtless 
offend the most part of sober married 
people, and the ladies chiefly ; for I should 
in reality think I did wonders in extolling 
the happiness of my new state, and the 
merit of my wife in particular, by saying, 
that I verily thought myself as happy a 
man now as ever. And is not that sub- 
ject enough of joy ? What would a man 
of sense wish more ? For my own part, 



192 



ELEGANT EPISTLES 



Book IL 



if 1 find any sincere joy, it is because I 
promised myself no other than the satis- 
faction of my friends, who thought my 
family worth preserving", and myself 
worth nursing in an indifferent crazy 
state, to which a wife (if a real good one) 
is a great help. Such a one I have 
found ; and if by her help or care I can 
regain a tolerable share of health, you 
may be sure it will be employed as you 
desire, since my marriage itself was but 
a means to that end. 

I have deferred three or four posts the 
:answering yours, in expectation of re- 
porting something to you from our great 
lord, to whom I had lately sent a letter ; 
he having before let me know that he 
would soon write to me upon something 
of moment ; but as yet I have heard no- 
thing. Only, as oft as he sees a friend 
^f ours, he inquires after me with a par- 
ticular kindness, I am now at such a 
convenient distance from him, whether 
he be at St. James's, Kensington, or Wind- 
sor, that when the weather and wind 
serje for me, and I am tolerably well, 
i can in four or five hours' driving be 
ready to attend him. Other attendance 
I am not, you know, capable of; nor 
can I expect such a change of health as 
that comes to ; for sincerely it depends 
on that alone. As proudly as I have 
carried my self to other ministers, I could 
as willingly pass a morning waiting at 
his levee as any where else in the world. 

When I was last with him at Windsor, 
you may be sure, I could not omit speak- 
ing to him of yourself. The time I had 
with him was much interrupted by com- 
pany. I know not how my interest, on 
such a foot as this, is like to grow ; but 
I am certain it shall not want any culti- 
vating, which an honest man, and in my 
circumstances, can possibly bestow upon 
it. If he has, or comes to have, any 
good opinion of my capacity or know- 
ledge, he must withal regard me in the 
choice I make of friends. And if it hap- 
pens, as fortunately it has done, that the 
chief friend I have, and the first whom 
I consider in public affairs, was previous- 
ly his own acquaintance and proved 
friend, one would think he should after- 
wards come to set a higher value upon 
him : and since he cannot have one 
always near him who gladly would be 
so, he will oblige another who is willing 
and able. And in reality, if at this time 
your coming up depends only on his wish 



(as you tell me) and the commands he 
may have for you, I shall much wonder 
if he forgets the advantage, or thinks he 
can dispense with your presence at such 
a time. 

Your character of lord Wharton is 
very generous. I am glad to hear so 
well of him. If ever I expected any 
public good where virtue was wholly 
sunk, it was in his character ; the most 
mysterious of any in my account, for this 
reason. But I have seen many proofs of 
this monstrous compound in him, of the 
very worst and best. A thousand kind 
thanks to yon, in my own and spouse's 
name, for your kind thoughts of seeing 
us. I add only my repeated service and 
good wishes, as your old and faithful 
friend, and obliged humble servant. 



LETTER XCIV. 

Lord Shaftesbiuy to Lord ^ * -5^, 

\^Sent zvitk the Notion of the Historical Draught 
of the Judgment of Hercules.] 

My lord, 
This letter comes to your lordship, ac- 
companied with a small writing intitled 
A Notion : for such alone can that piece 
deservedly be called, which aspires no 
higher than to the forming of a project, 
and that too in so vulgar a science 
as painting. But whatever the subject 
be, if it can prove any way entertaining 
to you, it will sufficiently answer my 
design. And if possibly it may have that 
good success, I should have no ordinary 
opinion of my project, since I know how 
hard it would be to give your lordship a 
real entertainment by any thing which 
was not in some respect worthy and use- 
ful. 

On this account, I must by way of pre- 
vention inform your lordship, that af- 
ter I had conceived my Notion, such as 
you see it upon paper, I was not con- 
tented with this, but fell directly to work, 
and by the hand of a master-painter 
brought it into practice, and formed a 
real design. This was not enough. I 
resolved afterward to see what effect it 
would have, when taken out of mere 
black-and-white into colours ; and thus 
a sketch was afterwards drawn. This 
pleased so well, that being encouraged 
by the virtuosi who are so eminent in this 
part of the world, I resolved at last to 



Sect. II. 



MODERN, OF EARLY DATE. 



193 



engage my painter in the great work. 
Immediately a cloth was bespoke of a 
suitable dimension, and the figures taken 
?is big or bigger than the common life ; 
the subject being of the heroic kind, and 
requiring rather such figures as should 
appear above ordinary human stature. 

Thus my Notion, as light as it may 
prove in the treatise, is become very 
substantial in the workmanship. The 
piece is still in hand, and like to conti- 
nue so for some time. Otherwise the 
first draught or design should have ac- 
companied the treatise, as the treatise 
does this letter. But the design having 
grown thus into a sketch, and the sketch 
afterwards into a picture, I thought it 
£t your lordship should either see the 
several pieces together, or be troubled 
only with that which y/as the best, as un- 
<Ioubtedly the great one must prove, if 
the master I employ sinks not very much 
below himself in this performance. 

Far surely should I be, my lord, from 
conceiving any vanity or pride in amuse- 
ments of such an inferior kind as these, 
especially were tliey such as they may 
naturally at first sight appear. I pre- 
tend not here to apologize either for them 
or for myself. Your lordship, however, 
knows I have naturally ambition enough 
to make me desirous of employing my- 
self in business of a higher order : since 
it has been my fortune in public affairs 
to act often in concert with you, and in 
the same views, on the interests of Eu- 
rope and mankind. There was a time, 
and that a very early one of my life, 
when I was not wanting to my country 
in this respect. But after some years 
of hearty labour and pains in this kind 
of workmanship, an unhappy breach in 
my health drove me not only from the 
seat of businesB, but forced me to seek 
these foreign climates ; where, as mild 
as the winters generally are, I have with 
much ado lived out this latter one ; and 
am now, as your lordship finds, em- 
ploying myself in such easy studies as are 
most suitable to my state of health, and 
to the genius of the country where I am 
confined. 

Tliis in the mean time I can with some 
assurance say to your lordship in a kind 
of spirit of prophecy, from what I liave 
observed of the rising genius of our na- 
tion, that if we live to see a peace any 
way answerable to that generous spirit 
with which this war was begim and car- 



ried on for our own liberty and that of 
Europe, the figure we are like to make 
abroaid, and the increase of knowledge, 
industry, and sense at home, will render 
united Britain the principal seat of arts ; 
and by her politeness and advantages in 
this kind, will shew evidently how much 
she owes to those counsels which taught 
her to exert herself so resolutely in be- 
half of the common cause, and that of her 
own liberty and happy constitution ne- 
cessarily included. 

I can myself remember the time when, 
in respect of music, our reigning taste was 
in many degrees inferior to the French. 
The long reign of luxury and pleasure 
under king Charles the Second, and the 
foreign helps and studied advantages 
given to music in a following reign, 
could not raise our genius the least in this 
respect. But when the spirit of the na- 
tion was grown more free, though en- 
gaged at that time in the fiercest war, 
and with the most doubtful success, we 
no sooner began to turn ourselves to- 
wards music, and inquire what Italy in 
particular produced, than in an instant 
-\ve outstripped our neighbours the 
French, entered into a genius far beyond 
theirs, and raised ourselves an ear and 
judgment not inferior to the best nov/ in 
the world. 

In the same manner as to painting. 
Tliough we have as yet nothing of our 
own native grov/th in this kind worthy 
of being mentioned, yet since the public 
has of late begun to express a relish for 
engraviiigs, drawings, copyings, and for 
the original paintings of the chief Ita- 
lian schools (so contrary to the modern 
French), I doubt not that in very few 
years we shall make an equal progress in 
this other science. And when our hu- 
mour turns us to cultivate these designing 
arts, our genius, I am persuaded, will na- 
turally carry us over the slighter amuse- 
ments, and lead us to that higher, more 
serious, and noble part of imitation which 
relates to history, human nature, and the 
chief degree or order of beauty, I mean 
that of the rational life, distinct from the 
merely vegetable and sensible, as in ani- 
mals or plants ; according to those seve- 
ral degrees or orders of painting which 
your lordship will find suggested in this 
extemporary Notion I have sent you. 

As for architecture, it is no wonder if 
so many noble designs of this kind have 
miscarried amongst us, since the genius 
O 



194 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book 11. 



of our nation has hitherto been so litthj 
turned this way, that through several 
reigns we have patiently seen the noblest 
public buildings perish (if 1 may say so) 
under the hand of one single court-archi- 
tect ; who, if he had been able to profit 
by experience, would long since, at our 
expense, have proved the greatest master 
in the v/orld. But I question whether 
our patience is like to hold much longer. 
The devastation so long committed in 
this kind, has made us begin to grow 
rude and clamorous at the hearing of a 
new palace spoiled, or a new design com- 
mitted to some rash or impotent pre- 
tender. 

It is the good fate of our nation in 
this particular, that there remain yet 
two of the noblest subjects for architec- 
ture : our princess' palace and our house 
of parliament. For I cannot but fancy 
that when Whitehall is thought of, the 
neighbouring lords and commons will at 
the same time be placed in better cham- 
bers and apartments than at present ; 
were it only for majesty's sake, and as 
a magnificence becoming the person of 
the prince, who here appears in full so- 
lemnity. Nor do I fear that when these 
new subjects are attempted, we should 
miscarry as grossly as we have done in 
others before. Our state in this respect 
may prove perhaps more fortunate than 
our church, in having waited till a na- 
tional taste was formed before these edi- 
fices were undertaken. But the zeal of 
the nation could not, it seems, admit so 
long a delay in their ecclesiastical struc- 
tures, particularly their metropolitan. 
And since a zeal of this sort has been 
newly kindled amongst us, it is like we 
shall see from afar the many spires aris- 
ing in our great city, with such hasty and 
sudden growth, as may be the occasion 
perhaps that our immediate relish shall 
be hereafter censured, as retaining much 
of what artists call the Gothic kind. 

Hardly, indeed, as the public now 
stands, should we bear to see a Whitehall 
treated like a Hampton Court, or even 
a new cathedral like St. Paul's. Almost 
every one now becomes concerned, and in- 
terests himself in such public structures. 
Even those pieces too are brought under 
the common censure, which, though 
raised by private men, are of such a 
grandeur and magnificence as to become 
national ornaments. The ordinary man 
may build his cottage, or the plain gen- 



tleman his country house, according as 
he fancies ; but when a great man builds, 
he win find little quarter from the public, 
if, instead of a beautiful pile, he raises at 
a vast expense such a false and counterfeit 
piece of magnificence, as can be justly 
arraigned for its deformity by so many 
knowing men in art, and by the whole 
people, who, in such a conjecture, rea- 
dily follow their opinion. 

In reality, the people are no small par- 
ties in this cause. Nothing moves suc- 
cessfully without them. There can be 
no public but where they are included. 
And v/ithout a public voice, knowingly 
guided and directed, there is notliing 
which can raise a true ambition in the 
artist ; nothing which can exalt the ge- 
nius of the workman, or make him emu- 
lous of after- fame, and of the approba- 
tion of his country and of posterity. For 
with these, he naturally as a freeman 
must take part ; in these he hath a pas- 
sionate concern and interest raised in 
him, by the same genius of liberty, the 
same laws and government by which his 
property and the rewards of his pains and 
industry are secured to him, and to his 
generation after him. 

Every thing co-operates in such a 
state towards the improvement of art 
and science. And for the designing arts 
in particular, such as architecture, paint- 
ing, and statuary, they are in a manner 
linked together. The taste of one kind 
brings necessarily that of the other along 
with it. When the free spirit of a na- 
tion turns itself this way, judgments are 
formed ; cities arise ; the public eye and 
ear improve ; a right taste prevails, and 
in a manner forces its way. Nothing 
is so improving, nothing so natural, so 
congenial to the liberal arts, as that 
reigning liberty and high spirit of a peo- 
ple, which from the habit of judging 
in the highest matters for themselves, 
makes them freely judge of other sub- 
jects, and enter thoroughly into the 
characters as well of men and manners, 
as of the products or works of men in 
arts and science. So much, my lord, do 
we owe to the excellence of our national 
constitution and legal monarchy ; hap- 
pily fitted for us, and which alone could 
hold together so mighty a people ; all 
share (though at so far a distance from 
each other) in the government of them- 
selves, and meeting under one head in 
one vast metropolis, whose enormous 



Sect. If. 



MODERN, OF EARLY DATE. 



195 



growth, however censurable in other 
respects, is actually a cause that work- 
manship and arts of so many kinds arise 
to such perfection. 

What encouragement our higher pow- 
ers may think fit to give these growing 
arts, I will not pretend to guess. This I 
know, that it is so much for their ad- 
vantage and interest to make themselves 
the chief parties in the cause, that I wish 
no court or ministry, besides a truly vir- 
tuous and wise one, may ever concern 
themselves in the affair. For should 
they do so, they would in reality do more 
harm than good : since it is not the na- 
ture of a court (such as courts generally 
are) to improve, but rather corrupt a 
taste. And what is in the beginning set 
wrong, by their example, is hardly ever 
afterwards recoverable in the genius of 
a nation. 

Content therefore I am, my lord, 
that Britain stands in this respect as she 
now does. Nor can one, methinks, 
with just reason, regret her having hi- 
therto made no greater advancement in 
these affairs of art. As her constitution 
has grown and been established, she has 
in proportion fitted herself for other im- 
provements. There has been no antici- 
pation in the case. And in this surely 
she must be esteemed wise as well as 
happy ; that ere she attempted to raise 
herself any other taste or relish, she se- 
cured herself a right one in government. 
She has now the advantage of begin- 
ning in other matters on a new foot. 
She has her models yet to seek, her scale 
and standard to form with deliberation 
and good choice. Able enough she is 
at present to shift for herself, however 
abandoned or helpless she has been left 
by those whom it became to assist her. 
Hardly, indeed, could she procure a sin- 
gle academy for the training of her youth 
in exercises. As good soldiers as we are, 
and as good horses as our climate af- 
fords, our princes, rather than expend 
their treasure this way, have suffered our 
youth to pass into a foreign nation to 
learn to ride. As for other academies, 
such as those for painting, sculpture, or 
architecture, we have not so much as 
heard of the proposal ; whilst the prince 
of our rival nation raises academies, 
breeds youth, and sends rewards and 
pensions into foreign countries, to ad- 
vance the interest and credit of his own. 



Now if, notwithstanding the industry 
and pains of this foreign court, and the 
supine unconcernedness of our own, the 
national taste however rises, and already 
shews itself in many respects beyond 
that of our so highly assisted neigh- 
bours ; what greater proof can there be 
of the superiority of genius in one of 
these nations above the other ? 

It is but this moment that I chance 
to read in an article of one of the ga- 
zettes from Paris, that it is resolved at 
court to establish a new academy for po- 
litical affairs. " In it the present chief 
minister is to preside ; having under him 
six academists, douez des takns neces- 
saires no person to be received un- 
der the age of twenty-five. A thousand 

livres pension for each scholar ^able 

masters to be appointed for teaching 
them the necessary sciences, and in- 
structing them in the treaties of peace 
and alliances, which have been formerly 

made the members to assemble three 

times a week c^est de ce seminaire 

(says the writer) qu'on tirera les secre- 
taires d*amhasmde; qui par degrez pour- 
ront montcr a de plus hauts emplois.'* 

I must confess, my lord, as great an 
admirer as I am of these regular insti- 
tutions, I cannot but look upon an aca- 
demy for ministers as a very extraor- 
dinary establishment ; especially in such 
a monarchy as France, and at such a 
conjuncture as the present. It looks as 
if the ministers of that court had disco- 
vered lately some new method of nego- 
ciation, such as tlieir predecessors Rich- 
lieu and Mazarine never thought of; or 
that, on the contrary, they have found 
themselves so declined, and at such a loss 
in the management of this present trea- 
ty, as to be forced to take their lessons 
from some of those ministers with whom 
they treat; a reproach of which, no 
doubt, they must be highly sensible. 

But it is not my design here to enter- 
tain your lordship with any reflections 
upon politics, or the methods which the 
French may take to raise themselves new 
ministers or new generals ; who may 
prove a better match for us than hither- 
to, whilst we held our old. I will only 
say to your lordship on this subject of 
academies, that indeed I have less con- 
cern for the deficiency of such a one as 
this, than of any other which could be 
thought of for England ; and that as for 
02 



196 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IL 



a seminary of statesmen, I doubt not but, 
without tliis extraordinary help, we shall 
be able, out of our old stock, and the 
common course of business, constantly 
to furnish a sufficient number of well- 
qualified persons to serve upon occasion, 
either at home or in our foreign treaties, 
as often as such persons accordingly qua- 
lified shall duly, honestly, and bona fide 
be required to serve. 

I return therefore to my virtuoso sci- 
ence ; which being my chief amusement 
in this place and circumstance, your 
lordship has by it a fresh instance that I 
can never employ my thoughts with sa- 
tisfaction on any subject, without mak- 
ing you a party. For even tliis very 
Notion had its rise chiefly from the con- 
versation of a certain day which I had 
the happiness to pass a few years since in 
the country with your lordship. It was 
there you shewed me some engravings 
which had been sent you from Italy. One 
in particular I well remember ; of which 
the subject was the very same with that 
of my written Notion enclosed. But by 
what hand it was done, or after what 
master, or how executed, I have quite 
forgot. It was the summer season, when 
you had recess from business. And I 
have accordingly calculated this epistle 
and project for the same recess and lei- 
sure. For by the time this can reach 
England, the spring will be far advanced, 
and the national affairs in a manner over 
with those who are not in the immedi- 
ate administration. 

Were that indeed your lordship's lot 
at present, I know not whether, in re- 
gard to my country, I should dare throw 
such amusements as these in your way. 
Yet even in this case, I would venture to 
say, however, in defence of my project, 
and of the cause of painting, that could 
my young hero come to your lordship 
as well represented as he might have 
been, either by the hand of a Marat or a 
Jordano (the masters who were in being, 
and in repute, when I first travelled here 
in Italy), the picture itself, whatever 
the treatise proved, would have been 
worth notice, and might have become a 
present worthy of our court, and prince's 
palace, especially were it so blessed as 
to lodge within it a royal issue of her 
majesty's. Such a piece of furniture 
might well fit the gallery, or hall of ex- 
ercises, where our young princes should 



learn their usual lessons. And to see 
Virtue in this garb and action, might 
perhaps be no slight memorandum here- 
after to a royal youth, who should one 
day come to undergo this trial himself; 
on which his own happiness, as well as 
the fate of Europe and the world, would 
in so great a measure depend. 

This, my lord, is making (as you 
see) the most I can of my project, and 
setting off my amusements with the best 
colour I am able ; that I may be the 
more excuseable in communicating them 
to your lordship, and expressing thus, 
with what zeal I am, my lord, your 
lordship's most faithful humble servant. 

Naples, March 6, 
N. S. 1712. 



LETTER XCV. 

From the Earl of Shaftesbury to the Earl 
of Oxford. 

Reygate, March 29, 1711. 
My lord, 
The honour you have done me in many 
kind inquiries after my health, and the 
favour you have shewn me lately, in 
forwarding the only means I have left 
for my recovery, by trying the air of a 
warmer climate, obliges me, ere I leave 
England, to return your lordship my 
most humble thanks and acknowledg- 
ments in this manner, since I am unable 
to do it in a better. I might perhaps, 
my lord, do injustice to myself, having 
had no opportunity of late years to pay 
my particular respects to you, if I should 
attempt any otherwise to compliment 
your lordship on the late honours you 
have received, than by appealing to the 
early acquaintance and strict correspond- 
ence I had once the honour to maintain 
with you and your family, for which I 
had been bred almost from my infancy 
to have the highest regard. Your lord- 
ship well knows my principles and be- 
haviour from the first hour I engaged in 
any public concern, and with what zeal 
I spent some years of my life in support- 
ing your interest, which I thought of 
greater moment to the public than my 
own or family's could ever be. What 
the natural effects are of private friend- 
ship so founded, and what the consc' 
quence of different opinions intervening, 



Sect II. 



MODERN, OF EARLY DATE. 



197 



your lordship, wlio is so good a judge of 
men and tilings, can better resolve with 
yourself, than I can possibly suggest. 
And being so knowing in friends (of 
whom your lordship has acquired so 
many), you can recollect how those ties 
or obligations have been hitherto pre- 
served towards you, and whose friend- 
ships, affections, and principles you may 
for the future best depend upon in all 
circumstances and variations, public and 
private. For my OAvn part, I shall say 
only, that 1 very sincerely wish you all 
happiness, and can with no man living 
congratulate more heartily on what I ac- 
count real honour and prosperity. Your 
conduct of the public will be the just 
earnest and insurance of your greatness 
and power ; and I shall then chiefly con- 
gratulate with your lordship on your me- 
rited honours and advancement, when 
by the happy effects it appears e^adentiy 
in the service of what cause, and for the 
advantage of what interest, they were 
acquired and enjoyed. Had I been to 
wish by what hands the public should 
have been served, the honour of the first 
part (your lordship weU knows) had 
fallen to you long since. If others, from 
whom I least hoped, have done greatly 
and as became them, I hope, if possible, 
you will still exceed all they have per- 
formed, and accomplish the great work 
so gloriously begun and carried on for 
the rescue of liberty, and the deliverance 
of Europe and mankind. And in this 
presumption I cannot but remain with 
the same zeal and sincerity as ever, my 
lord, &c. 



LETTER XCVI. 

From the Earl of Shaftesbury to Lord 
Godolphin. 

Reygate, May 27, 1711. 
My lord, 
Being about to attempt a journey to 
Italy, to try what a warmer climate (if I 
am able to reach it) may do towards the 
restoring me a little breath and life, it is 
impossible for me to stir hence till I have 
acquitted myself of my respects the best 
I can to your lordship, to whom alone, 
had I but strength enough to make my 
compliments, and pay a day's attendance 
in town, I should think myself sufficient- 
ly happy in my weak state of health. I 
am indeed, my lord, little able to render 
services of any kind ; nor do I pretend to 
offer myself in such a capacity to any one, 
except your lordsliip only. But could I 
flatter myself that ere I parted hence, or 
while I passed through France or staid in 
Italy, I could any where, in the least 
trifle, or in the highest concern, render 
any manner of service to your lordship, I 
should be proud of such a commission. 
Sure I am, in what relates to your ho- 
nour and name (if that can receive ever 
any advantage from such an hand as 
mine) your public as well as private me- 
rit wiU not pass unremembered, into 
whatever region or climate I am transfer- 
red. No one has a more thorough know- 
ledge in that kind than myself, nor no 
one there is, who on this account has a 
juster right to profess himself, as I shall 
ever do, with highest obligation and 
most constant zeal, my lord, your lord- 
ship's most faithful and most obedient 
humble servant. 



BOOK THE THIRD. 

LETTERS OF THE LAST CENTURY, 
AND OF LATE DATE. 



SECTION I. 



FROM MR. POPE AND HIS FRIENDS. 



LETTER I. 

Mr. Pope to Mr, Wycherley. 

Binfield in Windsor Forest, Dec. 26, 1704*. 
It was certainly a great satisfaction to 
me to see and converse with a man, 
whom in his writings I had so long 
known with pleasure ; but it was a high 
addition to it to hear you, at our very 
first meeting, doing justice to our dead 
friend Mr. Dryden. I was not so happy 
as to know him : Virgilium tantum vidi. 
Had I been born early enough, I must 
have known and loved him ; for I have 
been assured, not only by yourself, but 
by Mr. Congreve and sir William Trum- 
bul, that his personal qualities were as 
amiable as his poetical, notwithstanding 
the many libellous misrepresentations 
of them, against which the former of 
these gentlemen has told me he will 
one day vindicate himf. I suppose those 
injuries were begun by the violence of 
party ; but it is no doubt they were con- 
tinued by envy at his success and fame. 
And those scribblers, who attacked him 

* The author's age then sixteen. 

f He since did so in his Dedication to the 
duke of Newcastle, prefixed to the duodecimo 
edition of Dr3'den's I'lays, 1717. 



in his latter times, were only like gnats 
in a summer's evening, which are never 
very troublesome but in the finest and 
most glorious season ; but his fire, like 
the sun's, shined clearest towards the 
setting. 

You must not therefore imagine, that 
when you told me my own performances 
were above those critics, I was so vain 
as to believe it : and yet I may not be so 
humble as to think myself quite below 
their notice. For critics, as they are 
birds of prey, have ever a natural incli- 
nation to carrion ; and though such 
poor writers as I are but beggars, no 
beggar is so poor but he can keep a cur, 
and no author is so beggarly but he can 
keep a critic. I am far from thinking 
the attacks of such people either any 
honour or dishonour even to me, much 
less to Mr. Dryden. I agree with you, 
that whatever lesser wits have risen 
since his death, are but like stars ap- 
pearing when the sun is set, that twin- 
kle only in his absence, and with the 
rays they have borrowed from him. 
Our wit (as you call it) is but reflection 
or imitation, therefore scarce to be call- 
ed ours. True wit, I believe, may be 
defined a justness of thought and a fa- 
cility of expression ; or (in the mid- 
wives' plirase) a perfect conception, with 



Sect. I. 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



199 



ua easy delivery. However, this is far 
from a complete definition. Pray help 
me to a better, as I doubt not you can. 
T am, &c. 



LETTER III. 



From the same to the same. 



LETTER II. 

From the same to the same., 

March 25, 1705. 

When I write to you, I foresee a long 
letter, and ought to beg your patience 
beforehand ; for if it proves the longest 
it will be of course the Tvorst I have 
troubled you with. Yet, to express my 
gratitude at large for your obliging let- 
ter is not more my duty than my in- 
terest, as some people will abundantly 
thank you for one piece of kindness, to 
put you in mind of bestowing another. 
The more favourable you are to me, the 
more distinctly I see my faults : spots and 
blemishes, you know, are never so plainly 
discovered as in the brightest sunshine. 
Thus I am mortified by those commend- 
ations which were designed to encourage 
me ; for praise to a young wit is like 
rain to a tender flower ; if it be mode- 
rately bestowed, it cheers and revives ; 
but if too lavishly, overcharges and de- 
presses him. Most men in years, as they 
are generally discouragers of youth, are 
like old trees, that, being past bearing 
themselves, will suflFer no young plants 
to flourish beneath them ; but, as if it 
were not enough to have outdone all 
your coevals in wit, you will excel them 
in good-nature too. As for my green 
essays *, if you find any pleasure in them, 
it must be such as a man naturally takes 
in observing the first shoots and buddings 
of a tree which he has raised himself : 
and it is impossible they should be 
esteemed any otherwise than as we value 
fruits for being early, which nevertheless 
are the most insipid, and the worst of 
the year. In a word, I must blame you 
for treating me with so much compli- 
ment, which is at best but the smoke of 
friendship. I neither write nor converse 
with you to gain your praise, but your 
affection. Be so much my friend as to 
appear my enemy, and to tell me my 
faults, if not as a young man, at least as 
an inexperienced writer. 1 am, &c. 

=^ His Pastorals, written at sixteen years of 

a.sc. 



April 50, 1705, 
I CANNOT contend with you ; you must 
give me leave at once to wave all your 
compliments, and to collect only this in 
general from them, that your design is 
to encourage me : but I separate from 
all the rest that paragraph or two in 
which you make me so warm an offer of 
your friendship. Were I possessed of 
that, it would put an end to all those 
speeches with which you now make me 
blush ; and change them to wholesome 
advices and free sentiments, which might 
make me wiser and happier. 1 know it 
is the general opinion, that friendship is 
best contracted betwixt persons of equal 
age ; but I have so much interest to be 
of another mind, that you must pardon 
me if 1 cannot forbear telling you a few 
notions of mine, in opposition to that 
opinion. 

In the first place, it is observable, that 
the love we bear to our friends is gene- 
rally caused by our finding the same dis- 
positions in them which we feel in our- 
selves. This is but self love at the bot- 
tom ; whereas the aS'ection betwixt peo- 
ple of different ages cannot well be so, 
the inclinations of such being commonly 
various. The friendship of tw^o young 
men is often occasioned by love of plea- 
sure or voluptuousness, each being de- 
sirous for his own sake of one to assist or 
encourage him in the course he pursues ; 
as that of two old men is frequently on 
the score of some profit, lucre, or design 
upon others. Now, as a young man, 
who is less acquainted with the ways of 
the world, has in all probability less of 
interest; and an old man, who maybe 
weary of himself, has, or should have, 
less of self love — so the friendship be- 
tween them is more likely to be true, 
and unmixed with too much self-regard. 
One may add to this, that such a friend- 
ship is of greater use and advantage to 
both ; for the old man wiU grow gay 
and agreeable to please the young one ; 
and the young man more discreet and 
prudent by the help of the old one ; so 
it may prove a cure of those epidemi- 
cal diseases of age and youth, sourness 
and madness. I hope you Avill not need 
many arguments to convince you of the 



200 



ELEGANT EPISTLES, 



Book IIL 



possibility of this ; one alone abundantly 
satisfies me, and convinces to the heart ; 
which is, that young as I am, and old as 
you are^, I am your entirely affection- 
ate, &c. 

LETTER IV. 

Mr. Pope to Mr. tVj/cherle^. 

Oct. 26, 1705. 
I HAVE now changed the scene from 
the town to the country ; from Will's 
coffee house to Windsor forest. I find 
no other difference than this betwixt 
the common town wits and the down- 
right country fools ; that the first are 
pertly in the wrong, with a little more 
flourish and gaiety ; and the last neither 
in the right nor the wrong, but confirm- 
ed in a stupid settled medium betwixt 
both. However, methinks, these are 
most in the right, who quietly and easily 
resign themselves over to the gentle reign 
of dulness, which the wits must do at last, 
though after a great deal of noise and 
resistance. Ours are a sort of modest in- 
offensive people, who neither have sense, 
nor pretend to any, but enjoy a jovial 
sort of dulness ; they are commonly 
known in the world by the name of 
Honest, Civil Gentlemen : they live, 
much as they ride, at random ; a kind 
of hunting life, pursuing with earnest- 
ness and hazard something not worth the 
catching ; never in the way, nor out of 
it. I cannot but prefer solitude to the 
company of all these ; for though a man's 
self may possibly be the worst fellow to 
converse with in the world, yet one 
would think the company of a person 
whom we have the greatest regard to and 
affection for, could not be very unplea- 
sant. As a man in love with a mistress 
desires no conversation but hers, so a 
man in love with himself (as most men 
are) may be best pleased with his own. 
Besides, if the truest and most useful 
knowledge be the knowledge of our- 
selves, solitude, conducing most to make 
us look into ourselves, should be the 
most instructive state of life. We see 
nothing more commonly, than men who, 
for the sake of the circumstantial part, 
and mere outside of life, have been half 
their days rambling out of tlieir nature, 
and ought to be sent into solitude to 

* Mr. Wycherley was at this time about se- 
venty years old : Mr. Pope under seventeen. 



study themselves over again. People 
are usually spoiled, instead of being 
taught at their coming into the world : 
whereas J by being more conversant with 
obscurity, without any pains, they would 
naturally follow what they are meant for. 
In a word, if a man be a coxcomb, soli- 
tude is his best school ; and if he be a. 
fool, it is his best sanctuary. 

These are good reasons for my own 
stay here ; but I wish I could give you 
any for your coming hither, except that 
I earnestly invite you ; and yet I cannot 
help saying I have suffered a great deal 
of discontent that you do not come, 
though I so little merit that you should. 

I must complain of the shortness of 
your last. Those who have most wit, 
like those who have most money, are 
generally most sparing of either. 

LETTER V. 

Fro?n the same to the same, 

April 10, 17Q6. 
By one of yours of the last month, 
you desire me to select, if possible, some 
things from the first volume of your 
Miscellanies f, which may be altered so* 
as to appear again. I doubted your 
meaning in this : whether it was to pick 
out the best of those verses (as those on 
the Idleness of Business, on Ignorance, 
on Laziness, &c.) to make the method 
and numbers exact, and avoid repeti- 
tions. For though (upon reading them 
on this occasion) I believe they might 
receive such an alteration with advan- 
tage, yet they would not be changed so 
much but any one would know them for 
the same at first sight. Or if you mean 
to improve the worst pieces ; which are 
such as, to render them very good, would 
require great addition, and almost the 
entire new writing of them. Or, lastly, 
if you mean the middle sort, as the Songs, 
and Love-verses : for these will need 
only to be shortened to omit repetition ; 
the words remaining very little different 
from what they were before. Pray let 
me know your mind in this, for I am 
utterly at a loss. Yet I have tried what I 
could do to some of the songs, and the 
poems on Laziness and Ignorance ; but 
cannot (even in my own partial judg- 
ment) think my alterations much to 

f Printed in folio, in the year 1704. 



SfiCT. I. 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



2ai 



the purpose ; so that I must needs desire 
you would apply your care wholly at 
present to those which are yet unpublish- 
ed, of which there are more than enough 
to make a considerable volume, of full as 
good ones ; nay, I believe of better than 
any in Vol. I, wliich I could wish you 
would defer, at least till you have finished 
these that are yet unprinted. 

I send you a sample of some few of 
these ; namely, the verses to Mr. Waller 
in his old age ; your new ones on the 
duke of Marlborough, and two others. 
1 have done all that I thought could be 
of advantage to them : some I have con- 
tracted, as we do sunbeams, to improve 
their energy and force : some I have 
taken quite away, as we take branches 
from a tree to add to the fruit ; others 
I have entirely new expressed, and tuirn- 
ed more into poetry. Donne (like one 
of his successors) had infinitely more wit 
than he wanted versification ; for the 
great dealers of wit, like those in trade, 
take least pains to set ofi' their goods ; 
while the haberdashers of smaU wit spare 
for no decorations or ornaments. You 
have commissioned me to paint your 
shop ; and I have done my best to brush 
you up like your neighbours^. But I can 
no more pretend to the merit of the pro- 
duction than a midwife to the virtues 
and good qualities of the child she helps 
into the light. 

The few things I have entirely added, 
you will excuse : you may take them 
laAvfuliy for your own, because they iire 
no more than sparks lighted up by your 
fire : and you may omit them at last, if 
you think them but squibs in your tri- 
umphs. I am, &c. 

LETTER VL 

Fj'om the same to the saj/ie. 

Nov. '20, 1707. 
Mr.Englefield, being upon his journey 
to London, tells me I must write to you 
by him, which I do, not more to comply 
with his desire than to gratify my own ; 
though I did it so lately by the mes- 
senger you sent hither : I take it too as 
an opportunity of sending you the fair 

* Several of Mr. Pope's lines, very easy to 
be distinguished, may be found in the post- 
humous editions of Wycherley's Poems, par- 
ticularly those on Solitude, on the Public, and 
on the Mixed Life. 



copy of the poem on Dulnessf, which 
was not then finished, and which I 
should not care to hazard by the com- 
mon post. Mr. Englefield is ignorant 
of the contents ; and I hope your pru- 
dence wiU let him remain so, for my sake 
no less than your own : since, if you 
should reveal any thing of this nature, it 
would be no wonder reports should be 
raised, and there are those (I fear) who 
would be ready to improve them to my 
disadvantage. I am sorry you told the 
great man, whom you met in the court 
of requests, that your papers were in my 
hands. No man alive shall ever know 
any such thing from me, and I give you 
this warning besides, that though your- 
self should say I had any ways assisted 
you, I am notwithstanding resolved to 
deny it. 

The method of the copy I send you is 
very different from what it was, and 
much more regular : for the better help 
of your memory, I desire you to com- 
pare it by the figures in the margin, 
answering to the same in this letter. 
The Poem is now divided into four 
parts, marked with the literal figures 
1, 2, 3, 4. The first contains the 
Praise of Dulness ; and shews how 
upon several suppositions it passes for, 
1 , religion ; 2, philosophy ; 3, exam- 
ple ; 4, wit ; and, 5, the cause of wit, 
and the end of it. The second part 
contains the Advantages of Dulness ; 
1st, in business ; and, 2dly, at court ; 
where the similitudes of the bias of a 
bowl, and the weights of a clock, are 
directly tending to the subject, though 
introduced before in a place where 
there was no mention made of those 
advantages (which was your only objec- 
tion to my adding them). The third 
contains the Happiness of Dulness in all 
stations ; and shews, in a great many 
particulars, that it is so fortunate as to 
be esteemed some good quality or other 
in all sorts of people : that it is thought 
quiet, sense, caution, policy, pru- 
dence, majesty, valour, circumspection, 
honesty, &c. The fourth part I have 
wholly added, as a climax which sums 
up all the praise, advantage, and hap- 
piness of Dulness in a few words, and 

f The original of it in blots, and with figures 
of the references from copy to copy, in Mr. 
Pope's hand, is yet extant among other such 
brouillons of Mr. Wycherley's poems, correct- 
ed by him. 



202 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IlL 



strengthens them by the opposition of 
the disgrace, -disadvantage, and unhap- 
piness of wit, with which it concludes. 

Though the whole be as short again 
as at first, there is not one thought omit- 
ted, but what is a repetition of something 
in your first volume, or in this very pa- 
per. Some thoughts are contracted, 
where they seemed encompassed with 
too many words ; and some new ex- 
pressed, or added, where I thought there 
wanted heightening (as you will see par- 
ticularly in the simile of the clock- 
weights *) ; and the versification through- 
out is, I believe, such as nobody can be 
shocked at. The repeated permissions 
you give me of dealing freely with you, 
will (I hope) excuse what I have done : 
for if I have not spared you when 1 
thought severity would do you a kindness, 
I have not mangled you where I thought 
there was no absolute need of amputa- 
tion. As to particulars, I can satisfy 
you better when we meet. In the mean 
time, pray write to me when you can ; 
you cannot too often. 

LETTER Vn. 

Mr. Pope to Mr. Wycherlei/. 

Nov. 20, 1707. 
The compliments you make me, in re- 
gard of any inconsiderable service I 
could do you, are very unkind ; and do 
but tell me, in other words, that my 
friend has so mean an opinion of me, as 
to think I expect acknowledgments for 
trifles ; which, upon my faith, 1 shall 
equally take amiss, whether made to 
myself or to any other. For God's sake 
(my dear friend) think better of me ; 
and believe I desire no sort of favour 
so much as that of serving you more 
considerably than I have yet been able 
to do. 

I shall proceed in this manner with 
some others of your pieces : but since 
you desire I would not deface your copy 
for the future, and only mark the repeti- 
tions, 1 must, as soon as 1 have marked 
these, transcribe what is left on another 
paper ; and in that blot, alter, and add 
all I can devise for their improvement ; 

* These two similes, of the bias of a bowl 
and the weights of a clock, were at length put 
into the first book of tlic Dunriad ; and thus 
we have the history of Jlicir birth, fortnncL-, 
arul final establishment, 



for you are sensible, the omission of re- 
petitions is but one, and the easiest part 
of yours and my design ; there remaining 
besides to rectify the method, to connect 
the matter, and to mend the expression 
and versification. I will go next upon the 
poems of Solitude, on the Public, and on 
the Mixt Life, the Bill of Fare, the 
Praises of Avarice, and some others. 

I must take notice of what you say, 
of " my pains to make your dulness me- 
thodical ;" and of your hint, "That 
the sprightliness of wit despises me- 
thod." This is true enough, if by wit 
you mean no more than fancy or con- 
ceit ; but in the better notion of wit, 
considered as propriety, surely method is 
not only necessary for perspicuity and 
harmony of parts, but gives beauty even 
to the minute and particular thoughts, 
which receive an additional advantage 
from those which precede or follow in 
their due place. You remember a simile 
Mr. Dry den used in conversation, of 
feathers in the crowns of the wild In- 
dians ; which they not only choose for 
the beauty of their colours, but place 
them in such a manner as to reflect a 
lustre on each other. I will not disguise 
any of my sentiments from you : to me- 
thodize, in your case, is full as necessary 
as to strike out ; otherwise you had bet- 
ter destroy the whole frame, and reduce 
them into single thoughts in prose, like 
Rochefoucault, as I have more than once 
hinted to you. 

LETTER VIII. 

FrojH the same to the same. 

May 20, 1 709. 
I A3I glad you received the Miscellany f, 
if it were only to shew you that there 
are as bad poets in this nation as your 
servant. This modern custom, of appear- 
ing in miscellanies, is very useful to the 
poets, who, like other thieves, escape 
by getting into a crowd, and herd toge- 
ther like banditti, safe only in their mul- 
titude. Methinks Strada has given a 
good description of these kind of collec- 
tions : " NuUus hodie mortalium aut nas- 
citur aut moritur, aut proeliatur, aut rus- 
ticatur, aut abit peregre, aut redit, aut 
nubit, aut est, aut non est (nam etiam 

f Jacob 'i'ouson's sixth vol. of Miscellany 
Poems. 



Sect. I. 



MODERN. OF LATE DATE. 



203 



mortuis ibti canuiit) cui non ii!o exemplo 
cadimt Epicedia, Genethliaca, Protrep- 
tica, PaneffA^rica, Epithalanija, Vaticinia, 
Propemptica, Soterica, Parsenetica, Nee- 
mas, Nugas." As to the success -which, 
you say, my part has met with, it is to 
be attributed to what you were pleased to 
say of me to the world ; which you do 
well to call your prophecy, since what- 
ever is said in my favour must be a pre- 
diction of thing's that are not yet : you, 
like a true godfather, engage on my part 
for much more than ever I can perform. 
My pastoral jMuse, like other coimtry 
girls, is put out of countenance by what 
you courtiers say to her ; yet I hope you 
would not deceive me too far, as know- 
ing that a young scribbler's vanity needs 
no recruits from abroad ; for Nature, 
like an indulgent mother, kindly takes 
care to supply her sons with as much of 
their own as is necessary for their satis- 
faction. If my verses should meet with 
a few flying commendations, Virgil has 
taught me, that a young author has not 
too much reason to be pleased with them 
when he considers that the natural con- 
sequence of praise is envy and calumny. 

— Si ultra placitum laudarit, baccare fronlem 
Cingiie, ne vati iioceat mala lingua ftttiiro. 

When once a man has appeared as a 
poet, he may give up his pretensions to 
all the rich and thriving arts : those who 
have once made their court to those 
mistresses without portions, the Muses, 
are never like to set up for fortunes : 
but for my part, I shall be satisfied if I 
can lose my time agreeably this way, 
without losing my reputation : as for 
gaining any, I am as indifferent in the 
matter as Falstaff was ; and may say of 
fame as he did of honour, " If it comes, 
it comes unlook'd for ; and there's an 
end on't." I can be content with a bare 
saving game, without being thought an 
eminent hand (with which title Jacob 
has graciously dignified his adventm-ers 
and volunteers in poetry). Jacob creates 
poets as kings sometimes do knights, 
not for their honour, but for their mo- 
ney. Certainly he ought to he esteemed 
a worker of miracles, who is grown rich 
by poetry. 

What authors lose, their booksellers have 
won ; 

So pimps grow rich, while gallants are un- 
done. 

I am vours. &c. 



LETTER IX. 

From the same to the savie. 

April \5, 1710. 

I RECEIVED your most extreme kind 
letter but just now. It found me over 
those papers you mention, which have 
been my employment ever since Easter 
Monday : I hope before ISIichaelmas to 
have discharged my task, which, upon 
the word of a friend, is the most pleasing 
one I could be put upon. Since you are 
so near going into Shropshire (whither I 
shall not care to write of this matter, for 
fear of the miscarriage of any letters) I 
must desire your leave to give you a plain 
and sincere account of what I have found 
from a more serious application to them. 
Upon comparison with the former vo- 
lume, I find much more repeated than I 
till now imagined, as well as in the pre- 
sent volume ; which, if (as you told me 
last) you would have me dash over mth 
a line, Avill deface the whole copy ex- 
tremely, and to a degree that (I fear) 
may displease you. I have everywhere 
marked in the margins the page and line, 
botii in this and the other part. But if 
you order me not to cross the lines, or 
would any way else limit my commis- 
sion, you will oblige me by doing it in 
your next letter ; for I am at once equal- 
ly fearful of sparing you, and of offend- 
ing you by too impudent a correction. 
Hitherto, however, I have crossed them 
so as to be legible, because you bade me. 
When I think all the repetitions are 
struck out in a copy, I sometimes find 
more upon dipping in the first volume ; 
and the number increases so much, that 
I believe more shortening Avill be requi- 
site than you may be willing to bear 
A^ith, unless you are in good earnest re- 
solved to have no thought repeated. 
Pray forgive this freedom, which as I 
must be sincere in this case, so I could 
not but take ; and let me know if I am 
to go on at this rate, or if you would 
prescribe any other method. 

I am very glad you continue your re- 
solution of seeing me in my hermitage 
this summer. The sooner you return, 
the sooner I shall be happy ; whicli in- 
deed my want of any company that is 
entertaining or esteemable, together with 
frequent infirmities and pains, hinder me 
from being in your absence. It is (I 
am sure) a real truth, that mv sickness 



204 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book III. 



cannot make me quite weary of myself 
when I have you with me ; and I shall 
want no company but yours, when you 
are here. 

You see how freely and with how lit- 
tle care I talk, rather than write to you. 
This is one of the many advantages of 
friendship, that one can say to one's 
friend the things that stand in need of 
pardon, and at the same time be sure of 
it. Indeed, I do not know whether or 
no the letters of friends are the worse for 
being fit for none else to read. It is an 
argument of the trust reposed in a 
friend's good-nature, wlien one writes 
such things to him as require a good 
portion of it. I have experienced yours 
so often and so long, that I can now no 
more doubt of the greatness of it than 
I hope you do of the greatness of my 
affection, or of the sincerity with which 
I am, &c. 

LETTER X. 

Blr. Pope to Mr. Wycherlei/. 

May 10, 1710. 

I AM sorry you persist to take ill my 
not accepting your invitation, and to 
find (if I mistake not) your exception 
not unmixed with some suspicion. Be 
certain I shall most carefully observe 
your request, not to cross over, or deface 
the copy of your papers for the future, 
and only to mark in the margin the re- 
petitions. But as this can serve no far- 
ther than to get rid of those repetitions, 
and no way rectify the method, nor 
connect the matter, nor improve the 
poetry in expression or numbers, with- 
out further blotting, adding, and alter- 
ing ; so it really is my opinion and de- 
sire, that you shall take your papers 
out of my hands into your own, and 
that no alterations may be made but 
when both of us are present ; when you 
may be satisfied with every blot, as well 
as every addition, and nothing be put 
upon the pajiers but what you shall give 
your own sanction and assent to at the 
same time. 

Do not be so unjust, as to imagine 
from hence that 1 would decline any part 
of this task ; on the contrary, you know, 
I have been at the pains of transcribing 
some pieces, at once to comply with your 
desire of not defacing the copy, and yet 
to lose no time in proceeding upon the 



correction. I will go on the same way, 
if you please ; though truly it is (as I 
have often told you) my sincere opinion, 
that the gi-eater part would make a much 
better figure as single maxims and reflec- 
tions in prose, after the manner of your 
favourite Rochefoucault, than in verse * ; 
and this, when nothing more is done but 
marking the repetitions in the margin, 
will be an easy task to proceed upon, 
notwithstanding the bad memory you 
complain of. I am unfeignedly, dear 
sir, your, &c. 

LETTER XI. 

Mr. Pope to Mr. Walsh. 

Windsor Forest, July 2, 1706. 
I CANNOT omit the first opportunity of 
making you my acknowledgments for 
reviewing those papers of mine. You 
have no less right to correct me than the 
same hand that raised a tree has to prune 
it. I am convinced as well as you, that 
one may correct too much ; for in poetry 
as in painting, a man may lay colours 
one upon another, till they stiffen and 
deaden the piece. Besides, to bestow 
heightening on every part is monstrous t 
some parts ought to be lower than the 
rest ; and nothing looks more ridiculous 
than a work, where the thoughts, how- 
ever different in their own nature, seem 
all on a level : it is like a meadow newly 
mown, where weeds, grass, and flowers, 
are all laid even, and appear undistin- 
guished. I believe too that sometimes 
our first thoughts are the best ; as the 
first squeezing of the grapes makes the 
finest and richest wine. 

I have not attempted any thing of a 
Pastoral Comedy, because, I think, the 
taste of our age will not relish a poem of 
that sort. People seek for what they call 
Wit, on all subjects, and in all places ; 
not considering that Nature loves truth 
so well, that it hardly ever admits of 
flourishing : conceit is to nature, what 
paint is to beauty ; it is not only need- 
less, but impairs what it would improve. 

* Mr. Wycherley lived five years after, to 
December 1715 ; but little progress was made 
in this design, through his old age, and the in- 
crease of his infirmities. However, some of the 
verses which had been touched by Mr. P. with 
covin of these maxims in prose, were found 
among his papers, which, having the misfortune 
to fall into the hands of a mercenary, were 
published in 1782, in octavo, under the title of 
The Posthumous Works of W. Wycherley, Esq. 



Sect. I. 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



205 



There is a certain majesty in simplicity, 
which is far above all the quaintness of 
wit : insomuch, that the critics have ex- 
cluded wit from the loftiest poetry, as 
well as the lowest, and forbid it to the 
Epic no less than the Pastoral. I should 
certainly displease all those who are 
charmed with Guarini and BonarelM, 
and imitate Tasso not only in tlie sim- 
plicity of his thoughts, but in that of 
the fable too. if surprising discoveries 
should have place in the story of a pas- 
toral comedy, I believe it would be more 
agreeable to probability to make them 
the effects of chance than of design ; in- 
trigue not being very consistent with 
that innocence which ought to consti- 
tute a shepherd's character. There is 
nothing in all the Aminta (as I remem- 
ber) but happens by mere accident ; un- 
less it be the meeting of Aminta with 
Sylvia at the fountain, which is the con- 
trivance of Daphne ; and even that is the 
most simple in the world : the contrary 
is observable in Pastor Fido, where Co- 
risca is so perfect a mistress of intrigue, 
that the plot could not have been brought 
to pass without her. I am inclined to 
think the pastoral comedy has another 
disadvantage, as to the manners : its 
general design is to make us in love 
with the innocence of a rural life, so that 
to introduce shepherds of a vicious cha- 
racter must in some measure debase it ; 
and hence it may come to pass, that even 
the virtuous ciiaracters will not shine so 
much, for want of being opposed to their 
contraries. These thoughts are purely 
my own, and therefore I have reason to 
doubt them : but 1 hope your judgment 
will set me right. 

I would beg your opinion too as to 
another point : it is. How far the liberty 
of borrowing may extend? I have de- 
fended it sometimes by saying, that it 
seems not so much the perfection of 
sense, to say things that had never been 
said before, as to express those best that 
have been said oftenest ; and tliat wri- 
ters, in the case of borrowing from 
others, are like trees, which of them- 
selves would produce only one sort of 
fruit; but by being grafted upon others, 
may yield variety. A mutual commerce 
makes poetry flourish ; but then poets, 
like merchants, should repay with some- 
thing of their own what they take from 
others ; not like pirates, make prize of 
all they meet. I desire you to tell me 



sincerely, if I have not stretched this li- 
cense too far in these Pastorals : I hope 
to become a critic by your precepts, and 
a poet by your example. Since I have 
seen your Eclogues, 1 cannot be much 
pleased with my own ; however, you 
have not taken away all my vanity, so 
long as you give me leave to profess my- 
self yours, &c. 



LETTER XIL 

From the scune to the same. 

Oct. 22, 1 706, 

After the thoughts I have already sent 
you on the subject of English versifica- 
tion, you desire my opinion as to some 
farther particulars. There are indeed 
certain niceties, which, though not 
much observed even by correct versi- 
fiers, I cannot but think deserve to be 
better regarded. 

1 . It is not enough that nothing of- 
fends the ear, but a good poet will adapt 
the very sounds, as well as words, to the 
thing he treats of : so that there is (if 
one may express it so) a style of sound. 
As in describing a gliding stream, the 
numbers should run easy and flowing ; 
in describing a rough torrent or deluge, 
sonorous and swelling ; and so of the 
rest. This is evident everywhere in 
Homer and Virgil, and nowhere else', 
that I know of, to any observable degree. 
The following examples will make this 
plain, which I have taken from Vida : 

Molle viam tacito lapsu per levia radit. 

Incedit tardo moliniine subsidendo. 

Luctantes ventos, tempestatesque sonoras. 

Immenso cum prcecipitans ruit Oceano Nox. 

Telum imbelle sine ictu, cnnjecit. 

Tolle moras y cape saxa manu, cape robora. Pastor. 

Ferte citi fiammas, date tela, repellite pestem. 

This, I think, is what very few ob- 
serve in practice, and is undoubtedly of 
wonderful force in imprinting the image 
on the reader : we have one excellent 
example of it in our own language, Mr. 
Dryden's Ode on St. Csecilia's Day, en- 
titled Alexander's Feast. 

2. Every nice ear must (I believe) 
have observed, that in any smooth Eng- 
lish verse of ten syllables, there is natu- 
rally a pause at the fourth, fifth, or sixth 
syllable. It is upon these the ear rests ; 
and upon the judicious change and ma- 



206 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book III. 



nagement of which depends tlie variety 
of versification. For example. 
At the fifth, 

Where'er thy navy | spreads Iier canvass 
wings. 

At the fourth, 
Homage to thee | and peace to all she brings. 

At the sixth, 
Like tracks of leverets | in morning snow. 

Now I fancy, that to preserve an ex- 
act harmony and variety, the pause at 
the 4th or 6th should not be continued 
above three lines together, without the 
interposition of another ; else it will be 
apt to weary the ear with one continued 
tone ; at least, it does mine : that at the 
5th runs quicker, and carries not quite 
so dead a weight, so tires not so much, 
thougli it be continued longer. 

3. Another nicety is in relation to 
expletives, whether words or syllables, 
which are made use of purely to supply 
a vacancy : Do before verbs plural is ab- 
solutely such ; and it is not improbable 
but future refiners may explode did and 
does in the same manner, which are al- 
most always used for the sake of rhyme. 
The same cause has occasioned the pro- 
miscuous use ofi/ou and thou to the same 
person,' which can never sound so grace- 
ful as either one or the other. 

4. I would also object to the irrup- 
tion of Alexandrine verses, of twelve syl- 
lables, which, I think, should never be 
allowed but when some remarkable 
beauty or propriety in them atones for 
the liberty. Mr. Dryden has been too 
free of these, especially in his later 
works. I am of the same opinion as to 
triple rhymes. 

5. I could equally object to the repe- 
tition of the same rhymes within four or 
six lines of each other, as tiresome to 
the ear through their monotony. 

6. Monosyllable lines, unless very 
artfully managed, are stiff or languish- 
ing ; but may be beautiful to express 
melancholy, slowness, or labour. 

7. To come to the hiatus, or gap 
between two words, w^dch is caused by 
two vowels opening on each other (upon 
which you desire me to be particular), I 
tliink the rule in this case is ether to 
use the caesura, or admit the hiatus, just 
as the ear is least shocked by either ; for 

,the csesura sometimes offends the ear 
more than the hiatus itself : and our lan- 
guage is naturally overcharged with con- 



sonants. As for example ; if in this verse, 

The old have int'rest ever in their eye, 
we shall say, to avoid the hiatus, 
Butth' old have int'rest. 

The hiatus which has the worst effect 
is when one word ends with the same 
vowel that begins the following ; and 
next to this, those vowels whose sounds 
come nearest each other are most to be 
avoided. O, A, or U, will bear a more 
full and graceful sound than E, I, or Y. 
I know, some people will think these 
observations trivial : and therefore I am 
glad to corroborate them by some great 
authorities, which I have met with in 
TuUy and Quintilian. In the fourth 
book of Rhetoric to Herennius, are these 
words : " Fugiemus crebras vocaliuni 
concursiones, quee vastam atque hiantem 
reddimt orationem ; ut hoc est, Baccce 
senese amosnissimse impendebant." And 
Quintilian, 1. ix, cap. 4, " Vocalium 
concursus cum accidit, hiat et intersistit, 
et quasi laborat oratio. Pessime longae 
qu£e easdem inter se literas committunt, 
sonabunt ; prsecipuus tamen erit hiatus 
earum quse cavo aut patulo ore efferuntur. 
E plenior litera est, / angustior." But 
he goes on to reprove the excess, on the 
other hand, of being too solicitous in 
this matter, and says, admirably, " Nes- 
cio an neglige ntia in hoc, aut solicitudo 
sit pejor." So likewise Tully (Orat. ad 
Brut.) : " Theopompum reprehendunt, 
quod eas literas tanto opere fugerit, etsi 
idem magister ejus Socrates :" which last 
author, as Turnebus on Quintilian ob- 
serves, has hardly one hiatus in all his 
works. Quintilian tells us, that Tully 
and Demosthenes did not much observe 
this nicety, though Tully himself says, 
in his Orator, " Crebra ista vocum con- 
cursio, quam magna ex parte vitiosam, 
fugit Demosthenes." If I am not mis- 
taken, Malherbe of all the moderns has 
been the most scrupulous in this point ; 
and I think Menage, in his observations 
upon him, says he has not one in his 
poems. To conclude, I believe the hia- 
tus should be avoided with more care in 
poetry than in oratory ; and I would con- 
stantly try to prevent it, unless where the 
cutting it off is more prejudicial to the 
sound than the hiatus itself. I am, &c. 

[Mr. Walsh died at forty-nine years old, in 
the year 1708, the year before the Essay on 
Criticism was printed, which concludes with 
his elogy.] 



Sect. I. 



MODERN, OF LATE DA¥^E. 



207 



LETTER Xin. 

3Ir, Pope to H. Cromzvell, Esq. 

March 18, 1703. 

I BELIEVE it was with me when I left 
the town, as it is with a great many 
men when they leave the world, whose 
loss itself they do not so much regret, as 
that of their friends whom they leave be- 
hind in it. For I do not know one tiling 
for which I can envy London, hut for 
your continuing there. Yet I guess you 
will expect me to recant this expression, 
when I tell you that Sappho (by which 
heathenish name you have christened a 
very orthodox lady) did not accompany 
me into the country. Well, you have 
your lady in tlie town still, and I have 
my heart in the country still, which, be- 
ing wholly unemployed as yet, has the 
more room in it for m.y friends, and does 
not want a comer at your service. You 
have extremely obliged me by your 
frankness and kindness ; and if I have 
abused it by too much freedom on my 
part, I hope you will attribute it to the 
natural openness of my temper, which 
hardly knows how to shew respect where 
itfeels affection . I would love my friend, 
as my mistress, without ceremony ; and 
hope a little rough usage sometimes may 
not be more displeasing to the one than 
it is to the other. 

If you have any curiosity to know in 
what manner I live, or rather lose a life. 
Martial will inform you in one line ; 

prandeo, polo, cano, ludo, lego, cceno, qniesco. 

Every day with me is literally another 
yesterday, for it is exactly the same : it 
has the same business, which is poetry ; 
and the same pleasure, which is idleness. 
A man might indeed pass his time much 
better, but I question if any m.an could 
pass it much easier. If you will visit our 
shades this spring, which I very much 
desire, you may perhaps instruct me to 
manage my game more wisely ; but at 
present I am satisfied to trifle away my 
time any M^ay, rather than let it stick by 
me ; as shop-keepers are glad to be rid 
of those goods at any rate, which would 
otherwise always be lying upon their 
hands. 

Sir, If you wiU favour me sometimes 
with your letters, it will be a great satis- 
faction to me on several accounts ; and 
on this in particular, that it will shew me 



(to my comfort) that even a wise man is 
sometimes very idle ; for so you needs 
must be, when you can find leisure to 
write to your, &c. 

LETTER XIV. 

From the same to the same.. 

April 17, 17w8. 
I HAVE nothing to say to you in this 
letter ; but I was resolved to write to 
tell you so. ^Yhy should not I content 
myself with so many great examples, of 
deep divines, profound casuists, grave 
philosophers ; who have written not let- 
ters ordy, but whole tomes and volumi- 
nous treatises about nothing? Why 
should a fellow like me, who all his life 
does nothing, be ashamed to write no- 
thing ; and that to one who has nothing 
to do but to read it ? But perhaps you 
will say, the whole world has something 
to do, something to talk of, something 
to wish for, something to be employed 
about : but pray, sir, cast up the ac- 
count, put all these things together, and 
Avhat is the sum total but just nothing ? 
I have no more to say, but to desire you 
to give my service (that is nothing) to 
your friends, and to believe that I am 
nothing more than your, &c. 

" Ex nikilo niljit.^'' — Lucu. 

LETTER XV. 

F7'077i the same to the same. 

May 10, 170S. 

You talk of fame and glory, and of the 
great men of antiquity : j)ray tell me, 
what are all your great dead men, but 
so many little living letters ? \Yliat a 
vast reward is here for all the ink wasted 
by writers, and all the blood spilt by 
princes ! There was in old time one 
Severus, a Roman emperor. I dare say 
you never called him by any other name 
in your life : and yet in his days he was 
styled Lucius, Septimius, Severus, Pius, 
Pertinax, Augustus, Parthicus, Adiabe- 
nicus, Arabicus, Maximus, and what 
not ! ^Yliat a prodigious waste of letters 
has time made ! What a number have 
here dropt off, and left the poor surviv- 
ing seven unattended ! For my own part, 
four are all I have to care for ; and I 
will be judged by you if any man could 
live in less compass ? Well, for the future 
1 will drown all high thoughts in the 



208 



JELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book 111, 



lethe of cowslip-wine ; as for fame, re- 
nown, reputation, take them, critics ! 

Tradam protervis in Mare Cr'tlicum 
Vends. 

If ever I seek for immortality liere, 
may I be damned ; for there is not so 
much danger in a poet's being damned : 

Damnation follows death in other men, 
33ut your damn'd poet lives and writes again. 



LETTER XVL 

Mr. Pope to H. Cromwell, Esq. 

November 1, 1708. 
I HAVE been so well satisfied with the 
country ever since I saw you, that 1 have 
not once thought of the town, nor in- 
quired of any one in it besides Mr. Wy- 
cherley and yourself. And from him I 
understand of your journey this summer 
into Leicestershire ; from whence I guess 
you are returned by this time to your old 
apartment in the widow's corner, to 
your old business of comparing critics, 
and reconciling commentators, and to 
your old diversions of losing a game at 
piquet with the ladies, and half a play, 
or a quarter of a play at the theatre : where 
you are none of the malicious audience, 
but the chief of amorous spectators ; and 
for the infirmity of one sense*, which 
there, for the most part, could only serve 
to disgust you, enjoy the vigour of an- 
other, which ravishes you. 

You know, when one sense is supprest, 
It but retires into the rest, 

according to the poetical, not the learn- 
ed, Dodwell ; who has done one thing 
worthy of eternal memory ; wrote two 
lines in his life that are not nonsense ! 
So you have the advantage of being en- 
tertained with all the beauty of the 
boxes, without being troubled with any 
of the dulness of the stage. You are so 
good a critic, that it is the greatest hap- 
piness of the modern poets that you do 
not hear their works ; and next, that 
you are not so arrant a critic as to damn 
them (like the rest) without hearing. 
But now I talk of those critics, I have 
good news to tell you concerning myself, 
for which I expect you should congratu- 
late with me : it is that, beyond all 
my expectations, and far above my de- 

* His hearing. 



merits, I have been. most mercifully re- 
prieved by the sovereign power of Jacob 
Tonson, from being brought forth to 
public punishment ; and respited from 
time to time from the hands of those bar- 
barous executioners of the Muses, whom 
I was just now speaking of. It often 
happens, that guilty poets, like other 
guilty criminals, when once they are 
known and proclaimed, deliver them- 
selves into the hands of justice, only to 
prevent others from doing it more to 
their disadvantage ; and not out of any 
ambition to spread their fame, by being 
executed in the face of the world, which 
is a fame but of short continuance. That 
poet v/ere a happy man who could but 
obtain a grant to preserve his for ninety- 
nine years ; for those names very rarely 
last so many days, which are planted 
either in Jacob Tonson's, or the ordinary 
of Newgate's Miscellanies. 

I have an hundred things to say to^ 
you, which shall be deferred till I have 
the happiness of seeing you in town, for 
tlie season now draws on that invites 
every body thither. Some of them I 
had communicated to you by letters be- 
fore this, if I had not been uncertain 
where you passed your time the last sea- 
son ; so much fine vvxather, I doubt not, 
has given you all the pleasure you could 
desire from the country, and your own 
thoughts the best company in it. But 
nothing could allure Mr. Wycherley to 
our forest ; he continued (as you told me 
long since he would) an obstinate lover 
of the town, in spite of friendship and 
fair weather. Therefore, henceforward, 
to all those considerable qualities I know 
you possessed of, I shall add that of pro- 
phecy. But I still believe Mr. Wycher- 
ley's intentions were good, and am satis- 
fied that he promises nothing but with 
a real design to perform it : how much 
soever his other excellent qualities are 
above my imitation, his sincerity, Ihope, 
is not ; and it is with the utmost that 
I am, sir, &c. 

LETTER XVII. 

From the same to the same. 

Jan. 22, 1708-9. 
I HAD sent you the inclosed papers t 
before this time, but that I intended to 

f This was a translation of the first book of 
Statius, done when the author was but fourteen 



Sect. L 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



200 



liave brought them myself, and after- 
wards coiild find no opportunity of send- 
ing- them without suspicion of their mis- 
carrying ; not that they are of the least 
yalue, but for fear somebody might be 
foolish enough to imagine them so, and 
inquisitive enough to discover those 
faults which 1 (by your help) would cor- 
rect. I therefore beg the favour of you 
to let them go no farther than your cham- 
ber, and to be very free of your remarks 
in the margins, not only in regard to 
the accuracy, but to the fidelity of the 
translation ; which I have not had time 
to compare with its original. And I 
desire you to be the more severe, as it is 
much more criminal for me to make 
another speak nonsense, than to do it in 
my own proper person. For your better 
help in comparing it, it may be fit to tell 
you, that this is not an entire version of 
the first book. There is an omission 
from the 168th line — " Jam murmu- 
ra serpunt plebis Agenoreae" — to the 
312th — " Interea patriis olim vagus 

exui ab oris" (between these '^ two, 

Statins has a description of the council 
of the gods, and a speech of Jupiter ; 
which contains a peculiar beauty and 
majesty ; and were left out for no other 
reason, but because the consequence of 
this machine appears not till the second 
book.) The translation goes on from 
thence to the words " Hie vero ambo- 
bus rabiem fortuna cruentam," where 
there is an odd account of a battle at 
fisty-cuffs between the two princes, on 
a very slight occasion, and at a time 
when, one would think, the fatigue of 
their journey, in so tempestuous a night, 
might have rendered them very unfit 
for such a scuffle. This I had actually 
translated, but was very ill satisfied with 
it, even in my own words, to which an 
author cannot but be partial enough of 
conscience : it was therefore omitted in 
this copy, which goes on above eighty 
lines farther, at the words — " Hie pri- 
mum lustrare oculis," &c. to the end 
of the book. 

You will find, I doubt not, that Sta- 
tius was none of the discreetest poets, 
though he- was the best versifier next 
Virgil : in the very beginning he un- 

years o](], as appears by an advertisement be- 
fore the first edition of it, in a miscellany pub- 
lished by B. Lintot, 8vo, 1711. 

* These he since translated, and they are ex- 
tant in the printed version. 



luckily betrays his ignorance in the rules 
of Poetry (which Horace had already 
taught the Romans), when he asks his 
Muse where to begin his Thebaid, and 
seems to doubt whether it should not 
be " ab ovo Ledaeo." When he comes 
to the scene of his poem, and the prize 
in dispute between the brothers, he 
gives us a very mean opinion of it — 
" Pugna est de paupere regno." Very 
different from the conduct of his master, 
Virgil, who at the entrance of his poem 
informs his reader of the greatness of its 
subject — " Tantse molis erat Romanam 
condere gentem" [Bossu on Epic Poe- 
try] . There are innumerable little faults 
in him ; among which I cannot but take 
notice of one in this book, where speak- 
ing of the implacable hatred of the bro- 
thers, he says, " the whole world would 
be too small a prize to repay so much 
impiety." 

Quid si peferetur crimine ianto 
Limes uterque poli, quern Sol emissus Eco 
Cardine, quem porta vergens prospectat Ibera f 

This was pretty well, one would think, 
already ; but he goes on, 

Qnasque procul terras obliquo sidere tangit 
Avius, aut Borea gelidas, madidive iepentes 
Igne Noti ? 

After all this, what could a poet think of 
but Heaven itself for the prize ? but vdiat 
follows is astonishing : 

S.'/ffZ si Tijrlce Fhrygiceve sub unum 
Convectentur opes 9 

I do not remember to have met vvith so 
great a fall in any ancient author what- 
soever. I should not have insisted so 
much oil the faults of this poet, if I did 
not hope you would take the same free- 
dom with, and revenge it upon, his 
translator. I shall be extremely glad if 
the reading this can be any amusement 
to you, the rather because I had the dis- 
satisfaction to hear you have been con- 
fined to your chamber by an illness, 
which, I fear, Avas as troublesome a cbm- 
panion as I have sometimes been in the 
same place ; where, if ever you found 
any pleasure in my company, it must 
surely have been that which most men 
take in observing the faults and follies 
of another : a pleasure which, you see, 
I take care to give you, even in my ab- 
sence. 

If you will oblige me at your leisure 
P 



210 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book III 



with tlie confirmation of your recovery, 
under your own hand, it will be ex- 
tremely grateful to me ; for next to the 
pleasure of seeing- my friends, is that 1 
take in hearing from them : and in this 
particular I am beyond all acknowledg- 
ments obliged to our friend Mr. Wy- 
cherley. 1 know I need no apology to 
you for speaking of him, whose example, 
as I am proud of following in all things, 
so in nothing more than in professing 
myself, like him, your, &c. 



LETTER XVIII. 

Mr. Pope to H. Cromivell, Esq, 

March 7, 17t;9. 
You had long before this time been 
troubled with a letter from me, but that 
I deferred it till I could send you either 
the Miscellany'^, or my continuation of 
the version of Statins. The first I ima- 
gined you might have had before now ; 
but since the contrary has happened, 
you may draw this moral from it, that 
authors in general are more ready to 
wi'ite nonsense than booksellers are to 
publish it. I had I know not what ex- 
traordinary flux of rhyme upon me for 
three days together, in which time all the 
verses you see added, have been written ; 
which I tell you, that you may more 
freely be severe upon them. It is a 
mercy 1 do not assault you with a number 
of original sonnets and epigrams, which 
our modern bards put forth in the spring- 
time, in as great abundance as trees do 
blossoms, a very few whereof ever come 
to be fruit, and please no longer than 
just in their birth. They make no less 
haste to bring their flowers of wit to the 
press, than gardeners to bring their other 
flowers to the market, which if they 
cannot get off their hands in the morn- 
ing are sure to die before night. Tlius 
the same reason that furnishes Covent- 
garden with those nosegays you so de- 
light in , supplies the Muses , Mercury, and 
British Apollo (not to say Jacob's Mis- 
cellanies) with verses. And it is the 
happiness of this age, that the modern 
invention of printing poems for pence a- 

* Jacob Tonson's sixth volume of Poetical 
Miscellanies, in which Mr. Pope's Pastorals, 
and some versions of Homer and Chaucer, were 
first printPil 



piece, has brought the nosegays of Par- 
nassus to bear the same price ; whereby 
the public- spirited Mr. Henry Hills, of 
Blackfriars, has been the cause of great 
ease and singular comfort to all the 
learned, who, never over-abounding in 
transitory coin, should not be discon- 
tented (methinks) even though poems 
were distributed gratis about the streets, 
like Bunyan's sermons and other pious 
treatises, usually published in a like vo- 
lume and character. 

The time now drawing nigh, when 
you used with Sappho to cross the water 
in an evening to Spring-garden, I hope 
you will have a fair opportunity of ra- 
vishing her ; — I mean only (as Old Fox 
in the Plain Dealer says) through the ear, 
v/ith your well-penned verses. I wish 
you all the pleasure which the season and 
the nymph can afford ; the best company, 
the best coffee, and the best news you can 
desire ; and what more to wish you than 
this, I do not know ; unless it be a great 
deal of patience to read and examine the 
verses I send you : I promise you in re- 
turn a great deal of deference to your 
judgment, and an extraordinary obe- 
dience to your sentiments for the future 
(to which you know I have been some- 
times a little refractory). If you will 
please to begin where you left off last, 
and mark the margin, as you have done 
in the pages immediately before (which 
you will find corrected to your sense 
since your last perusal), you will ex- 
tremely oblige me and improve my 
translation. Besides those places v/hicli 
may deviate from the sense of the au- 
thor, it would be very kind in you to 
observe any deficiencies in the diction 
or numbers. The hiatus in particular I 
would avoid as much as possible, to 
which you are certainly in the right to 
be a professed enemy ; though I confess, 
I could not think it possible at all times 
to be avoided by any writer, till I found 
by reading Malherbe lately, that there 
is scarce any throughout his poems. I 
thought your observation true enough 
to be passed into a rule, but not a rule 
without exceptions, nor that it ever had 
been reduced to practice : but this ex- 
ample of one of the most correct and 
best of their poets has undeceived me, 
and confirms your opinion very strongly, 
and much more than Mr. Dryden's au- 
thority, who, though he made it a rule, 
seldom observed it. Your, &c. 



Sect. I. 



MODERN, OF I.ATE DATE, 



211 



LETTER XIX. 

From the same to the same. 

June 10, 1709. 

I HAVE received part of the version of 
Statins, and return you my thanks for 
your remarks, which I think to he just, 
except where you cry out (like one in 
Horace's Art of Poetry) " pulchre, bene, 
recte ! " There I have some fears you are 
often, if not always, in the wrong. 

One of your objections, namely on that 
passage. 

The rest revolviiig j^ears sliail ripen into fate, 

may be well groimded, in relation to its 
not being the exact sense of the words — 
*' Certo reiiqua ordine ducam*." But 
the duration of the action of Statius's 
poem may as well be expected against as 
many things besides in him (which I 
wonder Bossu has not observed) : for in- 
stead of confining his narration to one 
year, it is manifestly exceeded in the very 
first two books : the narration begins 
with (Edipus's prayer to the Fury to pro- 
mote discord betwixt his sons ; after- 
ward the poet expressly describes their 
entering into the agreement of reigning 
a year by turns ; and Polynices takes his 
flight from Thebes on his brother's re- 
fusal to resign the throne. All this is in 
the first book : in the next, Tydeus is sent 
ambassador to Eteocles, and demands his 
resignation in these terms, 

Astriferum velox jam circulus orbem 
Tor sit, et amissce redierunt montih'js umbrae, 
Ex quo frater inops, ignota per oppida tristes 
Exul agit casus. 

But Bossu himself is mistaken in one 
particular, relating to the commence- 
ment of the action ; saying in book ii. 
chap. 8, that Statins opens it with Eu- 
ropa's rape ; whereas the poet at most 
only deliberates whether he should or 
not: 

Unde jubetis 
Ire, Decs ? gentisne canam prbnordiu dirce, 
Sidonios raptus ? 5)C. 

but then expressly passes all this with a 
" longa retro series" and says. 

Limes mihi carminis esto ^ 
Qildipodce confusa domus. 

Indeed there are numberless particulars 
* See the first book of Statins, v. 392. 



blameworthy in our author, which I have 
tried to soften in the version : 

Dubiamque jugo fragor impulit CEten 
In laius, et geminis vix fiuctibus obsiitit Isthmus 

is most extravagantly hyperbolical ; nor 
did I ever read a greater piece of tauto- 
logy than 

Vacua cum solus in a-ila 
liespiceres jus orane tuuni, cunctos(!)ae minores, 
Et nusquam par stare caput. 

In the journey of Polynices is some 
geographical error : 

In mediis audit duo litora campis 

could hardly be : for the Isthmus of Co- 
rinth is full five miles over :' and " ca- 
ligentes abrupto sole Mycenas," is not 
consistent with what he tells us, in lib. 
iv. line 305, *' that those of Mycense 
came not to the war at this time, be- 
cause they were then in confusion by the 
divisions of the brothers, Atreus and 
Thyestes." 'Now from the raising the 
Greek army against Thebes, back to the 
time of this journey of Polynices, is (ac- 
cording to Statius's own account) three 
years. Yours, &c. 



LETTER XX. 

From the same to the same. 

July 17, 1709. 
The morning after I parted from you, 
I found myself (as I had prophesied) all 
alone, in an uneasy stage-coach : a dole- 
ful change from that agreeable company 
I enjoyed the night before ! without the 
least hope of entertainment but from my 
last recourse in such cases, a book. I 
then began to enter into acquaintance 
with your moralists, and had just re- 
ceived from them some cold consolation 
for the inconveniences of this life, and 
the uncertainty of human affairs : when 
I perceived my vehicle to stop, and heard 
from the side of it the dreadful ncAvs of 
a sick woman preparing to enter it. It 
is not easy to guess at my mortification ; 
but being so well fortified with philoso- 
phy, I stood resigned with a stoical con- 
stancy to endure the worst of evils, a 
sick woman. I was a little comforted 
to find, by her voice and dress, that she 
was young and a gentlewoman : but no 
sooner was her hood removed, but I saw 
one of the finest faces \ ever beheld, and 
P2 



212 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book III. 



to increase my surprise, heard her salute 
me by my name. I never had more rea- 
son to accuse nature for making me 
short-sighted than now, when I could 
not recollect I had ever seen those fair 
eyes which kneW me so well, and was 
utterly at a loss how to address myself ; 
till with a great deal of simplicity and 
innocence she let me know (even before 
I discovered my ignorance) that she was 
the daughter of one in our neighbour- 
hood lately married, who, having been 
consulting her physicians in town, was 
returning into the country, to try what' 
good air and a husband could do to re- 
cover her. My father, you must know, 
has sometimes recommended the study 
of physic to me, but I never had any am- 
bition to be a doctor till this instant. I 
ventured to prescribe some fruit (which 
I happened to have in the coach) which 
being forbidden her by her doctors, she 
had the more inclination to. In short, 
I tempted, and she ate ; nor was I more 
like the Devil than she like Eve. Hav- 
ing the good success of the foresaid 
tempter before my eyes, 1 put on the 
gallantry of the old serpent, and, in spite 
of my evil form, accosted her with all. 
the gaiety 1 was master of; which had 
so good an effect, that in less than an 
hour she grew pleasant ; her colour re- 
turned, and she was pleased to say my 
prescription had wrought an immediate 
cure. In a word, I had the pleasantest 
journey imaginable. 

Thus far (methinks) my letter has 
something of the air of romance, though 
it be true. But I hope you will look on 
what follows as the greatest of truths, 
that I think myself extremely obliged by 
you in all points ; especially for your 
kind and honourable information and 
advice in a matter of the utmost concern 
to me, which I shall ever acknowledge 
as the highest proof at once of your 
friendship, justice, and sincejity. At 
the same time be assured, that gentle- 
man we spoke of shall never, by, any al- 
teration in me, discover my knowledge 
of his mistake ; the hearty forgiving of 
which is the only kind of return I can 
possibly make him for so many favours : 
and 1 may derive this pleasure at least 
from it, that whereas I must otherwise 
have been a little uneasy to know my in- 
capacity of returning his obligations, I 
may now, by bearing his frailty, exercise 
my gratitude and friendship more than 



himself either is, of perhaps ever will be 
sensible of. 

Ille meos, primus qui me sibijunxit, amores 
Abstulit: ille habeat secum, servetque sepulchro ! 

But in one thing, I must confess you 
have yourself obliged me more than any 
man ; which is, that you have shewed me 
many of my faults , to which as you are 
the more an implacable enemy, by so 
much the more are you a kind friend to 
me. I could be proud, in revenge, to 
find a few slips in your verses, which I 
read in London, and since in the coun- 
try, with more application and pleasure : 
the thoughts are very just, and you are 
sure not to let them suffer by the versi- 
fication. If you would oblige me with 
the trust of any thing of yours, I should 
be glad to execute any commissions you 
would give me concerning them. I am 
here so perfectly at leisure, that nothing 
would be so agreeable an entertainment 
to me ; but if you will not afford me 
that, do not deny me at least the sa- 
tisfaction of your letters as long as we 
are absent, if you would not have him 
very unhappy, who is very sincerely 
your, &c. 

Having a vacant space here, I will fill 
it with a short Ode on Solitude, which I 
found yesterday by great accident, and 
which I find, by the date, was written 
when I was not twelve years old ; that 
you may perceive how long I have con- 
tinued in my passion for a rural life, and 
in the same employments of it. 

Happy the man, whose wish and care 

A few paternal acres bound, 
Content to breathe his native air 

On his own ground. 

Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread. 

Whose flocks supply him with attire. 
Whose trees in summer yield him shade. 

In winter fire. 

Blest, who can unconcern'dly find 

Hours, days, and years slide soft away, 
In health of body, peace of mind. 

Quiet by day. 

Sound sleep by night; study and ease 
Together mix'd ; sweet recreation 
And innocence, which most does please, 

With meditation. 

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown. 
Thus, unlamented, let me die. 
Steal from the world, and not a stone 

Tell where I lie. 



Sect. I. 



M O D E R N, O F LATE DATE. 



^13 



].ETTER XXI. 

Mr. Pope to H. Cro7muell, Esq. 

Aug 19, 1709. 
If I were to write to you as often as I 
think of you, my letters would be as bad 
as a rent-charge ; but though the one be 
but too little for your good nature, the 
other would be but too much for your 
quiet, which is one blessing good-nature 
should indispensably receive from man- 
kind in return for those many it gives. 
I have been informed of late, how much 
1 am indebted to that quality of yours, 
in speaking well of me in my absence, 
the only thing by which you prove your- 
self no wit nor critic ; though indeed 
I have often thought, that a friend will 
shew just as much indulgence (and no 
more) to my faults when I am absent, as 
he does severity to them when I am pre- 
sent. To be very frank with you, sir, I 
must own, that where I received so much 
civility at first, I could hardly have ex- 
pected so much sincerity afterwards. 
But now I have only to wish, that the 
last were but equal to the first ; and that 
as you have omitted nothing to oblige 
me, so you would omit nothing to im- 
prove me. 

I caused an acquaintance of mine to 
inquire twice of your welfare, by whom 
I have been informed, that you have left 
your speculative angle in the widow's 
coffee-house, and bidding adieu for some 
time to all the rehearsals, reviews, ga- 
zettes, &c. have marched off int<) Lincoln- 
shire. Thus I find you vary your life in 
the scene at least, though not in the ac- 
tion ; for though life, for the most part, 
like an old play, be still the same, yet 
now and then a new scene may make it 
more entertaining. As for myself, I 
would not have my life a very regular 
play, let it be a good merry farce, 
a-G — d's name, and a fig for the critical 
unities ! For the generality of men, a 
true modern life is like a true modern 
play, neither tragedy, comedy, nor farce, 
nor one nor all of these ; every actor is 
much better known by his having the 
same face, than by keeping the same 
character ; for we change our minds as 
often as they can their parts ; and he 
who was yesterday Caesar, is to-day sir 
John Daw. So that one might ask the 
same question of a modern life, that 
Rich did of a modern play : " Pray do 



me the favour, sir, to inform me, — Is 
this your^tragedy or your comedy ?" 

I have dwelt the longer upon this, be- 
cause I persuade myself it might be use- 
ful, at a time when we have no theatre, 
to divert ourselves at this great one. 
Here is a glorious standing comedy of 
fools, at which every man is heartily 
merry, and thinks himself an unconcerned 
spectator. This (to our singular comfort) 
neither my lord chamberlain nor the 
queen herself, can ever shut up, or 
silence; — while that of Drury (alas I) 
lies desolate in the profoundest peace ; 
and the melancholy prospect of the 
nymphs yet lingering about its beloved 
avenues, appears no less moving than 
that of the Trojan dames lamenting over 
their ruined Ilium ? What now can they 
hope, dispossessed of their ancient seats, 
but to serve as captives to the insulting 
victors of the Haymarket ? Ti\e afflicted 
subjects of France do not, in our Post- 
man, so grievously deplore the obstinacy 
of their arbitrary monarch, as these 
perishing people of Drury, the obdurate 
heart of that Pharaoh, Rich, who, like 
him, disdains all proposals of peace and 
accommodation. Several libels have been 
secretly affixed to the great gates of his 
imperial palace in Bridges-street ; and 
a memorial, representing the distresses 
of these persons, has been accidentally 
dropt (as we are credibly informed by a 
person of quality) out of his first mini- 
ster the chief box-keeper's pocket, at a 
late conference of the said person of 
quality and others, on the part of the 
confederates, and his theatrical majesty 
on his own part. Of this you may expect 
a copy, as soon as it shall be transmitted 
to us from a good hand. As for the late 
congress, it is here reported, that it 
has not been wholly ineffectual ; but this 
wants confirmation ; yet we cannot but 
hope the concurring prayers and tears 
of so many wretched ladies may induce 
this haughty prince to reason. I am, &c. 

LETTER XXII. 

From the same to the same 

Oct. 19, 1709. 
I BiAY truly say, I am more obliged to 
you this summer than to any of my ac- 
quaintance ; for had it not been for the 
two kind letters you sent me, I had been 
perfectly '* oblitusque meorum, oblivis- 



214 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IIL 



cendtis et illis." The only companions 
I had were those Muses, of whom Tully 
says, " Adolescentiam aliint, senectutem 
oblectant, secundas res ornant, adversis 
perfugium ac solatium praebent, delec- 
tant domi, non impediunt fork, pern oc- 
tant nobiscum, peregrinantur, rustican- 
tur : " which is indeed as much as ever I 
expected from them ; for the Muses, if 
you take them as companions, are very 
pleasant and agreeable ; but whoever 
should be forced to live or depend upon 
them would find himself in a very bad 
condition. That quiet, which Cowley 
calls the Companion of Obscurity, was not 
wanting to me, unless it was interrupted 
by those fears you so justly guess I had 
for our friend's welfare. It is extremely 
kind in you to tell me the news you 
heard of him ; and you have delivered 
me from more anxiety than he imagines 
me capable of on his account, as I am 
convinced by his long silence. However, 
the love of some things rewards itself, as 
of virtue, and of Mr. Wycherley. I am 
surprised at the danger you tell me he 
has been in ; and must agree with you 
that our nation must have lost in him as 
much wit and probity as would have re- 
mained (for aught I know) in the rest of 
it. My concern for his friendship will 
excuse me (since I know you honour 
him so much, and since you know I love 
liim above all men) if I vent a part of 
my uneasiness to you, and tell you that 
there has not been wanting one, to in- 
sinuate malicious untruths of me to Mr. 
Wycherley, which, I fear, may have had 
some effect upon him. If so, he v/iii 
have a greater punishment for his cre- 
dulity than I could wish him, in that fel- 
low's acquaintance. The loss of a faith- 
ful creature is something, though of ever 
so contemptible an one ; and if I were 
to change my dog for such a man as the 
aforesaid, I should think my dog under- 
valued (who follows me about as con- 
stantly here in the country, as I was 
used to do Mr. Wycherley in the 
town). 

Now I talk of my dog, that I may not 
treat of a worse subject, which my spleen 
tempts me to, I will give you some ac- 
count of him, a thing not wholly unpre- 
cedented, since Montaigne (to whom I 
am but a dog in comparison) has done 
the same thing of his cat. " Die mihi 
quid melius desidiosus agam ?" You are 
to know, then, that as it is likeness be- 



gets affection, so my favourite dog is a 
little one, a lean one, and none of the 
finest shaped. He is not much a spaniel 
in his fawning, but has (what might be 
worth any man's while to imitate him 
in) a dumb surly sort of kindness, that 
rather shews itself when he thinks me 
ill used by others, than when we walk 
quietly and peaceably by ourselves. If 
it be the chief point of friendship to 
comply with a friend's motions and in- 
clinations, he possesses this in an emi- 
nent degree ; he lies down when I sit, 
and walks when I walk, which is more 
than many good friends can pretend to : 
witness our walk a year ago in St. James's 
Park. — Histories are more full of exam- 
ples of the fidelity of dogs than of friends ; 
but I will not insist upon many of them, 
because it is possible some may be almost 
as fabulous as those of Pylades and 
Orestes, &c. I will only say, for the ho- 
nour of dogs, that the two most ancient 
and esteemed books, sacred and profane, 
extant {viz. the Scripture and Homer) 
have shewn a particular regard to these 
animals. That of Toby is the more re- 
markable, because there seemed no man- 
ner of reason to take notice of the dog, 
besides the great humanity of the au- 
thor. Homer's account of Ulysses's dog 
Argus is the most pathetic imaginable, 
all the circumstances considered, and an 
excellent proof of the old bard's good- 
nature. Ulysses had left him at Ithaca 
when he embarked for Troy ; and found 
him at his return after twenty years 
(which by the way is not unnatural, as 
some critics have said, since I remember 
the dam of my dog was twenty-two years 
old when she died. May the omen of 
longevity prove fortunate to her succes- 
sors !) You shall have it in verse : — 

ARGUS. 

When wise Ulysse?, from his native coast 
Long kept by wars, and long by tempests tost, 
Arriv'd at last, poor, old, disguis'd, alone, 
'J'o all his friends, and e'en his queen, unknown : 
Chang'd as lie was with age, and toils, and cares, 
Furrow'd his rev'rend face, and white his hairs, 
In his own palace forc'd to ask his bread, 
Scorn'd by those slaves his former bounty fed. 
Forgot of all his own domestic crew: 
The faithful dog alone his rightful master knew! 
Unfed, unhous'd, neglected on the clay, 
Like an old servant now cashier'd, he lay : 
Touch'd with resentment of ungrateful man, 
And longing to behold his ancient lord again. 
Him when he saw — he rose, andcrawl'd to meet, 
('Twas all he cou'd) and fawn'd, and kiss'd his 
feet. 



Sect. I, 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



215 



Seiz'd with dumb joy — then falling by his side, 
Owu'd his returning lord, look'd up, and died ! 

Plutarch, relating how the Athenians 
were obliged to abandon Athens in the 
time of Themistocles, steps back again 
out of the way of his history, purely to 
describe the lamentable cries and bowl- 
ings of the poor dogs they left behind. 
He makes mention of one, that followed 
his master across the sea to Salamis, 
where he died, and was honoured with 
a tomb by the Athenians, who gave the 
name of the Dog's Grave to that part of 
the island where he was buried. This 
respect to a dog in the most polite people 
of the world is very observable. x\ mo- 
dern instance of gratitude to a dog 
(though we have but few such) is, that 
the chief order of Denmark (now inju- 
riously called the order of the Elephant) 
was instituted in memory of the fidelity 
of a dog, named Wild-brat, to one of 
their kings, who had been deserted by 
his subjects ; he gave his order this mot- 
to, or to this effect (which still remains) 
Wild-hrat was faithful. Sir William 
Trumbull has told me a story, which he 
heard from one that was present : King 
Charles I. being A\^th some of his court 
during his troubles, a discourse arose 
what sort of dogs deserved pre-eminence ; 
and it being on all hands agreed to be- 
long either to the spaniel or greyhound, 
the king gave his opinion on the part of 
the greyhound ; because (said he) it has 
all the good nature of the other without 
the fawning : — a good piece of satire 
upon his courtiers, with which I will 
conclude my discourse of dogs. Call 
me a cynic, or what you please, in re- 
venge for all this impertinence, I will be 
contented, provided you will but believe 
me when I say a bold word for a Chris- 
tian ; that, of all dogs, you will find none 
more faithfid than your, &c. 



LETTER XXin. 

Mr. Pope to H. Cromwell, Esq. 

April 10, 1710. 
I HAD written to you sooner, but that I 
made of some scruple of sending prophane 
things to you in Holy Week. Besides, 
our family would have been scandalized 
to see me write, who take it for granted 
I write nothing but ungodly verses. I 
assure you, 1 am looked upon in the 



neighbourhood for a very well disposed 
person ; no great hunter, indeed, but a 
great admirer of the noble sport, and 
only unhappy in my want of constitution 
for that and drinking. They all say, it 
is pity I am so sickly ; and I think it is 
pity they are so healthy. But I say no- 
thing that may destroy their good opi- 
nion of me. I have not quoted one Latin 
author since I came down, but have 
learned without book a song of Mr. 
Thomas Durfey's, who is your only poet 
of tolerable reputation in this country. 
He makes all the merriment in our en- 
tertainments ; and but for him, there 
would be so miserable a dearth of catches, 
that, I fear, they would put either the 
parson or me upon making some for 
them. Any man of any quality is hear- 
tily welcome to the best toping-table of 
our gentry, who can roar out for some 
rhapsodies of his works : so that in the 
same manner as it was said of Homer to 
his detractors : What ! dares any man 
speak against him who has given so many 
men to eatF (meaning the rhapsodists 
who lived by repeating his verses) thus 
it may be said of Mr. Durfey to his de- 
tractors ; Dares any one despise him, who 
has made so many men drink ? Alas, 
sir ! this is a glory whicli neither you nor 
I must ever pretend to. Neither you 
with your Ovid, nor I with my Statius, 
can amuse a board of justices and ex- 
traordinary 'squires, or gain one hum of 
approbation, or laugh, or admiration. 
These things (they would say) are too 
studious ; they may do well enough with 
such as love reading, but give us your 
ancient poet Mr. Durfey ! It is morti- 
fying enough, it must be confessed ; 
but, however, let us proceed in the way 
that natitre has directed us — '"' Multi 
multa sciunt sed nemo omnia," as it is 
said in the almanac. Let us communi- 
cate our works for our mutual comfort : 
send me elegies, and you shall not want 
heroics. At present, 1 have only these 
arguments in prose to the Thebaid, 
which you claim by promise, as I do 
your translation of Pars me Sulmo tenet, 
— and the Ring ; the rest I hope for as 
soon as you can conveniently transcribe 
them ; and whatsoever orders you are 
pleased to give shall be punctually obeyed 
by your, &c. 



2if> 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book III. 



LETTER XXIV. 

Mr. Pope to H. Cromwell, Esq. 

May 10, 1710. 
I II Ai) not so long- Omitted to express 
my acknowledgments to you for so 
much good nature and friendship as you 
lately shewed me ; but that I am but 
just returned to my own hermitage, from 
Mr. C.'s, who has done me so many fa- 
vours, that I am almost inclined to think 
my friends infect one anothei-, and that 
your conyersation Avith him has made 
him as obliging to me as yourself. I 
can assure you he has a sincere respect 
for you ; and this, I believe, he has 
partly contracted from me, who am too 
fuU of you not to overflow upon those I 
converse with. But I must now be 
contented to converse only v/ith the 
dead of this world, that is to say, the 
dull and obscure, every way obscure, in 
their intellects as well as their persons : 
or else have recourse to the living dead, 
the old authors with whom you are so 
v/ell acquainted, even from Virgil down 
to Aulus Gellins, whom I do not think 
a critic by any means to be compared to 
Mr. Dennis ; and I must declare posi- 
tively to you, that I will persist in this 
opinion till you become a little more 
civil to Atticus. Who could have ima- 
gined that he, who had escaped all the 
misfortunes of his* time, unhurt even by 
the proscriptions of Antony and Augus- 
tus, should in these days find an enemy 
more severe and barbarous than those 
tyrants ? and that enemy the gentlest 
too, the best-natured of mortals, Mr. 
Cromwell, whom I must in this com- 
pare once more to Augustus ; v/ho 
seemed not more unlike himself, in the 
severity of one part of his life and the 
clemency of the other, than you. I 
leave you to reflect on this, and hope 
that time (which mollifies rocks, and of 
stiif things makes limber) will turn a 
resolute critic to a gentle reader ; and 
instead of this positive, tremendous new- 
fashioned Mr. Cromwell, restore unto 
us our old acquaintance, the soft, bene- 
ficent, and courteous Mr. Cromwell. 

I expect much, towards the civilising 
of you in your critical capacity, from the 
innocent air and tranquillity of our fo- 
rest, when you do me the favour to visit 
it. In the mean time, it would do 
well, by way of preparative, if you 



would duly and constantly every marn- 
ing read over a pastoral of Theocritus 
or Virgil ; and let the lady Isabella put 
your Macrobius and Aulus Gellius some- 
where out of your way, for a month or 
so. Who knows but travelling and long 
airing in an open field may contribute 
more successfully to the cooling a cri- 
tic's severity, than it did to the assuag- 
ing of Mr. Chee's anger of old ? In 
these fields you will be secure of finding 
no enemy, but the most faithful and 
aJBFectionate of your friends, &c. 

LETTER XXV. 

Fro7n the same to the same. 

May 17, 171 a 

After I had recovered from a danger- 
ous illness, which was first contracted 
in town about a fortnight after my 
coming hither, I troubled you with a 
letter, and paper inclosed*, which you 
had been so obliging as to desire a sight 
of when last I saw you ; promising me 
in return some translations of yours 
from Ovid. Since when, I have not had 
a syllable from your hands ; so that it is 
to be feared, that though I have escaped 
death, I have not oblivion. 1 should at 
least have expected you to have finished 
that elegy upon me, which you told me 
you were upon the point of beginning 
when I was sick in London : if you will 
do so much for me first, I will give you 
leave to forget me afterwards ; and for 
my own part will die at discretion, and 
at my leisure. But I fear I must be 
forced, like many learned authors, to 
write my own epitaph, if I would be 
remembered at all. Monsieur de la 
Fontaine's would fit me to a hair ; but 
it is a kind of sacrilege (do you think it 
is not ?) to steal epitaphs. In my pre- 
sent living, dead condition, nothing 
would be properer than " Oblitusque 
meorum, obliviscendus et illis," but that 
unluckily I cannot forget my friends, 
and the civilities I received from yourself 
and some others. They say indeed it is 
one quality of generous minds to forget 
the obligations they have conferred, and 
perhaps too it may be so to forget those 
on whom they conferred them ; then in- 
deed I must be forgotten to all intents 

* Versos on Silence, in imitation of the 
earl of Rochester's poem on Nothing, done at 
fourteen years old. 



^ECT. I. 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



217 



nd purposes ; I am, it must be owned, 
dead in a natural capacity, according to 
Mr. Bickerstaff ; dead in a poetical ca- 
pacity, as a damned author ; and dead in 
a civil capacity, as a useless member of 
the commonwealth. But reflect, dear 
sir, what melancholy effects may ensue, 
if dead men are not civil to one another ! 
if he who has nothing to do himself, 
will not comfort and support another in 
his idleness ; if those, who are to die 
themselves, will not now and then pay 
the charity of visiting a tomb and a dead 
fi'iend, and strewing a few flowers over 
him. In the shades where I am, the in- 
habitants have a mutual compassion for 
each other; being all alike Inanes; we 
saunter to one another's habitation, and 
daily assist each other in doing nothing 
at all. This I mention for your edifica- 
tion and example, that, all alive as yon 

are, you may not sometimes disdain 

desipere in loco. Though you are no 
papist, and have not so much regard to 
the dead as to address yourself to them 
(which I plainly perceive by your silence) 
yet I hope you are not one of those he- 
terodox, who hold them to be totally in- 
sensible of the good offices and kind 
wishes of their living friends, and to be 
in a dull state of sleep, without one 
dream of those they left behind them. 
If you are, let this letter convince you to 
the contrary, which assures you I am 
still, though in a state of separation^ 
yours, &c. 

P. S. This letter of deaths puts me 
in mind of poor Mr. Betterton's ; over 
whom I would have this sentence of 
Tully for an epitaph, which will serve 
him as well in his moral, as his theatri- 
cal capacity : 

VilcE bene actee jucundhshna est recordatio. 

LETTER XXVI. 

From the same to the same, 

June 24, 1710. 
It is very natural for a young friend, 
and a young lover, to think the persons 
they love have nothing to do but to 
please them ; when perhaps they, for 
their parts, had twenty other engage- 
ments before. This was my case, when 
I wondered I did not hear from you ; but 
I no sooner received your short letter, 
but I forgot your long silence ; and so 



many fine things as you said of me could 
not but have wrought a cure on my own 
sickness, if it had not been of the nature 
of that which is deaf to the voice of the 
charmer. It was impossible you could 
have better timed your compliment on 
my philosophy ; it was certainly properest 
to commend me for it just when I most 
needed it, and when 1 could , least be 
proud of it ; that is, when I was in pain. 
It is not easy to express what an ex- 
altation it gave to my spirits, above all 
the cordials of my doctor ; and it is no 
compliment to tell you, that your com- 
pliments were sweeter than the sweetest 
of his juleps and syrups. But if you 
will not believe so much. 

Pour le mains, voire compliment 
M^a soulage dans ce moment; 
Et des qu'on me Pest venu /aire 
J'ai chasse man apoticaire, 
Et renvoye mon lavement. 

Nevertheless, I would not have you en- 
tirely lay aside the thoughts of my epi- 
taph, any more than I do those of the 
probability of my becoming (ere long) 
the subject of one ; for death has of late 
been very familiar with some of my size. 
I am told, my lord Lumley and Mr. 
Litton are gone before me ; and though 
I may now, without vanity, esteem my- 
self the least thing like a man in Eng- 
land, yet I cannot but be sorry, two he- 
roes of such a make should die inglorious 
in their beds ; when it had been a fate 
more worthy our size, had they met with 
theirs from an irruption of cranes, or 
other warlike animals, those ancient ene- 
mies to our pygmsean ancestors. You of 
a superior species little regard what be- 
fals us homunciones sesquipedales ; how- 
ever, you have no reason to be so uncon- 
cerned, since all physicians agree there 
is no greater sign of a plague among men 
than a mortality among frogs. 

This sort of writing, called a Rondeau, 
is what I never knew practised in our na- 
tion ; and, I verily believe, it was not in 
use with the Greeks or Romans, neither 
Macrobius nor Hyginus taking the least 
notice of it. It is to be observed, that 
the vulgar spelling and pronouncing it 
Round O, is a manifest corruption, and 
by no means to be allowed of by critics. 
Some may mistakenly imagine that it 
was a sort of rondeau which the Gallic 
soldiers sang in Cfesar's triumphs over 
Gaul — Galiias Ccesar subegit, &c. as it is 
recorded by Suetonius in Julio, and so 



218 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IIL 



derive its original from the ancient Gauls 
to the modern French ; but this is er- 
roneous ; the words there not being 
ranged according to the laws of the ron- 
deau, as laid down by Clement Marot. 
If you will say, that the song of the sol- 
diers might be only the rude beginning 
of this kind of poem, and so consequently 
imperfect, neither H einsius nor I can be 
of that opinion ; and so I conclude, that 
we know nothing of the matter. 

But, sir, I ask your pardon for all this 
buffoonery, which I could not address to 
any one so well as to you, since I have 
found by experience, that you most ea- 
sily forgive my impertinencies. It is 
only to shew you that I am mindful of 
you at all times, that I write at all times ; 
and as nothing I can say can be worth 
your reading, so I may as well throw out 
what comes uppermost, as study to be 
dull. I am, &c. 

LETTER XXVII. 

Mr. Pope to H. Cromxvell Esq. 

Julj^ 20, 1710. 
I GIVE you thanks for the version you 
sent me of Ovid's Elegy. It is very 
much an image of that author's writing, 
who has an agreeableness that charms us 
without correctness ; like a mistress, 
whose faults we see, but love her with 
them all. You have very judiciously al- 
tered his method in some places ; and I 
can find nothing which I dare insist upon 
as an error ; what I have written in the 
margins being merely guesses at a little 
improvement, rather than criticisms. I 
assure you I do not expect you should 
subscribe to my private notions but when 
you shall judge them agreeable to reason 
and good sense. What I have done is 
not as a critic but as a friend ; I know 
two well how many qualities are requi- 
site to make the one, and that I want al- 
most all I can reckon up ; but I am sure 
I do not want inclination, nor, I hope, 
capacity to be the other. Nor shall I 
take it at all amiss that another dissents 
from my opinion ; it is no more than I 
have often done from my own ; and in- 
deed, the more a man advances in un- 
derstanding, he becomes the more every 
day a critic upon himself, and finds some- 
thing or other still to blame in his former 
notions and opinions. I could be glad 
to know if you have translated the lUh 



elegy of lib. ii. Ad amicam navigantem; 
the 8th of book iii. or the 11th of book 
iii. which are above all others my par- 
ticular favourites, especially the last of 
these. 

As to the passage of which you ask my 
opinion in the second ^Eneid, it is either 
so plain as to require no solution, or 
else (which is very probable) you see 
farther into it than I can. Priam would 
say that, " Achilles (whom surely you 
only feign to be your father, since your 
actions are so different from his) did 
not use me thus inhumanly. He blushed 
at his murder of Hector, when he saw 
my sorrows for him ; and restored his 
dead body to me to be buried." To this 
the answer of Pyrrhus seems to be agree- 
able enough, '* Go then to the shades, 
and tell Achilles how I degenerate from 
him ; " granting the truth of what Priam 
had said of the difference between them. 
Indeed Mr. Dryden's mentioning here 
what Virgil more judiciously passes in 
silence, the circumstance of Achilles's 
selling for money the body of Hector, 
seems not so proper ; it is in some mea- 
sure lessening the character of Achilles's 
generosity and piety, which is the very 
point of which Priam endeavours in this 
place to convince his son, and to re- 
proach him with the want of. But 
the truth of this circumstance is no 
way to be questioned, being expressly 
taken from Homer, who represents 
AchOles weeping for Priam, yet receiv- 
ing the gold (Iliad xxiv.) ; for when he 
gives the body, he uses these words : 
" O my friend Patroclus, forgive me 
that I quit the corpse of him who killed 
thee ! I have great gifts in ransom for 
it, which I will bestow upon thy funeral." 
I am, &c. 

LETTER XXVIII. 

FroJu the same to the same. 

August 21, 1710. 
Your letters are a perfect charity to 
a man in retirement, utterly forgotten 
of all his friends but you ; for since Mr. 
Wycherley left London, I have not heard 
a word from him ; though just before, 
and once since, I writ to him, and 
though I know myself guilty of no of- 
fence but of doing sincerely just what he 
bid me : " Hoc milii libertas, hoc pia lin- 
gua dedit ! " But the greatest injury he 



Sect. I 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



219 



does me, is the keeping- me in ignorance 
of his welfare ; Avhich I am always very 
solicitous for, and very mieasy in the 
fear of any indisposition that may befal 
him. In what I sent you some time ago, 
you have not verse enough to be severe 
upon, in revenge for my last criticism : 
in one point I must persist, that is to say, 
my dislike of your Paradise, in which I 
take no pleasure : I know very well, 
that in Greek it is not only used by 
Xenophon, but is a common word for 
any garden ; but in English, it bears the 
sigTiilication and conveys the idea of 
Eden, wliicli alone is (I think) a reason 
against making Ovid use it ; who will be 
thought to talk too much like a Christian 
in your version at least, whatever it 
might have been in Latin or Greek. As 
for all the rest of my remarks, since you 
do not laugh at them as at this, I can be 
so civil as not to lay any stress upon 
them (as, I think, I told you before) ; 
and in particular in the point of trees en- 
joying, you have, I must own, fuUy sa- 
tisfied me that the expression is not only 
defensible, but beautiful. I shall be very 
glad to see your translation of the elegy. 
Ad amicam 7iavigan^ie?7i, as soon as you 
can ; for (without a compliment to you) 
every thing you write, either in verse or 
prose, is welcome to me ; and you may 
be confident (if my opinion can be of 
any sort of consequence in any thing) 
that I ^-ill never be uu sincere, though I 
may be often mistaken. To use sincerity 
with you, is but paying you in your own 
coin, from whom I have experienced so 
much of it ; and I need not tell you, how 
much I really esteem you, when I esteem 
nothing in the world so much as that 
quality. I know you sometimes say 
civil things to me in your epistolary 
style ; but those I am to make allowance 
for, as particularly when you talk of ad- 
mii'ing : it is a word you are so used to 
in conversation of ladies, that it will 
creep into your discourse, in spite of 
you, even to yoiu* friends : but as wo- 
men, when they think themselves secure 
of admiration, commit a thousand neg- 
ligences which shew them so much at 
disadvantage and off their guard, as to 
lose the little real love they had before : 
so when men imagine others entertain 
some esteem for their abilities, they 
often expose all their imperfections and 
foolish works to the disparagement of 
the little wit thev were thoudit masters 



of. I am going to exemplify this to 
you, in putting into your hands (being 
encouraged by so much indulgence) 
some verses of my youth, or rather 
childhood ; which (as I was a great ad- 
mirer of Waller) were intended in imita- 
tion of his manner ; and are, perhaps, 
such imitations as those you see in awk- 
ward country dames, of the fine and 
well-bred ladies of the court. If you 
will take them with you into Lincoln- 
shire, they may save you one hour from 
the conversation of the coimtry gentle- 
men and their tenants (who differ but in 
dress and name), which, if it be there as 
bad as here, is even worse than my poe- 
try. I hope your stay there will be no 
longer than (as Mr. Wycherley calls it) 
to rob the country, and run away to 
London with your money. In the mean 
time, I beg the favour of a line from 
you ; and am (as I will never cease to 
be) your, &c. 

LETTER XXIX. 

From the same to the same. 

October 12, 1710. 
I DEFERRED auswcring your last, upon 
the advice I received, that you were 
leaving the town for some time, and ex- 
pected yoiu- return with impatience, 
having then a design of seeing my 
friends there ; among the first of which 
I have reason to account yourself. But 
my almost continual illnesses prevent 
that, as well as most other satisfactions 
of my life. However, I may say one 
good thing of sickness, that it is the 
best cure in nature for ambition, and 
designs upon the world or fortune : it 
makes a man pretty indifferent for the 
future, provided he can but be easy, by 
intervals, for the present. He will be 
content to compound for his quiet only, 
and leave all the circumstantial part and 
pomp of life to those who have a health 
vigorous enough to enjoy all the mis- 
tresses of their desires. I thank God, 
there is nothing out of myself which 
I would be at the trouble of seeking, ex- 
cept a friend ; a happiness I once hoped 
to have possessed in Mr. Wycherley ; 
but, Quantum mutatus ab illo ! — I have 
for some years been employed much like 
cliildren that build houses with cards, 
endeavouring very busily and eagerly to 
raise a friendsliip, Miiich the first breath 



§20 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IlL 



of any ill-natured by-stander could puff 
away. — But I will trouble you no farther 
with writing, nor myself with thinking 
of this subject. 

I was mightily pleased to perceive, by 
your quotation from Voiture, that you 
had tracked me so far as France. You 
see it is with weak heads as with weak 
stomachs, they immediately throw out 
what they received last : and what they 
read, floats upon the surface of the mind, 
like oil upon water, without incorporat- 
ing. This, I think, however, cannot 
be said of the love-verses I last troubled 
you with, where all (I am afraid) is so 
puerile and so like the author, that no- 
body will suspect any thing to be bor- 
rowed. Yet you (as a friend, entertain- 
ing a better opinion of them), it seems, 
searched in Waller, but searched in vain. 
Your judgment of them is (I think) very 
right, — ^for it was my own opinion be- 
fore. If you think them not worth the 
trouble of correcting, pray tell me so 
freely, and it will save me a labour ; if 
you think the contrary, you would par- 
ticularly oblige me by your remarks on 
the several thoughts as they occur. I 
long to be nibbling at your verses ; and 
have not forgot who promised me 
Ovid's elegy. Ad amicam navigantem. 
Had Ovid been as long in composing it, 
as you in sending it, the lady might have 
sailed to Gades, and received it at her 
return. I have really a great itch of 
criticism upon me, but want matter here 
in the country ; which I desire you to 
furnish me with, as I do you in the 
town ; 

Sic servat studii fcedera quisque sui. 

I am obliged to Mr. Caryl (whom 
you tell me you met at Epsom) for 
telling you truth, as a man is in these 
days to any one that will tell truth to 
his advantage ; and I think none is more 
to mine than what he told you ; and I 
should be glad to tell all the world, that 
I have an extreme affection and esteem 
for you. 

Tecum etenim longos memini consuynere soles, 
Et tecum primus epulis decernere nodes ; 
Unum opus et requiem pariier disponimus arnbo, 
Atque verecunda laxamus seria mensa. 

By these epulm, as I take it, Persius 
meant the Portugal snuff and burnt 
claret, which he took with his master 
Comutus ; and the verecunda mensa was. 



without dispute, some coiFee-house table 
of the ancients. I wiU only ^ observe, 
that these four lines are as elegant and 
musical as any in Persius, not excepting 
those six or seven which Mr. Dryden 
quotes as the only such in all that au- 
thor. I could be heartily glad to repeat 
the satisfaction described in them, being 
truly your, &c. 

LETTER XXX. 

Mr. Pope to H. Cromwell, Esq. 

October 2Sth, 1710. 
I AM glad to find by your last letter, 
that you write to me with the freedom of 
a friend, setting down your thoughts as 
they occur, and dealing plainly with me 
in the matter of my own trifles, Avhich, 
I assure you, I never valued half so 
much as I do that sincerity in you which 
they were the occasion of discovering 
to me; and which, while I am happy 
in, I may be trusted with that dange- 
rous weapon. Poetry, since I shall do 
nothing with it, but after asking and 
following your advice. I value sincerity 
the more, as I find, by sad experience, 
the practice of it is more dangerous ; 
writers rarely pardoning the execution- 
ers of their verses, even though them- 
selves pronounce sentence upon them. — 
As to Mr. Phillips's Pastorals, I take the 
first to be infinitely the best, and the 
second the worst ; the third is, for the 
greatest part, a translation from Virgil's 
Daphnis. I wiU not forestal your judg- 
ment of the rest, only observe in that of 
the Nightingale these lines (speaking of 
the musician's playing on the harp) : 

Now lightlj- skimming o'er the strings they pass. 
Like winds that gently brush the plying grass. 
And melting airs arise at their command ; 
And now, laborious, with a weighty hand, 
He sinks into the cords with solemn pace. 
And gives the swelling tones a manly grace. 

To which nothing can be objected, but 
that they are too lofty for pastoral, es- 
pecially being put into the mouth of a 
shepherd, as they are here : in the poet's 
own person they had been (I believe) 
more proper. They are more after 
Virgil's manner than that of Theocritus, 
whom yet in the character of pastoral he 
rather seems to imitate. In the y>^hole, 
I agree with the Tatler, that we have 
no better Eclogues in our language. 
There is a small copy of the same au- 



Sect. I. 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



221 



thor published in the Tatler, No. 12, on 
the Danish winter ; it is poetical painting-, 
and I recommend it to your perusal. 

Dr. Garth's poem I have not seen, 
but believe I shall be of that critic's opi- 
nion you mention at Will's, who swore it 
"was good : for, though I am very cautious 
of swearing- after critics, yet I think one 
may do it more safely when they com- 
mend, than when they blame. 

I agree with you in your censure of 
the use of the sea-terms in Mr. Dryden's 
A^irgil ; not only because Helenus was no 
great prophet in those matters, but be- 
cause no terms of art or cant words suit 
with the majesty and dignity of style, which 
epic poetry requires — " Cui mens divi- 
nior, atque os magnas onaturum." The 
tarpaulin phrase can please none but such 
*' qui aurem habent Batavam ;" they must 
not expect " auribus xltticis probari," I 
find by you. (I think I have brought in 
two phrases of Martial here very dex- 
terously.) 

Though you say you did not rightly 
take my meaning in the verse I quoted 
from Juvenal, yet I will not explain it, 
because, though it seems you are resolved 
to take me for a critic, I would by no 
means be thought a commentator. — 
And for another reason too, because 1 
have quite forgot both the verse and the 
application. 

I hope it will be no offence to give my 
most hearty service to Mr. Wycherley, 
though I perceive by his last to me, I am 
not to trouble him with my letters, since 
he there told me he was going instantly 
out of town ; and till his return he was my 
servant, &c. I guess by yours he is yet 
with you, and beg you to do what you may 
with aU truth and honour ; that is, assure 
him I have ever borne aU the respect and 
kindness imaginable to him. I do not 
knoAv to this hour what it is that has 
estranged him from me ; but this I know, 
that he may for the future be more safely 
my friend, since no invitation of his shall 
ever more make me so free with him. I 
could not have thought any man so very 
cautious and suspicious, as not to credit 
his own experience of a friend. Indeed, 
to believe nobody, may be a maxim of 
safet)-^ ; but not so much of honesty. 
There is but one way I know of conver- 
sing safely with all men, thot is, not by 
concealing what we say or do, but by 
saying, or doing nothing that deserves to 
be concealed ; and I can trulv boast this 



comfort in my affairs with Mr. Wycherley . 
But I pardon his jealousy, which is become 
his nature, and shall never be his enemy 
whatsoever he says of me. Your, &c. 



LETTER XXXL 

From the same to the savie. 

Nov. 11, 1710. 
You mistake me very much in thinking 
the freedom you kindly used with my 
love-verses gave me the first opinion of 
your sincerity : I assure you it only did 
what every good-natured action of yours 
has done since, confirmed me more in 
that opinion. The fable of the Nightin- 
gale in Phillips's Pastorals, is taken from 
Famianus Strada's Latin poem on the 
same subject, in his Prolusiones Acade- 
mic ce ; only the tomb he erects at the end 
is added from Virgil's conclusion of the 
Culex. I cannot forbear giving you a 
passage out of the Latin poem I men- 
tion : by which you will find the English 
poet is indebted to it. 

Alternat mira arte fides : dum torquet acutas, 
Incitatque, graves opefoso verhere pulsat. 
Jamqne manu pcrfila volai ', simul hos, simul illos 
Explorat numeros, chordaque lahorat in omni — 
Mox silet. Ilia modis totidem respondet, et artem 
Arte refert. Nunc seu rudis, aid incerta canendi, 
Prcebet iter liquidum labenti e pectore voci, 
Nunc cffsini variat, modulisque canora minutis 
Deliberai vocem, tremuloque reciprocal ore. 

This poem was many years since imi- 
tated by Crashaw ; out of whose verses 
the following are very remarkable : 

From this to that, from that to this it flies. 
Feels music's pulse in all its arteries; 
Caught in a net which there Apollo spreads. 
His fingers struggle with the vocal threads. 

I have (as I think I formerly told you) 
a very good opinion of Mr. Rowe's sixth 
book of Lucan ; indeed he amplifies 
too much, as well as BrebcEuf, the fa- 
mous French imitator. If I remember 
right, he sometimes takes the whole 
comment into the text of the version, as 
particularly in lin. 808. "Utque solet 
pariter totis se effundere signis Corycii 
pressura croci." And in the place you 
quote, he makes of those two lines in 
the Latin, 

Vidit quanta sub node jaceret 
Nostra dies, risitque sui ludibria trunci. 

no less than eight in the English. 

What you observe, sure, cannot be 
an error-sphsericus, strictly speaking, ei- 



222 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IIL 



ther according to the Ptolemaic, or our 
Copernican system ; Tycho Bralie him- 
self will be on the translator's side : for 
Mr. Rowe here says no more than that 
he looked down on the rays of the sun, 
which Pompey might do, even though 
the body of the sun were above him. 

You cannot but have remarked what 
a journey Lucan here makes Cato take 
for the sake of his fine descriptions. 
From Cyrene he travels by land, for no 
better reason than this ; 

Hcec eadem suadebat hiems, quce clauserut csquor. 

The winter's effects on the sea, it seems, 
were more to be dreaded than all the ser- 
pents, whirlwinds, sands, &c. by land ; 
which immediately after he paints out in 
his speech to the soldiers ; then he 
fetches a compass a vast way round 
about, to the Nassamones and Jupiter 
Ammon's temple, purely to ridicule the 
oracles ; and Labienus must pardon me, 
if I do not believe him when he says, 
" Sors obtulit, et fortuna viae" — either 
Labienus, or the map, is very much mis- 
taken here. Thence he returns back 
to the Syrtes (which he might have 
taken first in his way to Utica) ; and 
so to Leptis Minor, where our author 
leaves him : who seems to have made Cato 
speak his own mind, when he tells his 
army — '•' Ire sat est"— no matter whither. 
I am your, &c. 

LETTER XXXII. 

Mr. Pope to H. Cromwell, Esq. 

Nov. 24, 1710. 
To make use of that freedom and fa- 
miliarity of style which we have taken 
up in our correspondence, and which is 
more properly talking upon paper, than 
writing, — I will tell you, without any 
preface, that I never took Tycho Brahe 
for one of the ancients, or in the least 
an acquaintance of Lucan's ; nay, it is 
a mercy on this occasion that I do not 
give you an account of his life and con- 
versation ; as how he lived some years 
like an in chanted knight in a certain 
island, with a tale of a king of Denmark's 
mistress that shall be nameless. But I 
have compassion on you, and would 
not for the world you should stay any 
longer among the Genii and Semidei 
Manes, you know where; for if once 
you get so near the moon, Sappho will 



want your presence in the clouds and 
inferior regions ; not to mention the 
great loss Drury-lane will sustain when 

Mr. C is in the milky-way. These 

celestial thoughts put me in mind of the 
priests you mention, who are a sort of 
Sortilegi in one sense, because in their 
lottery there are more blanks than 
prizes ; the adventurers being at best 
in an uncertainty, whereas the setters 
up are sure of something. Priests in- 
deed in their character, as they represent 
God, are sacred ; and so are constables 
as they represent the king ; but you will 
own a great many of them are very odd 
fellows, and the devil of any likeness in 
them. Yet I can assure you, I honour 
the good as much as I detest the bad ; 
and I think that in condemning these 
we praise those. The translations from 
Ovid I have not so good an opinion of 
as you ; because I think they have little 
of the main characteristic of this author, 
a graceful easiness. For let the sense 
be ever so exactly rendered, unless an 
author looks like himself in his air, 
habit, and manner, it is a disguise, and 
not a translation. But as to the Psalm, 
I think David is much more beholden 
to the translator than Ovid ; and as he 
treated the Roman like a Jew, so he has 
made the Jew speak like a Roman. — 
Your, &c. 



LETTER XXXni. 

From the same to the same. 

Dec. 17, 1710. 
It seems that my late mention of Cra- 
shaw, and my quotation from him, has 
moved your curiosity. I therefore send 
you the whole author, who has held a 
place among my other books of this 
nature for some years ; in which time 
having read him twice or thrice, I find 
him one of those whose works may just 
deserve reading. I take this poet to 
have writ like a gentleman, that is, at 
leisure hours, and more to keep out of 
idleness than to establish a reputation : 
so that nothing regular or just can be 
expected from him. All that regards de- 
sign, form, fable (which is the soul of 
poetry) ; all that concerns exactness, or 
consent of parts (which is the body) will 
probably be wanting ; only pretty con- 
ceptions, fine metaphors, glittering ex- 
pressions, and something of a neat cast of 



Sect. I. 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



223 



verse (which are properly the dress, 
gems, or loose ornaments of poetry) 
may be found in these versus. This is 
indeed the case of most other poetical 
writers of miscellanies ; nor can it be 
well otherwise, since no man can be a 
true poet who writes for diversion only. 
These authors should be considered as 
versifiers and witty men, rather than as 
poets ; and under this head will only 
fall the thoughts, the expression, and 
the numbers. These are only the pleas- 
ing parts of poetry, wliich may be judged 
of at a view, and comprehended all at 
once. And (to express myself like a 
painter) their colouring entertains the 
sight ; but the lines and life of the 
picture are not to be inspected too nar- 
rowly. 

This author formed himself upon Pe- 
trarch, or rather upon jMarino. His 
thoughts one may observe, in the main, 
are pretty ; but oftentimes far fetched, 
and too often strained and stiffened to 
make them appear the greater. For 
men are never so apt to think a thing 
great, as when it is odd or wonderful ; 
and inconsiderate authors would rather 
be admired than understood. This am- 
bition of surprising a reader is the true 
natural cause of all fustian and bombast 
in poetry. To confirm what I have said, 
you need but look into his first poem of 
the Weeper, where the 2d, 4th, 6th, 
14th, 21st stanzas are as sublimely dull 
as the 7th, 8th, 9th, 16th, 17th, 20th, 
and 23d stanzas of the same copy are 
soft and pleasing ; and if these last want 
any thing, it is an easier and more un- 
affected expression. The remaining 
thoughts in that poem might have been 
spared, being either but repetitions, or 
very trivial and mean. And by this 
example in the first, one may guess at 
all the rest ; to be like this, a mixture 
of tender, gentle thoughts, and suitable 
expressions, of forced and inextricable 
conceits, and of needless fiUers-up to 
the rest. From all which it is plain, 
this author writ fast, and set down what 
came uppermost. A reader may skim 
off the froth, and use the clear imder- 
neatli ; but if he goes too deep will meet 
vdth a mouthful of dregs ; either the top 
or bottom of him are good for little ; but 
what he did in his own natural, middle 
way is best. 

To speak of his numbers is a little 
difficult, tliev are so various and irregu- 



lar, and mostly Pindaric. It is evident 
his heroic verse (the best example of 
which is his Music's Duel), is carelessly 
made up ; but one may imagine from 
what it now is, that had he taken more 
care, it had been musical and pleasing 
enough ; not extremely majestic, but 
sweet ; and, the time considered of his 
writing, he was (even as uncorrect as he 
is), none of the worst versificators. 

I will just observe, that the best pieces 
of this author are a Paraphrase on Psal. 
xxiii, on Lessius, Epitaph on Mr. Ash- 
ton, Wishes to his supposed Mistress, 
and the Dies Ires. 

LETTER XXXiV. 

Fro7n the same to the same. 

Dec. 30, 1710. 
I RESUME my old liberty of throwing 
out myself upon paper to you, and 
making what thoughts float uppermost 
in my head the subject of a letter. 
They are at present upon laughter, 
"which (for aught I know) may be the 
cause you might sometimes think me 
too remiss a friend, when I was most 
entirely so ; for 1 am never so inclined 
to mirth as when I am most pleased and 
most easy, which is in the company of a 
friend like yourself. 

As the fooling and toying with a mis- 
tress is a proof of fondness, not disre- 
spect, so is raillery with a friend. I 
know there are prudes in friendship, 
who expect distance, awe, and adora- 
tion ; but I know you are not of them ; 
and I for my part am no idol-worship- 
per, though a papist. If I were to ad- 
dress Jupiter himself, in a heathen way, 
I fancy I should be apt to take hold of 
his knee in a familiar manner, if not of 
his beard, like Dionysius ; I was just 
going to say of his buttons ; but I think 
Jupiter wore none (however I wo'nt be 
positive to so nice a critic as you, but 
his robe might be subnected with a 
fibula). I know some philosophers de- 
fine laughter, a recommending our- 
selves to our own favour, by compari- 
son with the weakness of another : but 
I am sure I very rarely laugh with that 
view, nor do I believe children have any 
such considerations in their heads, when 
they express their pleasure this way. I 
laugh full as innocently as they, for the 
most part, and as sillily. There is a dif- 



224 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IIL 



ference too betwixt laughing about a 
thing and laughing at a thing : one may 
find the inferior man (to make a kind 
of casuistical distinction) provoked to 
folly at the sight or observation of some 
circumstance of a thing, when the thing 
itself appears solemn and august to the 
superior man, that is, our judgment and 
reason. Let an ambassador speak the 
best sense in the world, and deport him- 
self in the most graceful manner before 
a prince ; yet if the tail of his shirt hap- 
pen (as I have known it happen to a 
very wise man) to hang out behind, 
more people will laugh at that than at- 
tend to the other : till they recoUect 
themselves, and then they wUl not have 
a jot the less respect for the minister. 
I must confess the iniquity of my coun- 
tenance before you ; several muscles 
of my face sometimes take an imperti- 
nent liberty with my judgment ; but 
then my judgment soon rises, and sets 
all right again about my mouth : and I 
find 1 value no man so much as him in 
whose sight I have been playing the 
fool. I cannot be sub persona before a 
man I love ; and not to laugh with 
honesty, when nature prompts or folly 
(which is more a second nature than 
any thing I know) , is but a knavish hy- 
pocritical way of making a mask of one's 
own face. To conclude : those that 
are my friends I laugh with, and those 
that are not I laugh at ; so am merry in 
company ; and if ever I am wise, it is 
all by myself. You take just another 
course, and to those that are not your 
friends are very civil ; and to those that 
are very endearing and complaisant : 
thus when you and I meet, there will 
be the rlsus et blanditice united together 
in conversation, as they commonly are 
in a verse. But without laughter on 
the one side, or compliment on the 
other, I assure you I am, with real 
esteem, your, &c. 

LETTER XXXV. 

Mr. Pope to H. Cromwell, Esq. 

Nov. 12, 1711. 
I RECEIVED the entertainment of your 
letter the day after I had sent you one 
of mine, and I am but this morning 
returned hither. The news you tell me 
of the many difficulties you found in 
your return from Bath, gives me such a 



kind of pleasure as we usually take in 
accompanying our friends in their mixed 
adventures ; for, methinks, I see you la- 
bouring through all your inconveniences 
of the rough roads, the hard saddle, the 
trotting horse, and what not ! What an 
agreeable surprise would it have been to 
me, to have met you by pure accident 
(which I was within an ace of doing), 
and to have carried you off triumphantly, 
set you on an easier pad, and relieved 
the wandering knight with a night's 
lodging and rural repast, at our castle 
in the forest ! But these are only the 
pleasing imaginations of a disappointed 
lover, who must suffer in a melancholy 
absence yet these two months. In the 
mean time, I take up with the Muses for 
want of your better company ; the 
Muses, " quae nobiscum pernoctant, pe- 
regrinantur, rusticantur." Those aerial 
ladies just discover enough to me of 
their beauties to urge my pursuit, and 
draw me into a wandering maze of 
thought, still in hopes (and only in 
hopes) of attaining those favours from 
them which they confer on their more 
happy admirers. We grasp some more 
beautiful idea in our own brain than 
our endeavours to express it can set to 
the view of others ; and still do but 
labour to fall short of our first imagi- 
nation. The gay colouring, which fan- 
cy gave at the first transient glance we 
had of it, goes off in the execution, 
like those various figures in the gild- 
ed clouds, which, while we gaze long 
upon, to separate the parts of each 
imaginary image, the whole faints 
before the eye, and decays into con- 
fusion. 

I am highly pleased with the know- 
ledge you give me of Mr. Wycherley's 
present temper, which seems so favour- 
able to me. I shall ever have such a fund 
of affection for him as to be agreeable to 
myself when I am so to him, and cannot 
but be gay when he is in good humour, 
as the surface of the earth (if you will 
pardon a poetical similitude) is clearer 
or gloomier, just as the sun is brighter 
or more overcast. — I should be glad to 
see the verses to Lintot which you men- 
tion ; for, methinks, something oddly 
agreeable may be produced from that 
subject. — For what remains, I am so 
well, that nothing but the assurance of 
you being so can make me better ; and 
if you would have me live with any sa- 



ECT. I, 



xMODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



225 



tisfaction these dark days in which I 
cannot see you, it must be your writing" 
sometimes to your, &c. 

LETTER XXXVL 

From the same to the same. 

Dec. 21, 1711. 
If I have not writ to you so soon as I 
ought, let my writing now atone for 
the delay, as it will infallibly do, when 
you know what a sacrifice I make you 
at this time, and that every moment my 
eyes are employed upon this paper, they 
are taken off fi-om two of the finest faces 
in the universe. But indeed it is some 
consolation to me to reflect, that while I 
but write this period I escape some hun- 
dred fatal darts from those unerring eyes, 
and about a thousand deaths or better. 
Now, you that delight in dying, would 
not once have dreamt of an absent friend 
in these circumstances 5 you that are so 
nice an admirer of beauty, or (as a cri- 
tic would say after Terence) so elegant 
a spectator of forms j you must have a 
sober dish of coffee, and a solitary can- 
dle at your side, to write an epistle lu- 
cubratory to your friend ; whereas I can 
do it as well with two pair of radiant 
lights, that outshine the golden god of 
day and silver goddess of night, and all 
the refulgent eyes of the firmament. You 
fancy now that Sappho's eyes are two 
of these my taperS ; but it is no such mat- 
ter ; these are eyes that have much more 
persuasion in one glance than all Sap- 
pho's oratory and gesture together, let 
her put her body into what moving pos- 
tures she pleases. Indeed, indeed, my 
friend, you never could have found So 
improper a time to tempt ine with in- 
terest or ambition ; let me but have the 
reputation of these in my keeping, and 
as for my own, let the devil, or let Den- 
nis, take it for ever. How gladly 
would I give all I am worth, that is to 
say, my Pastorals, for one of them, and 
my Essay for the other ! I would lay 
out all my poetry in love ; ati original 
for a lady, and a translation for a wait- 
ing-maid ! Alas ! what have I to do 
with Jane Gray, as long as miss Molly, 
miss Betty, or miss Patty, are in this 
world ? Shall I write of beauties mur- 
dered long ago, when there are those at 
this instant that murder me ? I will 
e'en compose my own tragedy, and the 



poet shall appear in his own person to 
move compassion : it will be far more 
effectual than Bays's entering Avith a 
rope about his neck ; and the world will 
own there never was a more miserable 
object brought upon the stage. 

Now you that are a critic, pray inform 
me in what manner I may connect the 
foregoing part of this letter with that 
which is to follow, according to the 
rules. I would willingly return Mr. Gay 
my thanks for the favour of his poem, 
and in particular for his kind mention of 
me ; I hoped, when I heard a new co- 
medy had met with success upon the 
stage, that it had been his, to which I 
really wish no less ; and (had it been any 
way in my power) should have been very 
glad to have contributed to its introduc- 
tion into the world. His verses to Lin- 
tot* have put a whim into my head, 
which you are like to be troubled with 
in the opposite page : take it as you 
find it, the production of half an hour 
the other morning. I design very soon 
to put a task of a more serious nature 
upon you, in reviewing a piece of mine 
that may better deserve criticism ; and 
by that time you have done with it, I 
hope to tell you in person with how 
much fidelity I am your, &c. 

LETTER XXXVII. 

Mr. Pope to Sir William Trumbull f. 

March 12, 1713. 
Though any thing you vsrite is sure 
to be a pleasure to me, yet I must own, 
your last letter made me uneasy : you 
really use a style of compliment, which 
I expect as little as I deserve it. I 
know it is a common opinion, that a 
young scribbler is as ill-pleased to hear 
truth as a young lady. From the mo- 
ment one sets up for an author, one 
must be treated as ceremoniously, that 
is, as unfaithfully, 

As a king's favourite, or as a king. 

This proceeding, joined to that natural 
vanity which first makes a man an au- 
thor, is certainly enough to render him 
a coxcomb for life. But I must grant it 

* These verses are printed in Dr. Swift's 
and Pope's Miscellanies. 

f Secretary of state to king William the 
Third, 



226 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IIL 



is a just judgment upon poets, that they 
whose chief pretence is wit, should be 
treated as they themselves treat fools ; 
this is, be cajoled with praises. And 
I believe, poets are the only poor fel- 
lows in the world whom any body will 
flatter. 

I would not be thought to say this, as 
if the obliging letter yoti sent me de- 
served this imputation, only it put me 
in mind of it ; and I fancy one may ap- 
ply to one's friend what Caesar said of 
his wife : "It v/as not sufficient that 
he knew her to be chaste himself ; but 
she should not be so much as suspect- 
ed." 

As to the wonderful discoveries, and 
all the good news you are pleased to tell 
me of myself, 1 treat it, as you who are 
in the secret treat common news, as 
groundless reports of things at a dis- 
tance : which I, who look into the true 
springs of the affair, in my own breast, 
know to have no foundation at all ; for 
fame, though it be (as Milton finely calls 
it) the last infirmity of noble minds, is 
scarce so strong a temptation as to war- 
rant our loss of time here : it can never 
make us lie down contentedly on a 
death-bed (as some of the ancients are 
said to have done Vt^ith that thought). 
You, sir, have yourself taught me, that 
an easy situation at that hour can pro- 
ceed from no ambition less noble than 
that of an eternal felicity, which is 
unattainable by the strongest endeavours 
of the wit, but may be gained by the 
sincere intentions of the « heart only. 
As in the next world, so in this, the 
only solid blessings are owing to the 
goodness of the mmd, not the extent 
of the capacity : friendship here is an 
emanation from the same source as bea- 
titude there : the same benevolence and 
grateful disposition that qualifies us for 
the one, if extended farther, makes us 
partakers of the other. The utmost 
point of my desires, in my present state, 
terminates in the society and good will 
of worthy men, which I look upon as 
no ill earnest and foretaste of the so- 
ciety and alliance of happy souls here- 
after. 

The continuance of your favours to 
me is what not only makes me happy, 
but causes me to set some value upon 
myself as a part of your care. The in- 
stances I daily meet with of these agree- 
able awakenings of friendship are of too 



pleasing a nature not to be acknow- 
ledged whenever 1 think of you. I am 

your, 8cc. 

LETTER XXXVllL 

Mr. Pope to Sir William TrinnhulL 

April 30, 1713. 

I HAVE been almost every day employed 
in following your advice, and amusing' 
myself in painting ; in which I am most 
particularly obliged to Mr. Jervas, who 
gives me daily instructions and exam- 
ples. As to poetical affairs, I am con- 
tent at present to be a bare looker-on, 
and from a practitioner turn an ad- 
mirer ; which is (as the world goes) 
not very usual. Cato was not so much 
the wonder of Rome in his days, as 
he is of Britain in ours ; and though 
all the foolish industry possible has 
been used to make it thought a party 
play, yet what the author once said 
of another, may the most properly in 
the world be applied to him on this oc- 



Envy ilself is dumb, in wonder lost. 
And factions strive who shall applaud him 
most. 

The numerous and violent claps of 
the whig party on the one side of the 
theatre, were echoed back by the tories 
on the other ; while the author sweated 
behind the scenes with concern to find 
the applause proceeding more from the 
hand than the head. This was the case 
too of the prologue -writer"^", who was 
clapped into a staunch whig, at almost 
every two lines. I believe you have 
heard, that, after all the applauses of the 
opposite faction, my lord Bolirigbroke 
sent for Booth, who played Cato, into 
the box, between one of the acts, and 
presented him with fifty guineas ; in ac- 
knowledgment (as he expressed it) for 
defending the cause of liberty so well 
against a perpetual dictator. The whigs 
are unwilPng to be distanced this way, and 
therefore design a present to the same 
Cato very speedily ; in the mean time 
they are getting ready as good a sentence 
as the former on their side : so betwixt 
them, it is probable that Cato (as Dr. 
Garth expressed it) may have something 
to live upon after he dies. I am your, 
&c. 

* Himself. 



Sect. I. 



V 



MODERN, OF LATfe DATE. 



227 



LETTER XXXIX. 

From the same to the same. 

Dec. 16, 1715. 
It was one of the enig'mas of Pytliago- 
ras, " When the winds rise, worship 
the echo." A modern writer explains 
this to signify, " When popular tumults 
hegin, retire to solitudes, or such places 
where echoes are commonly found, 
rocks, woods," &c. I am rather of opi- 
nion it should be interpreted, " When ru- 
mours increase, and when there is abun- 
dance of noise and clamour, believe the 
second report." This I think agrees 
more exactly with the echo, and is the 
more natural application of the symbol. 
However it be, either of these precepts 
is extremely proper to be followed at 
this season ; and I cannot but applaud 
your resolution of continuing in what 
you call your cave in the forest, this 
winter ; and preferring the noise of break- 
ing ice to that of breaking statesmen, 
the rage of storms to tliat of parties, 
the fury and ravage of floods and tem- 
pests, to the precipitancy of some and 
the ruin of others ; which, I fear, will 
be our daily prospects in London. 

1 sincerely wish myself with you, to 
contemplate the wonders of God in the 
firmament, rather than the madness of 
man on the earth. But I never had so 
much cause as now to complain of my 
poetical star, that fixes me at this tu- 
multuous time to attend the jingling of 
rhymes and the measuring of syllables ; 
to be almost the only trifler in the na- 
tion ; and as ridiculous as the poet in 
Petronius, who, while all the rest in the 
ship were either labouring or praying 
for life, was scratching his head in a lit- 
tle room, to write a fine description of 
the tempest. 

You teU me, you like the sound of no 
arms but those of Achilles : for my part, 
I like them a^i little as any other arms. 
I listed myself in the battles of Homer, 
and I am no sooner in war, but, like 
most other folks, I v/ish myself out 
again. 

I heartily join with you in wishing 
quiet to our native country : quiet in the 
state, which, like charity in religion, is 
too much the perfection and happiness 
of either, to be broken or violated on 
any pretence or prospect whatsoever. 
Fire and sword, and fire and faggot, are 



equally my aversion. I can pray for op- 
posite parties, and for opposite religions, 
with great sincerity. I think, to be a 
lover of one's country is a glorious elo- 
gy, but I do not think it so great a one 
as to be a lover of mankind. 

I sometimes celebrate you under these 
denominations, and join your health 
with that of the v/hole world : a truly 
Catholic health, which far excels the 
poor narrow-spirited, ridiculous healths 
now in fashion, to this Church or that 
Church. Whatever our teachers may 
say, they must give us leave at least to 
wish generously. These, dear sir, are 
my general dispositions ; but whenever 
I pray or wish for particulars, you are 
one of the first in the thoughts or affec- 
tions of your, &c. 



LETTER XL. 

Mr. Pope to the Hon, J. C. Esq. 

June 15, 1711. 
I SEND you Dennis's remarks on the 
Essay '^^ which equally abound in just 
criticisms and fine railleries. The few 
observations in my hand in the margins, 
are what a morning's leisure permitted 
me to make purely for your perusal ; for 
1 am of opinion that such a critic, as 
you will find him by the latter part of 
his book, is but one way to be properly 
answered, and that way I would not take 
after what he informs me in liis preface, 
that he is at this time persecuted by for- 
tune. This I knew not before ; if I had, 
his name had been spared in the Essay 
for that only reason. I cannot conceive 
what ground he has for so excessive a re- 
sentment, nor imagine how these three 
lines t can be called a reflection on his 
person, Avhich only describe him subject 
a little to anger on some occasions. I 
have heard of combatants so very fu- 
rious, as to fall down themselves with 
that very blow which they designed to 
lay heavy on their antagonists. But if 
Mr. Dennis's rage proceeds oidy from a 
zeal to discourage young and unexperi- 
enced writers from scribbling, he should 
frighten us with his verse, not prose ; for 

* On Criticism. 

f But Appius reddens at each word you speak, 
And stares tremendous with a threat'ningeye, 
Like some fierce tyrant in old tapestry. 
Q2 



228 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book Ul. 



I have often known, that when all the 
precepts in the world would not reclaim 
a sinner, some very sad example has 
done the husiness. Yet, to give this man 
his due, he has objected to one or two 
lines with reason ; and I will alter them 
in case of another edition ; I will make 
my enemy do me a kindness where he 
meant an injury, and so serve instead of 
a friend. Wliat he observes at the bot- 
tom of page 20 of his reflections, was 
objected to by yourself, and had been 
mended but for the haste of tlie press : 
I confess it what the English call a bull 
in the expression, though the sense be 
manifest enough. Mr. Dennis's bulls 
are seldom in the expression ; they are 
generally in the sense. 

I shall certainly never make the least 
reply to him ; not only because you ad- 
vise me, but because I have ever been of 
opinion, that if a book cannot answer 
for itself to the public, it is to no sort of 
purpose for its author to do it. If 1 am 
wrong in any sentiment of that Essay, 
I protest sincerely, I do not desire all 
the world should be deceived (which 
would be of very ill consequence) , merely 
that I myself may be thought right 
(which is of little consequence) . I would 
be the first to recant, for the benefit of 
others, and the glory of myself; for (as 
I take it) when a man owns himself to 
have been in an error, he does but tell 
you in other words, that he is wiser than 
he was. But I have had an advantage 
by the publishing that book, which other- 
wise I should never have known : it has 
been the occasion of making me friends 
and open abettors of several gentlemen 
of known «ense and wit ; and of proving 
to me, what I have till now doubted, 
that my writings are taken some notice 
of by the world, or I should never be 
attacked thus in particular. I have read, 
that it was a custom among the Romans, 
while a general rode in triumph, to have 
the common soldiers in the streets that 
railed at him and reproached him ; to put 
him in mind, that though his services 
were in the main approved and reward- 
ed, yet he had faults enough to keep 
him humble. 

You wiU see by this, that whoever 
sets up for a wit in these days ought to 
have the constancy of a primitive Chris- 
tian, and be prepared to suffer martyr- 
dom in the cause of it. But sure this is 
the first time that a wit Avas attacked for 



his religion, as you will find I am most 
zealously in this treatise ; and you know, 
sir, what alarms I have had from the 
opposite side * on this account. Have I 
not reason to cry out with the poor fel- 
low in Virgil, 

Quid jam misero fnihi denique resiat! 
C'.ci neqve apud Danaos usgiiam locus, et super ipsi 
Dardanidce infensi pcenas cum sanguine poicunt ! 

It is however my happiness that you, 
sir, are impartial. 

Jove was alike to Latisn and to Phrygian j 
For you well know, that wit's of no religion. 

The manner in which Mr. D. takes 
to pieces several particular lines detach- 
ed from their natural places, may show 
how easy it is to a caviller to give a new 
sense, or a new nonsense, to any thing. 
And indeed his constructions are not 
more wrested from the genuine mean- 
ing, than theirs who objected to the 
heterodox parts, as they called them. 

Our friend the Abb^ is not of that 
sort ; who with the utmost candour and 
freedom has modestly told me what 
others thought, and shewn himself one 
(as he very well expresses it) rather of a 
number than a party. The only difi^er- 
ence between us, in relation to the 
monks, is, that he thinks most sorts of 
learning flourished among them ; and 
I am of opinion, that only some sort of 
learning was barely kept alive by them : 
he believes that in the most natural and 
obvious sense, that line (" A second de- 
luge learning over-run ") will be under- 
stood of learning in general : and I 
fancy it will be understood only (as it is 
meant) of polite learniiig, criticism, 
poetry, &c. which is the only learning con- 
cerned in the subject of the Essay. It is 
true, that the monks did preserve what 
learning there was, about Nicholas the 
Fifth's time ; but those who succeeded 
fell into the depth of barbarism, or at 
least stood at a stay while others arose 
from thence ; insomuch that even Eras- 
mus and Reuchlin could hardly laugh 
them out of it. I am highly obliged to 
the Abba's zeal in my commendation, 
and goodness in not concealing what he 
thinks my error : and his testifying some 
esteem for the book, just at a time when 
his brethren raised a clamour against it, 
is an instance of great generosity and 

* See the ensuing letter. 



Sect. I. 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



229 



candour, which I shall ever acknowledge. 
Your, &c. 

LETTER XLL 

Mj\ Pope to the Hon. J. C, Esq. 

July, 18, 1711. 

In your last you informed me of the 
mistaken zeal of some people, who seem 
to make it no less their business to per- 
suade men they are erroneous, than doc- 
tors do that they are sick ; only that 
they may magnify their oa;\ti cure, and 
triumph over an imaginary distemper. 
The simile objected to in my Essay, 

(Thus wit, like faith, bj' each man is apply'd 
'J'o one small sectj and all are damn'd beside) 

plainly concludes at this second line, 
where stands a full stop : and what fol- 
lows {Meanly they seek, ^'c.) speaks only 
of v/it (which is meant by that blessing, 
and that sun) ; for how can the sun of 
faith be said to sublime the southern 
wits, and to ripen the geniuses of north- 
ern climates ? I fear these gentlemen 
understand grammar as little as they do 
criticism : and, perhaps, out of good 
nature to the monks, are willing to take 
fi'om them the censure of ig-norance, and 
to have it to themselves. The word ^/^ey 
refers (as I am sure I meant, and as I 
thought every one must have known) to 
those critics there spoken of, who are 
partial to some particular set of writers, 
to the prejudice of all others. And the 
very simile itself, if twice read, may 
convince them that the censure here of 
damning, lies not on our church at all, 
unless tliey call our church one small sect : 
and the- cautious words {by each inan) 
manifestly shew it a general reflection 
on all such (whoever they are) who 
entertain those narrow and limited no- 
tions of the mercy of the Almighty; 
which the reformed ministers and Pres- 
byterians are as guilty of as any people 
living. 

Yet, after all, I promise you. sir, if 
the alteration of a word or two will gra- 
tify any man of sound faith, though weak 
understanding, I will (though it were 
from no other principle than that of 
common good nature) comply with it ; 
and if you please but to particularize 
the spot where their objection lies (for it 
is in a very narrow compass), that stum- 
bling block, though it be but a little 



pebble, shall be removed out of their 
way. If the heart of tliese good dis- 
putants (who, I am afraid, being bred 
up to wrangle in the schools, cannot get 
rid of the humour all their lives) should 
proceed so far as to personal reflections 
upon me, I assure you, notwithstanding, 
I will do or say nothing, however pro- 
voked (for some people can no more 
provoke than oblige), that is unbecom- 
ing the true character of a Catholic. I 
will set before me the example of that 
great man, and great saint, Erasmus ; 
who in the midst of calumny proceeded 
with all the calmness of innocence, and 
the unrevenging spirit of primitive Chris- 
tianity. However, I would advise them, 
to suffer the mention of him to pass un- 
regarded, lest I should be forced to do 
that for his reputation which I would 
never do for my own ; I mean, to vindi- 
cate so great a light of our church from 
the malice of past times, and the igno- 
rance of the present, in a language which 
may extend farther than that in which 
the trifle about criticism is written. I 
wish these gentlemen would be content- 
ed with finding fault with me only, who 
will submit to them, right or wrong, 
as far as I only am concerned ; I have a 
greater regard to the quiet of mankind 
than to disturb it for things of so little 
consequence as my credit and my sense. 
A little humility can do a poet no hurt, 
and a little charity can do a priest none : 
for, as St. Austin finely says, Ubichari- 
tas, ibi humilitas ; ubi hwnilitas, ibi pax. 
Your, &c. 



LETTER XLII. 

From the same to the sajue. 

July 19, 1711. 
The concern which you more than seem 
to be affected with for my reputation, 
by the several accounts you have so 
obligingly given of what reports and 
censures the holy Vandals have thought 
fit to pass upon me, makes me desirous 
of telling so good a friend my whole 
thoughts of this matter ; and of setting 
before you, in a clear light, the true 
state of it. 

I have ever believed the best piece of 
service one could do to our religion, was 
openly to express our detestation and 
scorn of all those mean artifices and pia 



230 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book III, 



fraudes, which it stands so little in need 
of, and which have laid it under so great 
a scandal among its enemies. 

Nothing has been so much a scare- 
crow to them, as that too peremptory 
and uncharitable assertion of an utter 
impossibility of salvation to all but our- 
selves : invincible ignorance excepted, 
which indeed some people deiine under 
so great limitations, and with such ex- 
clusions, that it seems as if that word 
were rather invented as a salvo, or ex- 
pedient, not to be thought too bold with 
the thunderbolts of God (which are 
hurled about so freely on almost all 
mankind by the hands of ecclesiastics), 
than as a real exception to almost uni- 
versal damnation. For besides the small 
number of the truly faithful in our 
church, wo must again subdivide ; the 
Jansenist is damned by the Jesuit, the 
Jesuit by the Jansenist, the Scotist by 
the Thornist, and so forth. 

There may be errors, I grant ; but I 
cannot think them of such consequence 
as to destroy utterly the charity of man- 
kind, the very greatest bond in v/hich 
v/e are engaged by God to one another : 
therefore, I own to you, I was glad of 
any opportunity to express my dislike of 
so shocking a sentiment as those of the 
religion I profess are commonly charged 
with ; and I hope, a slight insinuation, 
introduced so easily by a casual similitude 
only, could never have given offence ; 
but, on the contrary, must needs have 
done good, in a nation and time, where- 
in we are the smaller party, and conse- 
quently most misrepresented, and most 
in need of vindication. 

For the same reason, I took occasion 
to mention the superstition of some ages 
after the subversion of the Roman em- 
pire, Avhich is too manifest a truth to be 
denied, and does in no sort reflect upon 
the present professors of our faith, who 
are free from it. Our silence in these 
points may, with some reason, make our 
adversaries think we aUow and persist in 
those bigotries ; which yet in reality all 
good and sensible men despise, though 
they are persuaded not to speak against 
them, I cannot tell why, since now it is 
no way the interest even of the worst of 
our priesthood (as it might have been 
then) to have them smothered in silence : 
for, as the opposite sects are now pre- 
vailing, it is too late to hinder our 
church from being slandered ; it is our 



business now to vindicate ourselves from 
being thought abettors of what they 
charge us with. This cannot so well be 
brought about with serious faces ; we 
must laugh with them at what deserves 
it, or be content to be laughed at, with 
such as deserve it. 

As to particiilars : you cannot but have 
observed, that at first the whole objection 
against the simile of wit and faith lay to 
the w^ord thej/ : when that was beyond 
contradiction removed (die very gram- 
mar serving to confute them), then the 
objection was against the simile itself; 
or if that simile will not be objected to 
(sense and common reason being indeed 
a little stubborn, and not apt to give way 
to every body), next the mention of su- 
perstition must become a crime ; as if 
religion and she were sisters, or that it 
were scandal upon the family of Christ 
to say a word against the devil's bastard. 
Afterwards, more mischief is discovered 
in a place that seemed innocent at first, 
the two lines about schismatics. An ordi- 
nary man would imagine the author 
plainly declared against those schis- 
matics, for quitting the true faith, out of 
a contempt of the understanding of some 
few of its believers : but these believers 
are called dull; and because I say that 
those schismatics think some believers 
dull, therefore these charitable inter- 
preters of my meaning will have it that 
I think all believers dull. I was lately 
telling Mr. * ^ these objections ; who as- 
sured me, I had said nothing which a Ca- 
tholic need to disov/n ; and I have cause 
to known that gentleman's fault (if he 
has any) is not want of zeal : he put a 
notion into my head, which, I confess, I 
cannot but acquiesce in : that when a 
set of people are piqued at any truth 
which they think to their own disadvan- 
tage, their method of revenge on the 
truth-speaker is to attack his reputation 
a bye-way, and not openly to object to 
the place they are really galled by : what 
these therefore (in his opinion) are in 
earnest angry at, is, that Erasmus, whom 
their tribe oppressed and persecuted, 
should be vindicated after an age of ob- 
loquy by one of their own people, willing 
to utter an honest tnitli in behalf of the 
dead, whom no man sure will flatter, and 
to whom few will do justice. Others, 
you know, were as angry that I mention- 
ed Mr. Walsh with honour : v.ho as he 
never refused to any one of merit; of any 



JSect; I. 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



231 



party, the praise due to him, so honestly 
deserved it from all others, though of 
ever so different interests or sentiments. 
May 1 be ever guilty of this sort of li- 
berty, and latitude of principle ; which 
gives us the hardiness of speaking well 
of those whom envy oppresses even after 
death. As I would always speak well of 
my living friends when they are absent, 
nay, because they are absent, so would I 
much more of the dead, in that eternal 
absence : and the rather, because I ex- 
pect no thanks for it. 

Thus, sir, you see I do in my con- 
science persist in what I have written ; 
yet in my friendship I Avill recant and 
alter whatever you please, in case of a 
second edition (which I think the book 
will not so soon arrive at, for Ton son's 
printer told me he drew off a thousand 
copies in this first impression, and, ,1 
fancy, a treatise of this nature, which 
not one gentleman iu threescore, even 
of a liberal education, can understand, 
can hardly exceed the vent of that num- 
ber). You shall find me a true Trojan 
in any faith and friendship ; in both 
which I will persevere to the end. 
Your, &c. 



LETTER XLIIL 

Mr. Pope to the Hon. J. C, Esq. 

Dec 5, 1712. 

You have at length complied with the 
request I have often made you, for you 
have shewn me, I must confess, several 
of my faults in the sight of those letters. 
L^pon a review of them, I find many 
things that would give me shame, if I 
were not more desirous to be thought 
honest than prudent ; so many things 
freely thrown out, such lengths of unre- 
served friendship, thoughts just v.-arm 
from the brain viithout any polishing or 
dress, the very dishabille of the under- 
standing. You have proved yourself 
more tender of another's embryos than 
the fondest mothers are of their own, 
for you have preserved every thing that 
I miscarried of. Since I know this, I 
siiail in one respect be more afraid of 
writing to you than ever, at this careless 
rate, because I see my evil works may 
again rise in judgment against me ; yet 
in another respect 1 shall be less afraid, 
since this has given me such a proof of 



the extreme indulgence you afford to my 
slightest thoughts. The revisal of these 
letters has been a kind of examination 
of conscience to me ; so fairly and faitli- 
fully have I set down in them from time 
to time the true and undisguised state of 
my mind. But 1 find that these, which 
were intended as sketches of my friend- 
ship, give as imperfect images of it as 
tlie little landscapes we commonly see in 
black and white do of a beautiful coun- 
try ; they can represent but a very small 
part of it, and that deprived of the life 
and lustre of nature. I perceive that 
the more I endeavoured to render mani- 
fest tiie real affection and value I ever 
had for you, I did but injure it by repre- 
senting less and less of it : as glasses 
which are designed to make an object 
very clear, generally contract it. Yet 
as when people have a full idea of a 
thing first upon their own knowledge, 
the least traces of it serve to refresh the 
remembrance, and are not displeasing 
on that score ; so I hope, the foreknoAv- 
ledge you had of my esteem for you, is 
the reason that you do not dislike my 
letters. 

They will not be of any great service 
(I find) in the design I mentioned to you : 
I believe I had better steal from a richer 
man, and plunder your letters (which I 
have kept as carefully as I would letters 
patents, since they entitle me to what I 
more value than titles of honour). You 
have some cause to apprehend this usage 
from me, if what some say be true, that 
I am a great borrower ; however, I have 
hitherto had the luck that none of my 
creditors have challenged me for it : and 
those who say it are such, whose writings 
no man ever borrowed fron^, so have the 
least reason to complain ; and whose 
works are granted on all hands to be 
but too much their own. Another has 
been pleased to declare, that my verses 
are corrected by other men : I verily be- 
lieve theirs were never corrected by any 
man : but indeed if mine have not, it 
was not my fault ; I have endeavoured 
my utmost that they should. But these 
things are only whispered, and I will not 
encroach upon Bays's province and pen 
ivJiispers; so hasten to conclude. 

Your, &c. 



232 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book III 



LETTER XLIV. 

Mr. Pope to General Anthoni/ Hamilton'^ . 

[Upon his having translated into French verse 
the Essaij on Criticism.'} 

Oct. 10, 1713. 
If 1 could as well express, or (if you will 
allow me to say it) translate the senti- 
ments of my heart, as you have done 
those of my head in your excellent ver- 
sion of my Essay, — I should not only ap- 
pear the best writer in the world, but, 
what I much more desire to be thought, 
the most your servant of any man living. 
It is an advantage very rarely known, to 
receive at once a great honour and a 
great improvement. This, sir, you have 
afforded me, having at the same time 
made others take my sense, and taught 
me to understand my own ; if I may call 
that my own which is indeed more pro- 
perly yours. Your verses are no more a 
translation of mine, than Virgil's are of 
Homer's ; but are, like his, the justest 
imitation, and the noblest commentary. 

In putting me into a French dress, you 
have not only adorned my outside, but 
mended my shape ; and, if I am now a 
good figure, I must consider you have 
naturalized me into a country which is 
famous for making every man a fine gen- 
tleman. It is by your means that (con- 
trary to most young travellers) I am 
come back much better than I went 
out. 

I cannot but wish we had a bill of 
commerce for translation established the 
next parliament ; we could not fail of 
being gainers by that, nor of making 
ourselves amends for any thing v/e have 
lost by the A^ar. Nay, though we should 
insist upon the demolishing of Boileau's 
works, the French, as long as they have 
writers of your form, might have as good 
an equivalent. 

Upon the whole, I am really as proud 
as our ministers ought to be, of the terras 
I have gained from abroad ; and I design, 
like them, to publish speedily to the 
world the benefits accruing from them ; 
for I cannot resist the temptation of 
printing your admirable translation heref, 
to which if you will be so obliging to 

* Author of the Memoirs of ihe Count de 
Grammont, Contas, and other pieces of note in 
French. 

f This was never done; for the two printed 
French versions are neither of this hand. The 



give me leave to prefix your name, it 
will be the only addition you can make 
to the honour already done me. I am 
your, &c. 

LETTER XLV. 

Mr. Pope to Mr. Steele. 

June 18, 1712. 
You have obliged me with a very kind 
letter, by which I find you shift the 
scene of your life from the town to the 
country, and enjoy that mixed state 
which wise men both delight in, and are 
qualified for. Methinks the moralists 
and philosophers have generally run too 
much into extremes in commending en- 
tirely either solitude or public life. In 
the former, men for the most part grow 
useless by too much rest ; and in the lat- 
ter, are destroyed by too much precipita- 
tion ; as waters, lying still, putrify, and 
are good for nothing ; and running vio- 
lently on, do but the more mischief in 
their passage to others, and are swallowed 
up and lost the sooner themselves. Tliose 
indeed who can be useful to all states, 
should be like gentle streams, that not 
only glide through lonely valleys and 
forests, amidst the flocks and the shep- 
herds, but visit populous towns in their 
course, and are at once of ornament and 
service to them. But there are another 
sort of people who seem designed for 
solitude ; such, I mean, as have more to 
hide than to shew. As for my own part, 
I am one of tliose whom Seneca says, 
" Tam umbratiles sunt, ut putent in 
turbido esse, quicquid in luce est." Some 
men, like some pictures, are fitter for a 
corner than a full light ; and, I believe, 
such as have a natural bent to solitude 
(to carry on the former similitude) are 
like waters, wliicli may be forced into 
fountains, and exalted into a great 
height, may make a noble figure and a 
louder noise ; but after all, they would 
run more smoothly, quietly, and plenti- 
fully, in their own natural course upon 
the ground. The consideration of this 
would make me very v/ell contented 
with the possession only of that quiet 
v»'hich Cowley calls the Companion of 

one was done bj^ Monsieur Roboton, private 
secretary to king George the First, printed in 
quarto at Amsterdam, and at London i7l7. 
The other by the Abb6 Resnel, in octavo, with 
a large preface and notes, at Paris, 1730. 



Sect. L 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



233 



Obscurity. But whoever has the Muses 
too for his companions, can never be 
idle enough to be uneasy. Thus, sir, you 
see, I would flatter myself into a good 
opinion of my own way of living. Plu- 
tarch just now told me, that it is in hu- 
man life as in a game at tables, where a 
man may wish for the highest cast ; but, 
if his chance be otherwise, he is even to 
play it as well as he can, and to make 
the best of it. 1 am your, &c. 



LETTER XLVL 

Fro7n the same to the same, 

July 15, 1712. 
You formerly observed to me, that no- 
thing made a more ridiculous figure in a 
man's life, than the disparity we often 
find in him sick and well : thus one of 
an unfortunate constitution is perpe- 
tually exhibiting a miserable example of 
the weakness of his mind, and of his 
body, in their turns. I have had frequent 
opportunties of late to consider myself 
in these diflferent views ; and, I hope, 
have received some advantage by it, if 
what Waller says be true, that 

The soul's dark cottage, batter'd and decay'd, 
Lets in new light through chinks that time 
has made^ 

then surely sickness, contributing no 
less than old age to the shaking down 
this scaffolding of the body, may discover 
the inward structure more plainly. Sick- 
ness is a sort of early old age : it teaches 
us a diffidence in our earthly state, and 
inspires us with the thoughts of a fu- 
ture, better than a thousand volumes of 
philosophers and divines. It gives so 
warning a concussion to those props of 
our vanity, our strength and youth, 
that we think of fortifying ourselves 
within, when there is so little depend- 
ence upon our outv/orks. Youth, at 
the very best, is but a betrayer of human 
life in a gentler and smoother manner 
than age ; it is like a stream that nou- 
rishes a plant upon a bank, and causes 
it to flourish and blossom to the sight, 
but at the same time is undermining it 
at the root in secret. My youth has 
dealt more fairly and openly with me ; 
it has afforded several prospects of my 
danger, and given me an advantage not 
very common to young men, that the 
attractions of the world have not daz- 



zled me veryfmuch ; and I begin, where 
most people end, with a full conviction 
of the emptiness of all sorts of ambi- 
tion, and the unsatisfactory nature of all 
human pleasures. When a smart fit of 
sickness tells me this empty tenement of 
my body will fall in a little time, I am 
even as unconcerned as was that honest 
Hibernian, who being| in Jibed in the 
great storm some years ago, and told 
the house would tumble over his head, 
made answer, " What care I for the 
house ! I am only a lodger." I fancy it 
is the best time to die when one is in the 
best humour; and so excessively weak 
as I noAv am, I may say with conscience, 
that I am not at all uneasy at the thought, 
that many men, whom I never had any 
esteem for, are likely to enjoy this world 
after me. When I ;;^^ reflect what an in- 
considerable little atom every single man 
is, with respect to the whole creation, 
methinks it is a shame to be concerned 
at the removal of -such a trivial Janimal 
as I am. The morning after my exit, the 
sun will rise as bright as ever, the flowers 
smell as sweet, the plants spring as 
green, the world will proceed in its own 
course, people will laugh as heartily, and 
marry as fast, as they were used to do. The 
memory of man (as it is elegantly ex- 
pressed in the Bookjof Wisdom) passeth 
away as the remembrance of a guest that 
tarrieth but one day. There are reasons 
enough in the fourth chapter of the 
same book to make any young man 
contented with the prospect of death. 
" For honourable age is not that which 
standeth in length of time, or is mea- 
sured by number of years. But wisdom 
is the grey hair to men, and an un- 
spotted life is old age. He v/as taken 
away speedily, lest wickedness should 
alter his understanding, or deceit be- 
guile his soul," &c. I am your, &c. 

LETTER XLVIL 

FrG7n the same to the same. 

Nov. 7, 1712. 
I WAS the other day in company with 
five or six men of some learning ; where, 
chancing to mention the famous verses 
which the emperor Adrian spoke on his 
death-bed, they were all agreed that it 
was a piece of gaiety unwortliy of that 
prince in those circumstances. I could 
not but differ from this ojiinion : me- 



234 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IIL 



thinks it was by no means a gay, but a 
very serious soliloquy to his soul at the 
point of his departure ; in which sense I 
naturally took the verses at my first read- 
ing- them, when I was very young, and 
before I knew what interpretation the 
world generally put upon them. 

Animula vagula, hlandula, 
Hospes comesque, corporis^ 
2u(E nunc ahibis in loca f 
Pallidula, regida, widula. 
Nee {ut soles) dubis joca ! 

" Alas, my soul ! thou pleasing compa- 
nion of this body, thou fleeting thing 
that art now deserting it ! whither art 
thou flying ? to what unknown scene ? 
all trembling, fearful, and pensive ! what 
now is become of thy former wit and 
humour ? thou shalt jest and be gay no 
more ! '' 

I confess I cannot apprehend where 
lies the trifling in all this ; it is the most 
natural and obvious reflection imagin- 
able to a dying man : and if we consider 
the emperor was a heathen, that doubt 
concerning the future state of his soul 
will seem so far from being the efi'ect of 
want of thought, that it was scarce rea- 
sonable he should think otherw ise ; not 
to mention that here is a plain confes- 
sion included of his belief in its immor- 
tality. The diminutive epithets of va- 
gula, blandula, and the rest, appear not 
to me as expressions of levity, but rather 
of endearment and concern ; such as 
we find in C'atullus, and the authors of 
Hendecasyllahi after him, where they are 
used to express the utmost love and 
tenderness for their mistresses. — If you 
think me right in my notion of the last 
words of Adrian, be pleased to insert it 
in the Spectatar ; if not, to suppress it. 
I am, &c. 

Adriani morientis ad Animam, 
Translated. 

Ah, fleeting spirit ! wand'ring; fire. 

That long hast warm'd my tender breast, 

Must thou no more this frame inspire ? 
No more a pleasing cheerful guest ? 

Whither, ah whither art thou flying ? 

To what dark, undiscover'd shore ? 
Thou seem'st all trembling, shiv'ring, dying, 

And wit arid humour are no more ! 



LETTER XLVIII. 

Mr. Steele to Mr. Pope. 

Nov. 12, 1712, 
1 HAVE read over your Temple of Fame 
twice, and cannot find any thing amiss, 
of weight enough to call a fault ; but 
see in it a thousand thousand beauties. 
Mr. Addison shall see it to-morrow : 
after his perusal of it I will let you know 
his thoughts. I desire you would let me 
know whether you are at leisure or not ? 
I have a design which I shall open a 
month or two hence, with the assistance 
of the few like yourself. If your thoughts 
are unengaged, I shall explain myself 
further. I am your, &c. 

LETTER XLIX. 

Mr. Pope to Mr. Steele. 

Nov. 16, 1712. 
You oblige me by the indulgence you 
have shewn to the poem I sent you ; 
but will oblige me much more by the 
kind severity 1 hope from you. No errors 
are so trivial but they deserve to be 
mended. But since you say you see no- 
thing that may be called a fault, can you 
but think it so, that I have confined the 
attendance of the guardian spirits* to 
Heaven's favourites only ? I could point 
you to several ; but it is my business to 
be informed of those faults I do not 
know ; and as for those I do, not to 
talk of them, but to correct them. You 
speak of that poem in a style 1 neither 
merit nor expect ; but, I assure you, if 
you freely mark or dash out, I shall look 
upon your blots to be its greatest beau- 
ties; I mean, if Mr. Addison and your- 
self should like it in the whole ; other- 
wise the trouble of correction is what I 
would not take, for I really was so difl&- 
dent of it as to let it lie by me these tvvo 
years:}:, just as you now see it. I am 
afraid of nothing so much as to impose 
any thing on the world which is unwor- 
thy of its acceptance. 

A s to the last period of your letter, I 
shall be very ready and glad to contri- 
bute to any design that tends to the ad- 
vantage of mankind, which, I am sure, 
all yours do. I wish I had but as much 

* This is not now to be found in the Temple 
of Fame, which is the poem here spokeu of. 

f Hence it appears this poem was writ when 
the author was twenty-two years old. 



Sect. I. 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



235 



capacity as leisure; fori am perfectly idle 
(a siffn I have not much capacity). 

If you will entertain the best opinion 
of me, he pleased to think me your friend. 
Assure Mr. Addison of my most faithful 
service : of every one's esteem he must 
be assured already. I am your, &c. 

LETTER L. 

From the sanic to the same. 

Nov. 29, 17 i 2. 
I AM sorry you published that notion 
about Adrian's verses as mine : had I 
imagined you would use my name, I 
should have expressed my sentiments 
with more modesty and diffidence. I 
only sent it to have your opinion, and 
not to publish my own, which I dis- 
trusted. But I think the supposition 
you draw from the notion of Adrian's 
beinff addicted to magic, is a little un- 
charitable (" that he might fear no sort 
of deity, good or bad"'), since in the third 
verse he plainly testifies his apprehension 
of a future state, by being- solicitous 
whither his soul was going-. As to what 
you mention of his using gay and ludi-. 
crous expressions, I have owned my opi- 
nion to be, that the expressions are not 
so, but that diminutives are as often, in 
the Latin tongue, used as marks of ten- 
derness and concern. 

Anima is no more than my soul, a^n- 
mula has the force of my dear soul. To 
say virso hella is not hah" so endearing as 
•cii'zuncula hellula ; and had Augustus 
only called Horace lepidum hoyjiinem, it 
had amounted to no more than that he 
thought him a pleasant fellow : it was 
the homuncioluni that expressed the love 
and tenderness that great emperor had 
for him. And perhaps I should myself 
be much better pleased, if I were told 
you called me youjr little friend, than if 
you complimented me with the title of 
a great genius, or an eminent hand, 
as Jacob does aE liis authors. I am 
vour, &ic. 



LETTER LI. 

Mr. Steele to Mr. Pope. 

Dec. 4, 1712. 
This is to desire of you that you would 
please to make an ode as of a cheerful 
dying spirit ; that is to say, the emperor 



Adrian's animula vagula put into two or 
three stanzas for music. If you comply 
with this, and send me word so, you Tvill 
very particularly oblige your, &c. 

LETTER LII. 

3Ir. Pope to Mr. Steele. 

I DO not send you word I wiU do, but 
have already done the thing you desired 
of me. You have it (as Cowley calls it) 
just warm from the brain. It came to 
me the first moment I waked this 
morning ; yet, you will see, it was not 
so absolutely inspiration, but that I 
had in my head not only the verses of 
Adrian, but the fine fragment of Sap- 
pho, &c. 

The Dying Christian to his Soul. 

ODE. 
I. 

Vital spark of heavenly flame ! 
Quit, oh quit this mortal frame: 
Trembling, hoping, ling'ring, flying. 
Oh the pain, the bliss of dying ! 
Cease, fond Nature, cease thy strife. 
And let me languish into life. 

II. 

Hark ! they whisper : angels say. 
Sister Spirit, come away ! 
\^ hat is this absorbs me quite. 
Steals my senses, shuts my sight, 
Drowns my spirits, draws my breath ? 
1 ell me, my Soul, can this be Death r 

III. 
The world recedes ;. it disappears ! 
Heav'n opens on my eyes ! my ears 

With sounds seraphic ring : 
J end, lend your wings ! I mount ! I fly ! 
O Grave, where is thy victory ? 

O Death ! where is th}^ sting ? 

LETTER LIII. 

3Ir. Pope to Mr. Addison. 

July 20, 1713. 
I AM more joyed at your return than I 
should be at that of the sun, so mucli 
as I wish for him this melancholy wet 
season : but it is his fate, too, like yours, 
to be displeasing to owls and obscene ani- 
mals, who cannot bear his lustre. \^liat 
put me in mind of these night-birds was 
John Dennis, whom, I think, you are 
best revenged upon, as the sun was in 
the fable, upon these bats and beastly 
birds above mentioned, only by shijiing 
on. I am so far from esteeming it any 
misfortune, that I congratulate you upon 
having your share in that, which all the 



236 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IIL 



great men and all the good men that ever 
lived have had their part of — envy and 
calumny. To be uncensured and to be 
obscure is the same thing. You may 
conclude from what I here say, that it 
Vi^as never in my thoughts to have offered 
you my pen in any direct reply to such a 
critic, but only in some little raillery ; 
not in defence of you, but in contempt 
of him*. But indeed your opinion that 
it is entirely to be neglected, would have 
been my own, had it been my own case : 
but I felt more warmth here than I did 
when I first saw his book against myself 
(though indeed in two minutes it made 
me heartily merry). He has written 
against every thing the world has ap- 
proved these many years. I apprehend 
but one danger from Dennis's disliking 
our sense, that it may make us think so 
very well of it as to become proud and 
conceited upon his disapprobation. 

I must not here omit to do justice to 
Mr. Gay, whose zeal in your concern is 
worthy a friend and honourer of you. 
He writ to me in the most pressing terms 
about it, though with that just contempt 
of the critic that he deserves. I think, 
in these days one honest man is obliged 
to acquaint another who are his friends ; 
when so many mischievous insects are 
daily at work to make people of merit 
suspicious of each other ; , that they may 
have the satisfaction of seeing them 
looked upon no better than themselves. 
I am your, &c. 



LETTER LIV. 

Mr. Addison to Mr, Pope. 

Oct. 20, 1713. 

I WAS extremely glad to receive a letter 
from you, but more so upon reading the 
contents of it. The workf you men- 
tion will, I dare say, very sufficiently re- 
commend itself when your name ap- 
pears with the proposals : and if you 
think I can any way contribute to the 
forvv'arding of them, you cannot lay 
greater obligation upon me than by em- 
ploying me in such an office. As I have 
an ambition of having it known that 

* This relates to the paper occasioned by 
Dennis's Remarks upon Cato, called "Dr. 
Norris's Narrative of the Frenzy of John 
Dennis," 

f The translation of the Iliad. 



you are my friend, I shall be very proud 
of shewing it by this or any other in- 
stance. I question not but your trans- 
lation will enrich our tongue, and do 
honour to our country ; for I conclude of 
it already from these performances with 
which you have obliged the public. I 
would only have you consider how it 
may most turn to your advantage. Ex- 
cuse my impertinence in this particular, 
vv^hich proceeds from my zeal for your 
ease and happiness. The work would 
cost you a great deal of time, and un- 
less you undertake it, will, I am afraid, 
never be executed by any other ; at least 
I know none of this age that is equal to 
it beside yourself. 

I am at present wholly immersed in 
country business, and begin to take de- 
light in it. 1 wish 1 might hope to see 
you here some time ; and will not despair 
of it when you engage in a work that 
will require solitude and retirement. I 
am your, &c. 

LETTER LV. 

Mr. Pope to Mr. Addison. 

Oct. 10, 1714. 
I HAVE been acquainted by one of my 
friends, who omits no opportunities of 
gratifying me, that you have lately been 
pleased to speak of me in a manner which 
nothing but the real respect I have for 
you can deserve. May I hope that some 
late malevolencies have lost their effect ? 
Indeed it is neither for me nor my ene- 
mies, to pretend to tell you whether I 
am your friend or not ; but if you would 
judge by probabilities, I beg to know 
which of your poetical acquaintance has 
so little interest in pretending to be so ? 
Methinks no man should question the 
real friendship of one who desires no real 
service. I am only to get as much from 
the whigs as I got from the tories, that 
is to say, civility, being neither so proud 
as to be insensible of any good office, 
nor so humble as not to dare heartily 
to despise any man who does me an in- 
justice. 

I will not value myself upon having 
ever guarded all the degrees of respect 
for you ; for (to say the truth) all 
the world speaks well of you, and I 
should be under a necessity of doing 
the same, whether I cared for you or 
not. 



Sect. I. 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



237 



As to what you have said of me, 1 
shall never believe that the author of 
Cato can speak one thing- and think an- 
other. As a proof that I account you 
sincere, I beg a favour of you; it is, that 
you would look over the two first books 
of my translation of Homer, w^hich are 
in the hands of my lord Halifax. I am 
sensible how much the reputation of any 
poetical work will depend upon the cha- 
racter you give it: it is therefore some 
evidence of the trust I repose in your 
good-w^ill, when I give you this oppor- 
tunity of speaking ill of me with justice ; 
and yet expect you will tell me your truest 
thoughts, at the same time that you tell 
others your most favourable ones. 

1 have a farther request, which I must 
press with earnestness. My bookseller 
is reprinting the Essay on Criticism, to 
which you have done too much honour 
in your Spectator of No. 253. The pe- 
riod in that paper, where you say, " I 
have admitted some strokes of ill-nature 
into that Essay," is the only one I could 
wish omitted of all you have written ; 
but I would not desire it should be so, 
unless I had the merit of removing your 
objection. I beg you but to point out 
those strokes to me, and you may be 
assured they shall be treated without 
mercy. 

Since we are upon proofs of sincerity 
(which I am pretty confident will turn to 
the advantage of us both in each other's 
opinion) give me leave to name another 
passage in the same Spectator, which I 
wish you would alter. It is where you 
mention an observation upon Homer's 
verses of Sisyphus's stone, as never hav- 
ing been made before by any of the cri- 
tics . I happened to find the same in Dio- 
nysius of Halicarnassus's treatise, Ilsfi 
o-vvSso'scuf ovoy.ocT'ajv, who treats very large- 
ly upon these verses. I know you will 
think fit to soften your expression when 
you see the passage, which you must 
needs have read, though it be since slipt 
out of your memory. I am, with the 
utmost esteem, your, &c. 



LETTER LVL 

Mr. Pope to the Honourable 



June 8, 1714. 
The question you ask in relation to Mr. 
Addison and Philips, I shall answer in a 



few words. Mr. Philips did express him- 
self with much indignation against me 
one evening at Burton's coffee-house (as 
I was told), saying, that I was entered 
into a cabal with dean Swift and others 
to write against the whig interest, and 
in particular to undermine his own repu- 
tation, and that of his friends Steele and 
Addison : but Mr. Philips never opened 
his lips to my face, on this or any like 
occasion, though I was almost every night 
in the same room with him, nor ever 
offered me any indecorum. Mr. Ad- 
dison came to me a night or two after 
Philips had talked in this idle manner, 
and assured me of his disbelief of what 
had been said, of the friendship we 
should always maintain, and desired I 
v/ould say nothing further of it. My 
lord Halifax did me the honour to stir 
in this matter, by speaking to several 
people to obviate a false aspersion, which 
might have done me no small prejudice 
with one party. However, Philips did 
all he could secretly to continue the re- 
port with the Hanover Club, and kept 
in his hands the subscriptions paid for 
me to him, as secretary to that club. 
The heads of it have since given him to 
understand that they take it ill ; but 
(upon the terms 1 ought to be with such 
a man) I could not ask him for this 
money, but commissioned one of the 
players, his equals, to receive it. This 
is the whole matter : but as to the se- 
cret grounds of this malignity, they will 
make a very pleasant history when we 
meet. Mr. Congreve and some others 
have been much diverted with it; and 
most of the gentlemen of the Hanover 
Club have made it the subject of their 
ridicule on their secretary. It is to the 
management of Philips, that the world 
owes Mr. Gay's Pastorals. The inge- 
nious author is extremely your servant, 
and would have complied with your kind 
invitation, but that he is just now ap- 
pointed secretary to my lord Clarendon, 
in his embassy to Hanover. 

I am sensible of the zeal and friend- 
ship with which, I am sure, you will al- 
ways defend your friend in his absence, 
from all those little tales and calumnies 
which a man of any genius or merit is 
born to. I shall never complain, while 
I am happy in such noble defenders and 
in such contemptible opponents. May 
their envy and ill-nature ever increase, 
to the glory and pleasure of those they 



238 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IIL 



would injure ! May they represent me 
what they will as long as you think me, 
what I am, your, &c. 



LETTER LVIL 

Mr. Pope to Mr. Jervas. 

Aug. 16, 1714. 

I THANK you for your good offices, which 
-are numberless. Homer advances so 
fast, that he begins to look about for 
the ornaments he is to appear in, like a 
modish modem author ; 

Picture in the front. 
With bays and wicked rhyme upon't. 

I have the greatest proof in nature at 
present of the amusing power of poetry, 
for it takes me up so entirely, that I scarce 
see what passes under my nose, and hear 
nothing that is said about me. To follow 
poetry as one ought, one must forget fa- 
ther and mother, and cleave to it alone. 
My reverie has been so deep, that I 
have scarce had an interval to think my- 
self uneasy in the want of your company. 
I now and then just miss you as I step 
into bed ; this minute indeed I want ex- 
tremely to see you, the next I sliall dream 
of nothing but the taking of Troy, or 
the recovery of Briseis. 

I fancy no friendship is so likely to 
prove lasting as ours, because, I am pret- 
ty sure, there never was a friendship of 
so easy a nature. We neither of us de- 
mand any mighty things from each other ; 
what vanity we have, expects its gratifi- 
cation from other people. It is not I 
that am to tell you what an artist you 
are, nor is it you that are to tell me what 
a poet I am ; but it is from the world 
abroad we hope (piously hope) to hear 
these things. At home we follow our 
business, when we have any ; and think 
and talk most of each other when we have 
none. It is not unlike the happy friend- 
ship of a stayed man and his wife, who 
are seldom so fond as to hinder the busi- 
ness of the house from going on all day, 
or so indolent as not to find consolation 
in each other every evening. Thus, well- 
meaning couples hold in amity to the 
last, by not expecting too much from 
human nature; while romantic friend- 
ships, like violent loves, begin with dis- 
quiets, proceed to jealousies, and con- 
clude in animosities. I have lived to see 
the fierce advancement, the sudden turn, 



and the abrupt period of three or four 
of these enormous friendships, and am 
perfectly convinced of the truth of a 
maxim we once agreed in, that nothing 
hinders the constant agreement of peo- 
jile who live together, but merely va- 
nity ; a secret insisting upon what they 
think their dignity of merit, and an in- 
ward expectation of such an over-mea- 
sure of deference and regard, as answers 
to their own extravagant false scale ; and 
which nobody can pay, because none 
but themselves can tell exactly to what 
pitch it amounts. I am, &c. 

LETTER LVIII. 

Mr. Jervas to Mr. Pope. 

Aug. 20, 1714. 
I HAVE a particular to tell you at this 
time, which pleases me so much, that 
you must expect a more than ordinary 
alacrity in every turn. You know I could 
keep you in suspense for twenty lines, but 
I will tell you directly, that Mr. Addison 
and I have had a conversation, that it 
would have been worth your while to have 
been placed behind the wainscot or behind 
some half-length picture, to have heard. 
He assured me, that he would make use 
not only of his interest but of his art, to 
do you some service ; he did not mean 
his art of poetry, but his art at court ; 
and he is sensible that nothing can have 
a better air for himself than moving in 
your favour, especially since insinuations 
were spread, that he did not care you 
should prosper too much as a poet. 
He protests that it shall not be his fault, 
if there is not the best intelligence in the 
world, and the most hearty friendship, 
&c. He owns, he was afraid Dr. Swift 
might have carried you too far among 
the enemy during the heat of the animo- 
sity ; but now all is safe, and you are es- 
caped even in his opinion. I promised 
in your name, like a good godfather, not 
that you should renounce the devil and 
all his works, but that you would be 
delighted to find him your friend, merely 
for his own sake ; therefore prepare 
yourself for some civilities. 

I have done Homer's head, shadowed 
and heightened carefully ; and I enclose 
the outline of the same size, that you 
may determine whether you would have 
it so large, or reduced to make room 
for feuillage or laurel round the oval, or 



Sect. I. 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



239 



about the square of the busto. Perhaps 
there is something more solemn in the 
image itself, if I can get it well per- 
formed. 

If I have been instrumental in bring- 
ing you and Mr. Addison together with 
all sincerity, I value myself upon it as 
an acceptable piece of service to such a 
one as I know you to be. Your, &c. 

LETTER LIX. 

Mr. Pope to 3Ir. Jervas. 

Aug. 27, 1714. 

1 AM just arrived from Oxford, very 
well diverted and entertained there. 
Every one is much concerned for the 
queen's death. No panegyrics ready 
yet for the king. 

I admire your whig principles of re- 
sistance exceedingly, in the spirit of the 
Barcelonians : I join in your wish for 
them. Mr. Addison's verses on Liberty, 
in his letter from Italy, would be a good 
form of prayer in my opinion, O Libert i/ ! 
thou ifoddess heavenly bright, &c. 

What you mention of the friendly of- 
fice you endeavoured to do betwixt Mr. 
Addison and me, deserves acknowledg- 
ments on my part. You thoroughly 
know my regard to his character, and 
my propensity to testify it by all Vv'ays in 
my power. You as thoroughly know the 
scandalous meanness of that proceeding 
which was used by Philips, to make a 
man I so higlily value suspect my dispo- 
sition towards him. But as, after all, 
Mr. Addison must be the judge in what 
regards himself, and has seemed to be 
no very just one to me, so, I must own 
to you, I expect nothing but civility 
from him, how much soever I wish for 
his friendship. As for any offices of real 
kindness or service which it is in his 
power to do me, I should be ashamed to 
receive them from any man who had 
no better opinion of my morals than to 
think me a party -man ; nor of my tem- 
per, than to believe me capable of ma- 
ligning or envying another's reputation 
as a poet. So I leave it to time to con- 
vince him as to both ; to shew him the 
shallow depths of those half-witted crea- 
tures who misinformed him, and to prove 
that I am incapable of endeavouring to 
lessen a person whom I would be proud 
to imitate, and therefore ashamed to flat- 
ter. In a word, Mr. Addison is sure of 



my respect at all times, and of my real 
friendship whenever he shall think fit to 
know me for what I am. 

For all that passed betwixt Dr. Swift 
and me, you know the whole (without 
reserve) of our correspondence. The 
^engagements I had to him were such as 
the actual services he had done me, in 
relation to the subscription for Homer, 
obliged me to. I must have leave to be 
grateful to him, and to any one who 
serves me, let him be ever so obnoxious 
to any party ; nor did the tory party 
ever put me to the hardship of asking 
this leave, which is the greatest obliga- 
tion I owe to it ; and I expect no greater 
from the whig party than the same li- 
berty. A curse on the word Party, 
which I have been forced to use so often 
in this period ! I v/ish the present reign 
may put an end to the distinction, that 
there may be no other for the future than 
that of honest and knave, fool and man 
of sense ; these two sorts must always be 
enemies : but for the rest, may all peo- 
ple do as you and I, believe what they 
please, and be friends. I am, &c. 

LETTER LX. 

Mr. Pope to the Earl of Halifax. 

Dec. 1, 1714. 
My lord, 
I AM obliged to you, both for the favours 
you have done me, and for those you 
intend me. I distrust neither your wiU 
nor your memory, when it is to do good ; 
and if ever I become troublesome or so- 
licitous, it must not be out of expecta- 
tion, but out of gratitude. Your lord- 
ship may either cause me to live agree- 
ably in the town, or contentedly in the 
country, which is really all the difference 
I set between an easy fortune and a small 
one. It is indeed a high strain of gene- 
rosity in you, to think of making* me 
easy all my life, only because I have 
been so happy as to divert you some few 
hours ; but if I may have leave to add, 
if it is because you think me no enemy 
to my native country, there will appear 
a better reason ; for I must of conse- 
quence be very much (as I sincerely am) 
yours, &c. 



uo 



ELlEGANT EPISTLES, 



Book III. 



- LETTER LXI*. 

Dr. Parndle to Mr. Pope. 

I AM writing you a long letter ; but all 
the tediousness I feel in it is, that it 
makes me during the time think more 
intently of my being far from you. I 
fancy if I were with you, I could remove 
some of the uneasiness which you may 
have felt from the opposition of the world, 
and which you should be ashamed to feel, 
since it is but the testimony which one 
part of it gives you that your merit is 
unquestionable. What would you have 
otherwise, from ignorance, envy, or 
those tempers which vie with you in 
your own way? I know this in man- 
kind, that when our ambition is unable 
to attain its end, it is not only wearied, 
but exasperated too, at the vanity of 
its labours : then we speak ill of hap- 
pier studies, and, sighing, condemn the 
excellence which we find above cur 
reach. 

My Zoilus t, which you used to write 
about, I finished last spring, and left in 
town. I waited till I came up to send it 
you ; but not arriving here before your 
book was out, imagined it a lost piece of 
labour. If you will still have it, you 
need only write me word. 

I have here seen the first book of Ho- 
mer J, which came out at a time when it 
could not but appear as a kind of setting 
up against you. My opinion is, that 
you may, if you please, give them thanks 
who writ it. Neither the numbers nor 
the spirit have an equal mastery with 
yours ; but what surprises me more is, 
that, a scholar being concerned, there 
should happen to be some mistakes in 
the author's sense ; such as putting the 
light of Pallas's eyes into the eyes of 
Achilles : making the taunt of Achilles 
to Agamemnon (that he should have 
spoils when Troy should be taken) to be 
a cool and serious proposal : the transla- 
ting what you call ablution by the word 
offals, and so leaving water out of the 

* This and the three extracts concerning 
the translation of the first Iliad, set on foot by 
Mr. Addison, Mr. Pope omitted in his first 
edition. 

f Printed for B. Lintot, 1715, 8vo, and after- 
wards added to the last edition of his Poems. 

X Written by Mr. Addison, and published in 
the name of Mr. Tickell. 



rite of lustration, &c. ; but you must 
have taken notice of all this before. I 
write not to inform you, but to shew I 
always have you at heart. I am, &c. 



Extract of a Letter of the Reverend Dr. 
Berkley, Dean of Londonderry. 

July 7, 1715. 
Some days ago, three or four 



gentlemen and myself, exerting that right 
which all readers pretend to over au- 
thors, sat in judgment upon the two new 
translations of the first Iliad. Without 
partiality to my countrymen, I assure 
you, they all gave the preference where 
it was due ; being unanimously of opi- 
nion, that yours was equally just to the 
sense with Mr. 's, and without com- 
parison more easy, more poetical, and 
more sublime. But I will say no more 
on such a threadbare subject as your late 
performance is at this time. 1 am, &c. 



Extract from a Letter of Mr. Gay to 
Mr. Pope. 

July 8, 1715. 
• — — I HAVE just set down sir Samuel 
Garth at the opera. He bid me tell you, 
that every body is pleased with your 
translation but a few at Button's ; and 
that sir Richard Steele told him, that 
Mr. Addison said the other translation 
was the best that ever was in any lan- 
guage*. He treated me with extreme 
civility ; and out of kindness gave me a 
squeeze by the fore-finger. I am in- 
formed, that at Button's your character 
is made very free with as to morals, &c., 
and Mr. Addison says that your transla- 
tion and TickelFs are both very well 
done; but that the latter has more of 
Homer. I am, &c. 



Extract from a Letter of Dr. Arhuthnot 
to Mr. Pope. 

July 9, 1715. 

1 CONGRATULATE you upon Mr. 

T — 's first book. It does not indeed 

* Sir Richard Steele afterwards, in his pre- 
face to an edition of the Drummer, a comedy 
by Mr. Addison, shews it to be his opinion, that 
" Mr. Addison himself was the person who 
translated this book." 



Sect. 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



241 



M^ant'its merit ; but I was strangely dis- 
appointed in my expectation of a trans- 
lation nicely true to the original, where- 
as in those parts where the greatest ex- 
actness seems to be demanded, he has 
been the least careful ; I mean the his- 
tory of ancient ceremonies and rites, &c. 
in which you have with great judgment 
been exact. I am, &c. 

LETTER LXIL 

3Ir. Pope to the Hon. James Craggs, Esq. 

July 15, 1715. 
I LAY hold of the opportunity given me 
l)y my lord duke of Shrewsbury, to assure 
you of the continuance of that esteem and 
affection I have long borne you, and the 
memory of so many agreeable conversa- 
tions as we have passed together. I wish 
it were a compliment to say, such con- 
versations are not to be found on this side 
of the water ; for the spirit of dissension 
is gone forth among us : nor is it a won- 
der that Button's is no longer Button's, 
when Old England is no longer Old 
England, that region of hospitality, so- 
ciety, and good-humour. Party affects 
us all, even the wits, though they gain as 
little by politics as they do by their wit. 
We talk much of fine sense, refined sense, 
and exalted sense ; but for use and hap- 
piness, give me a little common sense. 
I say this in regard to some gentlemen, 
professed wits of our acquaintance, who 
fancy they can make poetry of conse- 
quence at this time of day, in the midst 
of this raging fit of politics. For they 
tell me, the busy part of the nation are 
not more divided about wliigs and tories, 
than these idle fellows of the feather 
about Mr. T — 's and my translation. I 
(like the tories) have the town in gene- 
ral, that is, the mob, on my side ; but it 
is usual Avith the smaller party to make 
up in industry what they want in number, 
and that is the case with the little senate 
of Cato. However, if our principles be 
well considered, I must appear a brave 
whig, and Mr. T — a rank tory : I trans- 
lated Homer for the public in general ; 
he to gTatify the inordinate desires of 
one man only. We have, it seems, a 
great Tui'k in poetry, who can never bear 
a brother on the throne ; and has his 
mutes too, a set of nodders, winkers, and 
whisperers, whose business is to strangle 
all other offsprmgs of wit in their birth. 



The new translator of Homer is the 
humblest slave he has, that is to say, his 
first minister ; let him receive the ho- 
nours he gives me, but receive them with 
fear and trembling : let him be proud of 
the approbation of his absolute lord : I 
appeal to the people, as my rightful 
judges and masters ; and if they are not 
inclined to condemn me, 1 fear no ar- 
bitrary high-flying proceeding from the 
small court faction at Button's. But after 
all I have said of this great man there is 
no rupture between us. We are each of 
us so civil and obliging, that neither 
thinks he is obliged : and I, for my part, 
treat mth him, as we do with the grand 
monarch, who has too many great quali- 
ties not to be respected, though we know 
he watches any occasion to oppress us. 

^VTien I talk of Homer, I must not 
forget the early present you made me of 
Monsieur de la Motte's book : and 1 can- 
not conclude this letter without telling 
you a melancholy piece of news, which 
affects our very entrails. L — is dead, 
and soupes are no more ! You see 1 write 
in the old familiar way. " This is not 
to the minister, but to the friend'"^." 
However, it is some mark of uncommon 
regard to the minister, that I steal an 
expression from a secretary of state. I 
am, &c. 

LETTER LXIII. 

M7\ Pope to Mr. Congreve. 

Jan lo, 1714-I5. 
Methinks when I write to you, I am 
making a confession ; I have got (I can- 
not tell how) such a custom of throwing 
myself out upon paper without reserve. 
You were not mistaken in what you 
judged of my temper of mind when I 
writ last. My faults will not be hid from 
you, and perhaps it is no dispraise to me 
that they will not : the cleanness and 
purity of one's mind is never better 
proved than in discovering its own faidt 
at first view : as when a stream shews 
the dirt at its bottom, it shews also the 
transparency of the water. 

My spleen was not occasioned, how- 
ever, by any thing an abusive angry cri- 
tic could write of me. I take very kind- 
ly your heroic manner of congratulation 
upon this scandal ; for I think nothing 

* AllmVmg- to St. John's letter to Prior, pub- 
Ijslied in the Report of the Secret Committee. 

R 



542 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IH. 



more honourable, tlian to he involved in 
the same fate with all the great and the 
good that ever lived ; that is to be en- 
vied and censured by bad writers. 

You do more than answer my expec- 
tations of you in declaring how well you 
take my freedom, in sometimes neglect- 
ing, as I do, to reply to your letters so 
soon as I ought. Those who have a 
right taste of the substantial part of 
friendship, can wave the ceremonial : a 
friend is the only one that will bear the 
omission ; and one may find who is not 
so, by the very trial of it. 

As to any anxiety I have concerning 
the fate of my Homer, the care is over 
with me : the world must be the judge, 
and I shall be the first to consent to the 
justice of its judgment, whatever it be. 
I am not so arrant an author as even to 
desire, that if I am in the wrong, all 
mankind should be so. 

I am mightily pleased with a saying 
of Monsieur Tourreil : — " When a man 
writes, he ought to animate himself Avith 
the thoughts of pleasing all the world : 
but he is to renounce that desire or hope 
the very moment the book goes out of 
his hands." 

I write this from Binfield, whither I 
came yesterday, having passed a few days 
in my way with my lord Bolingbroke ; 
I go to London in three days' time, and 

will not fail to pay a visit to Mr. M , 

whom 1 saw not long since at my lord 
Halifax's. I hoped from thence he had 
some hopes of advantage from the pre- 
sent administration : for few people (I 
think) but I pay respects to great men 
without any prospects. 1 am in the fair- 
est way in the world of being not worth 
a groat, being born both a papist and a 
poet. This puts me in mind of re-ac- 
knowledging your continued endeavours 
to enrich me. But, I can tell you, it is 
to no purpose, for without the opes, 
jEquu77i mi animum ipse paraho. 

LETTER LXIV. 

Mr, Pope to Mr. Congreve. 

March 19, 1714-15. 
The farce of the What-d'ye-call it* has 
occasioned many different speculations 
in the town. Some looked upon it as a 
mere jest upon the tragic poets ; others 

* Written by Gay. 



as a satire upon the late war. Mr. Crom- 
well, hearing none of the words, and see- 
ing the action to be tragical, was much 
astonished to find the audience laugh ; 
and says the prince and princess must 
doubtless be under no less amazement 
on the same account. Several Templars, 
and others of the more vociferous kind 
of critics, went with a resolution to hiss, 
and confessed they were forced to laugh 
so much, that they forgot the design they 
came with. The court in general h.as, in 
a very particular manner, come into the 
jest, and the three first nights (notwith- 
standing two of them were court nights) 
were distinguished by very full audiences 
of the first quality. The common people 
of the pit and gallery received it at first 
with great gravity and sedateness, some 
few with tears ; but after the third day 
they also took the hint, and have ever 
since been very loud in their claps. — 
There are still some sober men, who 
cannot be of the general opinion ; but 
the laughers are so much the majority, 
tliat one or two critics seem determined 
to undeceive the town at their proper 
cost, by writing grave dissertations 
against it : to encourage them in which 
laudable design, it is resolved a preface 
should be prefixed to the farce, in vindi- 
cation of the nature and dignity of this 
new way of writing. 

Yesterday, Mr. Steele's affair was de- 
cided. I am sorry I can be of no other 
opinion than yours, as to his whole car- 
riage and writings of late. But certainly 
he has not only been punished by others, 
but suffered much even from his own 
party in the point of character, nor, I 
believe, received any amends in that of 
interest, as yet, whatever may be his 
prospects for the future. 

This gentleman, among a thousand 
others, is a great instance of the fate of 
all who are carried away by party spirit, 
of any side. I wish all violence may suc- 
ceed as ill : but am really amazed that so 
much of that sour and pernicious quality 
should be joined with so much natural 
good-humour as, I think, Mr. Steele is 
possessed of. I am, &c. 

LETTER LXV. 

Fro7n the same to the same. 

April 7, 1715. 
Mr. Pope is going to Mr. Jervas's, where 
Mr. Addison is sitting for his picture : 



Sect. I. 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



243 



in the mean time, amidst clouds of to- 
bacco at a coflfee-house I write this let- 
ter. There is a grand revolution at 
Will's ; Morrice has quitted for a coflFee- 
house in the city, and Titcomb is re- 
stored, to the great joy of Cromwell, who 
was at a great loss for a person to con- 
verse with upon the fathers and church 
history : the knowledge I gain from him 
is entirely in painting and poetry ; and 
Mr. Pope owes all his skill in astronomy 
to him and Mr. Whiston, so celebrated of 
late for the discovery of the longitude in 
an extraordinary copy of verses *. Mr. 
Rowe's Jane Gray is to be played in 
Easter-Aveek, when Mrs. Oldfield is to 
personate a character directly opposite 
to female nature : for what woman ever 
despised sovereignty ? You know, Chau- 
cer has a tale where a knight saves his 
head by discovering it was the thing 
Avhich all women most coveted. Mr. 
Pope's Homer is retarded by the great 
rains that have fallen of late, which 
causes the sheets to be long a-drying : 
this gives Mr. Lintot great uneasiness, 
who is now endeavouring to corrupt the 
curate of his parish to pray for fair wea- 
ther, that his work may go on. There is 
a sixpenny criticism lately published upon 
the tragedy of What-d'ye-call-it, wherein 
he with much judgment and learning calls 
me a blockhead, and Mr. Pope a knave. 
His grand charge is against the Pilgrim's 
Progress being* read, which he says is 
directly levelled at Cato's reading Plato ; 
to back this censure, he goes on to tell 
you, that the Pilgrim's Progress being 
mentioned to be the eighth edition, makes 
the reflection evident, the tragedy of 
Cato having just eight times (as he 
quaintly expresses it) visited the press. 
He has also endeavoured to shew, that 
every particular passage of the play al- 
ludes to some fine parts of tragedy, which 
he says I have injudiciously and profanely 
abused f. Sir Samuel Garth's poem 
upon my lord Clare's house, I believe, 
will be published in the Easter week. 

Thus far Mr. Gay, who has in his let- 
ter forestalled all the subjects of diver- 
sion ; unless it should be one to you to 
say, that I sit up till two o'clock over 

* Called, An Ode on the Longitude: in Swift 
and Pope's Miscellanies. 

f This curious piece was entitled, A complete 
Key to the What-d'ye-call-it, written by one 
Griffin, a player, assisted by Lewis Theobald. 



burgundy and cliampaigne ; and am be- 
come so much a rake, that I shall be 
ashamed in a short time to be thought to 
do any sort of business. I fear 1 must 
get the gout by drinking, purely for a 
fashionable pretence to sit still long 
enough to translate four books of Homer. 
I hope youll by that time be up again, 
and I may succeed to the bed and couch 
of my predecessor : pray cause the stuff- 
ing to be repaired, and the crutches 
shortened for me. The calamity of your 
gout is what all your friends, that is to 
say, all that know you, must share in ; 
we desire you in your turn to condole 
with us, who are under a persecution, 
and much afflicted with a distemper v/hich 
proves mortal to many poets, — a criti- 
cism. We have indeed some relieving 
intervals of laughter, as you know there 
are in some diseases ; and it is the opinion 
of divers good guessers, that the last fit 
wiU not be more violent than advanta- 
geous ; for poets assailed by critics are 
like men bitten by tarantulas, they dance 
on so much the faster. 

Mr. Thomas Burnet hath played the 
precursor to the coming of Homer, in a 
treatise called Homerides. He has since 
risen very much in his criticisms, and, 
after assaulting Homer, made a daring 
attack upon the What-d'ye-call-it J. Yet 
there is not a proclamation issued for the 
burning of Homer and the Pope by the 
common hangman ; nor is the What-d'ye- 
call-it yet silenced by the lord chamber- 
lain. Your, &c. 

LETTER LXVI. 

Mr, Congreve to Mr. Pope, 

May 6. 

I HAVE the pleasure of your very kind 
letter. I have always been obliged to 
you for your friendship and concern for 
me, and am more aff'ected with it than I 
will take upon me to express in this let- 
ter. T do assure you there is no return 
wanting on my part, and am very sorry 
I had not the good luck to see the dean 
before I left the to^vn : it is a great plea- 
sure to me, and not a little vanity, to 
think that he misses me. As to my health, 
which you are so kind as to inquire after, 
it is not worse than in London : I am 
almost afraid yet to say that it is better, 

t In one of hi? papers called the Grumbler. 

R 2 



244 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IIL 



for I cannot reasonably expect much ef- 
fect from these waters in so short a time ; 
but in the main they seem to agree with 
me. Here is not one creature that I 
know, which, next to the few I would 
choose, contributes very much to my sa- 
tisfaction. At the same time that 1 re- 
gret the want of your conversation, I 
please myself with thinking that you are 
where you first ought to be, and engaged 
where you cannot do too much. Pray 
give my humble service and best wishes 
to your good mother. I am sorry you 
do not tell me hoAV Mr. Gay does in his 
health ; I should have been glad to have 
heard he was better. My young amanu- 
ensis, as you call him, 1 am afraid, will 
prove but a wooden one ; and you know 
ex quavis ligno, &c. You will pardon 
Mrs. R— 's pedantry, and believe me to 
be your, &c. 

P. S. By the enclosed you will see I 
am like to be impressed, and enrolled in 
the list of Mr. Curll's authors ; but, I 
thank God, I shall have your company. 
I believe it high time you should think 
of administering another emetic. 

LETTER LXVIL 

The Rev. Dean Berkley to Mr. Pope. 

Leghorn, May, 1714. 
As I take ingratitude to be a greater 
crime than impertinence, I choose rather 
to run the risk of being thought guilty 
of the latter, than not to return you 
my thanks for a very agreeable en- 
tertainment you just now gave me. I 
have accidentally met with your Rape of 
the Lock here, having never seen it be- 
fore. Style, painting, judgment, spirit, 
I had already admired in other of your 
writings : but in this I am charmed with 
the magic of your invention, with all 
those images, allusions, and inexplicable 
beauties, which you raise so surprisingly, 
and at the same time so naturally, out of 
a trifle. And yet I cannot say that I was 
more pleased with the reading of it than 
I am with the pretext it gives me to re- 
new in your thoughts the remembrance 
of one who values no happiness beyond 
the friendship of men of wit, learning, 
and good-nature. 

I remember to have heard you men- 
tion some half-formed design of coming 
to Italy. What might we not expect 
from a muse that sings so well in the 



bleak climate of England, if she felt the; 
same warm sun and breathed the same 
air with Virgil and Horace ! 

There are here an incredible number 
of poets, that have aU the inclinatiouy 
but want the genius, or perhaps the art, 
of the ancients. Some among them, who 
understand English, begin to relish our 
authors ; and 1 am informed that at Flo- 
rence they have translated Milton into 
Italian verse. If one who knows so well 
how to write like the old Latin poets 
came among them, it would probably be 
a means to retrieve them from their cold, 
trivial conceits, to an imitation of their 
predecessors. 

As merchants, antiquaries, men of 
pleasure, &c. have all different views in 
travelling ; I know not whether it might 
not be worth a poet's while to travel, in 
order to store his mind with strong 
images of nature. 

Green fields and groves, flowery mea- 
dows, and purling streams, are nowhere 
in such perfection as in England ; but if 
you would know lightsome days, warm 
suns, and blue skies, you must come to 
Italy ; and to enable a man to describe 
rocks and precipices, it is absolutely ne- 
cessary that he pass the Alps. 

You will easily perceive that it is self- 
interest makes me so fond of giving ad- 
vice to one who has no need of it. If 
you came into these parts I should fly to 
see you. I am here (by the favour of 
my good friend the Dean of St. Patrick's) 
in quality of chaplain to the earl of Pe- 
terborough ; who about three months 
since left the greatest part of his family 
in this town. God knows how long we 
shall stay here. I am yours, &c. 

LETTER LXVIII. 

Mr. Pope to Mr. Jervas in Ireland. 

July 9, 1716. 

Though, as you rightly remark, I pay 
my tax but once in a half year, yet you 
shall see by this letter upon the neck 
of my last, that I pay a double tax, as we 
nonjurors ought to do. Your acquaint- 
ance on this side of the sea are under 
terrible apprehensions from your long 
stay in Ireland, that you may grow toa 
polite for them ; for we think (since the 
great success of such a play as the Non- 
juror) that politeness is gone over the 
water. But others are of opinion it has 



Sect. I. 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



245 



been longer among you, and was intro- 
clnced much about the same time with 
frogs, and with equal success. Poor 
Poetry ! the little that is left of it here, 
longs to cross tlie sea, and leave Eusden 
in full and peaceable possession of the 
British laurel : and we begin to wish you 
had the singing of our poets, as well as 
the croaking of our frogs, to yourselyes, 
in scEcula scBculorwn. It would be well 
in exchange if Parnelle, and two or three 
more of your swans, would come hither ; 
especially that swan, who, like a true 
modern one, does not sing at all. Dr. 
Swift. I am (like the rest of the world) 
a suflferer by his idleness. Indeed I 
hate that any man should be idle, while 
I must translate and comment ; and I 
may the more sincerely wish for good 
poetry from others, because I am be- 
come a person out of the question ; for 
a translator is no more a poet than a 
tailor is a man. 

You are, doubtless, persuaded of the 
validity of that famous verse, 

'Tis expectation makes a blessing dear. 

But why would you make your friends 
fonder of you than they are ? There is 
no manner of need of it. We begin to 
expect you no more than Antichrist ; a 
man that hath absented himself so long 
from his friends, ought to be put in the 
Gazette. 

Every body here has great need of you. 
Many faces have died for want of your 
pencil, and blooming ladies have wither- 
ed in expecting your return. Even Frank 
and Betty (that constant pair) cannot 
console themselves for your absence ; I 
fancy they will be forced to make their 
own picture in a pretty babe, before you 
come home : it will be a noble subject 
for a family piece. Come, then ; and 
having peopled Ireland with a world of 
beautiful shadows, come to us, and see 
with what eye (which, like the eye of the 
world, creates beauties by looking on 
them), see, I say, how England has al- 
tered the airs of all its heads in your ab- 
sence ; and with what sneaking city at- 
titudes our most celebrated personages 
appear in the mere mortal works of our 
painters. 

Mr. Fortescue is much yours ; Gay 
commemorates you ; and lastly (to climl? 
by just steps and degrees) my lord Bur- 
lington desires you may be put in mind 
of him. His gardens flourish, his struc- 



tures rise, his pictures arrive, and (what 
is far more valuable than all) his own 
good qualities daily extend themselves to 
all about him ; of whom I the meanest 
(next to some Italian fiddlers and English 
bricklayers) am a living j^instance. — 
Adieu. 

LETTER LXIX. 

From the same to the same. 

Nov. 1-i, 1716. 
If I had not done my^ utmost to lead my 
life so pleasantly as to forget all misfor- 
tunes, I should tell you I reckoned your 
absence no small one ; but I hope you 
have also had many good and pleasant 
reasons to forget your friends on this 
side of the world. If a wish could trans- 
port me to you and your present com- 
panions, I could do the same. Dr. Swift, 
I believe, is a very good landlord, and a 
cheerful host at his own table. I suppose 
he has perfectly learnt himself, what he 
has taught so many others, rupta nan in- 
sanire la(^ena, else he would not make a 
proper host for your humble servant, 
who (you know) though he drinks a glass 
as seldom as any man, contrives to break 
one as often. But it is a consolation to 
me that I can do this, and many other 
enormities, under my own roof. 

But that you and I are upon equal 
terms in all friendly laziness, and have 
taken an inviolable oath to each other, 
always to do what we will— I should re- 
proach you for so long a silence. The 
best amends you can make for saying 
nothing to me, is by saying all the good 
you can of me, which is, that I heartily 
love and esteem the Dean and Dr. Par- 
nelle. 

Gay is yours and theirs. His spirit is 
awakened very much in the cause of the 
Dean, which has broke forth in a cou- 
rageous couplet or two upon sir Richard 
Blackmore ; he has printed it with his 
name to it, and bravely assigns no other 
reason than that the said sir Richard 
has abused Dr. Swift. I have also suf- 
fered in the like cause, and shall suffer 
more : unless Parnelle sends me his 
ZoUus and Bookworm (which the bishop 
of Clogher, I liear, greatly extols) it will 
be shortly concurrere helium atque virum. 
I love you all, as much as I despise most 
wits in this dull country. Ireland has 
turned the tables upon England ; and if 



iOOK 



I have no poetical friend in my own na- 
tion, I will be as proud as Scipio, and 
say (since I am reduced to skin and bone) 
Ingrata patria, ne ossa quidem habeas. 

LETTER LXX. 

Mr. Pope to Mr. Jervas in Ireland. 

Nov. 29, 171G. 
That you have not heard from me of 
late, ascribe not to the usual laziness of 
your correspondent, but to a ramble to 
Oxford, Avhere your name is mentioned 
with honour, even in a land flowing with 
tories. I had the good fortune there to 
be often in the conversation of doctor 
Clarke : he entertained me with several 
drawings, and particidarly with the ori- 
ginal designs of Inigo Jones's White- 
hall. I there saw and reverenced some 
of your first pieces ; which future paint- 
ers are to look upon as we poets do on 
the Culex of Virgil and Batrachom of 
Homer. 

Having named this latter piece, give 
me leave to ask what is become of Dr. 
Parnelle and his frogs *.^ Ohliiusque meo- 
rum, ohliviscendus et iUis, might be Ho- 
race's wish, but will never be mine, while 
I have such meorums as Dr. Parnelle and 
Dr. Swift. I hope the spring will restore 
you to us, and with you all the beauties 
and colours of nature. Not but I con- 
gratulate you on the pleasure you must 
take in being admired hi your own coun- 
try, which so seldom happens to prophets 
and poets ; but in this you have the ad- 
vantage of poets ; you are master of an 
art that must prosper and grow rich as 
long as people love or are proud of them- 
selves, or their own persons. However, 
you have staid long enough, methinks, 
to have painted all the numberless his- 
tories of old Ogygia. If you have begun 
to be historical, 1 recommend to your 
hand the story which every pious Irish- 
man ought to begin with, that of St. 
Patrick, to the end you may be obliged 
(as Dr. P. was when he translated the 
Batrachomuomachia) to come into Eng- 
land, to copy the frogs and such other 
vermin, as were never seen in that land 
since the time of that confessor. 

I long to see you a history painter. 
You have already done enough for the 
private, do something for the public ; 

* He translated the Batrachom of Homer i 
which is printed among his poems. 



and be not confined, like the rest, to 
draw only such silly stories as our own 
faces tell of us. The ancients too ex- 
pect you should do them right ; those 
statues from which you learned your 
beautiful and noble ideas, demand it as 
a piece of gratitude from you, to make 
them truly knoAvn to all nations, in the 
account you intend to write of their 
characters. I hope you think more 
warmly than ever of that design. 

As to your inquiry about your house ; 
when I come within the walls, they put 
me in mind of those of Carthage, where 
your friend, like the wandering Trojan, 
Animum piclura puscit inani. 

For the spacious mansion, like a Turkish 
caravanserah, entertains the vagabonds 
with only bare lodging. I rule the fa- 
mily very ill, keep bad hours, and lend 
out your pictures about the town. See 
what it is to have a poet in your house ! 
Frank, indeed, does all he can in such a 
circumstance ; for, considering he has a 
wild beast in it, he constantly keeps the 
door chained: every time it is opened 
the links rattle, the rusty hinges roar. 
The house seems so sensible that you are 
its support, that it is ready to drop in 
your absence ; but I still trust myself 
under its roof, as depending that Provi- 
dence will preserve so many Raphaels, 
Titians, and Guidos, as are lodged in 
your cabinet. Surely the sins of one poet 
can hardly be so heavy as to bring an old 
house over the heads of so many painters. 
In a word, your house is falling ; but 
what of that? I am only a lodger f. 

LETTER LXXI. 



Mr. Pope to Mr. Fenton. 



Sir, 



May 5. 



I HAD not omitted answering yours of 
the 18tli of last month, but out of a de- 
sire to give you some certain and satis- 
factory account which way, and at what 
time, you might take your journey. I 
am now commissioned to tell you, that 
Mr. Craggs will expect you on the rising 
of the parliament, which will be as soon 
as he can receive you in the manner he 
would receive a man de Belles Lettres, 
that is, in tranquillity and full leisure. I 
dare say your way of life (which, in my 
taste, will be the best in the world, and 

f Alluding to the storj' of the Irishman. 



Sect. 1. 



I^40DERN, OF LATE DATE. 



247 



with one of the best men in tke world) 
must prove highly to your contentment. 
And, I must add, it will be still the more 
a joy to me, as I sliall reap a particular 
advantage from the good I shall have 
done in bringing you together, by seeing 
it in my own neighbourhood. Mr. Craggs 
has taken a house close by mine, whi- 
ther he proposes to come in three weeks ; 
in tlie mean time I heartily invite you 
to live with me : where a frugal and 
philosophical diet, for a time, may give 
you a higher relish of that elegant way 
of life you will enter into after. I de- 
sire to know by the first post how soon 
I may hope for you. 

I am a little scandalized at your com- 
plaint that your time lies heavy on your 
hands, Avhenthe Muses have put so many 
good materials into your head to employ 
them. As to your question, What I am 
doing ? I answer, Just what I have been 
doing some years, — my duty; secondly. 
Relieving myself with necessary amuse- 
ments, or exercises which shall serve me 
instead of physic as long as they can ; 
thirdly, Reading till I am tired ; and 
lastly, Writing when I have no othef 
thing in the world to do, or no friend 
to entertain in company. 

My mother is, I thank God, the easier, 
if not the better, for my cares ; and I am 
the happier in that regard, as well as in 
the consciousness of doing my best. 
My next felicity is, in retaining the good 
opinion of honest men, who think me 
not quite undeserving of it ; and in find- 
ing no injuries from others hurt me, as 
long as I know myself. I will add the 
sincerity with which I act towards inge- 
nuous and undesigning men, and which 
makes me always (even by a natural 
bond) their friend ; therefore believe me 
very affectionately your, &c. 



LETTER LXXn. 

Rev. Dean Berkley "^ to Mr, Pope. 

Naples, Oct. 22, N. S. 1717. 
I HAVE long had it in my thoughts to 
trouble you with a letter, but was dis- 
couraged for want of something that I 
could think worth sending fifteen hun- 
dred miles. Italy is such an exhausted 

* Afterwards bishop of Cloyne in Ireland, 
author of the Dialogues of [lylas and Phili- 
nous, the Minute Philosopher. 



subject, that, I dare say, you would ea- 
sily forgive my saying nothing of it ; and 
the imagination of a poet is a thing so 
liicc and" delicate, that it is no easy mat- 
ter to find out images capable of giving 
pleasure to one of the few who (in any 
age) have coiiie up to that character. I 
am nevertheless lately returned from an 
island, where I p?,ssed three or^ four 
months ; which, were it set out in its 
true colours, might, methiiitv'S, amuse 
you agreeably enough for a minCJte or 
two. The island Inarime is an epitoiiie 
of the whole earth, containing within 
the compass of eighteen miles, a wonder- 
ful variety of hills, vales, ragged rocks, 
fruitful plains, and barren mountains, 
all thrown together in a most romantic 
confusion. The air is in the hottest sea- 
son constantly refreshed by cool breezes 
from the sea. The vales produce excel- 
lent wheat and Indian corn ; but are 
mostly covered with vineyards, inter- 
mixed with fruit trees. Besides the com- 
mon kinds, as cherries, apricots, peaches, 
&c. they produce oranges, limes, almonds, 
pomegranates, figs, water-melons, and 
many other fruits unknown to our cli- 
mates, which lie everywhere open to the 
passenger. The hills are the greater part 
covered to the top with vines, some with 
chesnut groves, and others with thickets 
of myrtle and lentiscus . The fields on the 
northern side are divided by hedge-rows 
of myrtle. Several fountains and rivu- 
lets add to the beauty of this landscape, 
which is likewise set off by the variety 
of some barren spots and naked rocks. 
But that which crowns the scene is a 
large mountain rising out of the middle 
of the island (once a terrible valcano, by 
the ancients called Mons Epomeus) ; its 
lower parts are adorned with vines and 
other fruits ; the middle affords pasture 
to flocks of goats and sheep, and the top 
is a sandy pointed rock, from which you 
have the finest prospect in the world, 
surveying at one view, besides several 
pleasant islands lying at your feet, a tract 
of Italy about three hundred miles in 
length, from the promontory of Antium 
to the cape of Palinurus ; the greater part 
of which hath been sung by Homer and 
Virgil, as making a considerable part of 
the travels and adventures of their two 
heroes. The islands Caprea, Prochyta, 
and Parthenope, together with Cajeta, 
Cumae, Monte Miseno, the habitations 
of Circe, the Syrens, and the Lscstrigo- 



us 



ELEGANT EPISTYLES. 



Book IIL 



nes, the bay of Naples, the promontory 
of Minerva, and the whole Campagna 
Felice, make but a part of this noble 
landscape ; which would demand a^ 
imagination as warm, and numbe*^ ^^ 
flowing, as your own to de^^^'^*^^ ^*- 
The inhabitants of this d-^cious isle, 
as they are without ric^^ and honours, 
so they are without- *^^^ vices and follies 
that attend the** ; and were they but as 
much strapgers to revenge as they are to 
avaricf* ^^<i ambition, they might in fact 
aj3»wer the poetical notions of the golden 
age. But they have got, as an alloy to 
their happiness, an ill habit of murder- 
ing one another on slight offences. We 
had an instance of this the second night 
after our arrival — -a youth of eighteen 
being shot dead by our door : and yet by 
the sole secret of minding our own busi- 
ness, we found a means of living securely 
among those dangerous people. Would 
you know how we pass the time at Na- 
ples ? Our chief entertainment is the de- 
votion of our neighbours : besides the 
gaiety of their churches (where folks go 
to see what they call una be (la devotione, 
1. e. a sort of reiigious opera) they make 
fireworks almost every week, out of de- 
votion ; the streets are often hung with 
arras out of devotion ; and (what is 
still more strange) the ladies invite gen- 
tlemen to their houses, and treat them 
with music and sweetmeats, out of devo- 
tion : in a word, were it not for this de- 
votion of its inhabitants, Naples would 
have little else to recommend it beside 
the air and situation. Learning is in no 
very thriving state here, as indeed no- 
where else in Italy : however, among 
many pretenders, some men of taste are 
to be met with. A friend of mine told 
me not long since, that being to visit 
Salvini at Florence, he found him read- 
ing your Homer : he liked the notes ex- 
tremely, and could find no other fault 
with the version, but that he thought it 
approached too near a paraphrase, which 
shews him not to be sufficiently ac- 
quainted with our language. I wish you 
health to go on with that noble work ; 
and when you have that, I need not wish 
you success. You will do me the justice 
to believe, that whatever relates to your 
welfare is sincerely wished by your, &c. 



^ETTER LXXIII. 

Mr. Pope to * * *. 

Dec. 12, 171 S, 
The old project of a window in the bo- 
som, to render the soul of man visible, 
is what every honest friend has manifold 
reason to wish for ; yet even that would 
not do in our case, while you are so far 
separated from me, and so long. I 
begin to fear you will die in Ireland ; 
and that denunciation will be fulfilled 
upon you, Hihernus es, et in Hiberniam 
reverieris. I should be apt to think you 
in Sancho's case ; some duke has made 
you governor of an island, or wet place, 
and you are administering laws to the 
wild Irish. But I must own, when you 
talk of building and planting, you touch 
my string : and I am as apt to pardon 
you as the fellow, that thought himself 
Jupiter, would have pardoned the other 
madman, who called himself his brother 
Neptune .^ Alas, sir, do you know whom 
you talk to ? One that has been a poet, 
was degraded to a translator, and at last, 
through mere dulness, is turned an ar- 
chitect. You know Martial's censure, 
Prceconem facito vel architectiim. How- 
ever, I have one way left ; to plan, to 
elevate, and to surprise, as Bays says. 
The next news you may expect to hear 
is, that I am in debt. 

The history of my transplantation and 
settlement, which you desire, would re- 
quire a volume, were I to enumerate the 
many projects, difficulties, vicissitudes, 
and various fates, attending that import- 
ant part of my life ; much more, should 
I describe the many draughts, elevations, 
profiles, perspectives, &c. of every pa- 
lace and garden proposed, intended, and 
happily raised, by the strength of that 
faculty wherein all great geniuses excel, 
— imagination. At last, the gods and fate 
have fixed me on the borders of the 
Thames, in the districts of Richmond 
and Twickenham : it is here I have pass- 
ed an entire year of my life, without 
any fixed abode in London, or more than 
casting a transitory glance (for a day or 
two at most in a month) on the pomps 
of the town. It is here I hope to receive 
you, sir, returned from eternizing the 
Ireland of this age. For you my struc- 
tures rise ; for you my colonnades extend 
their wings ; for you my groves aspire, 
and roses bloom. And, to say truth, I 



Sect. I. 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



249 



liope posterity (which, no doubt, will be 
made acquainted with all these things) 
will look upon it as one of the principal 
motives of my architecture, that it was a 
mansion prepared to receive you against 
your own should fall to dust, which is 
destined to be the tomb of poor Frank 
and Betty, and the immortal monument 
of the fidelity of two such servants, who 
have excelled in constancy the very rats 
of your family. 

"Wliat more can I tell you of myself ? 
so much, and yet all put together so little, 
that I scarce care or know how to do it. 
But the very reasons that are against 
putting it upon paper, are as strong for 
telling it you in person ; and I am un- 
easy to be so long denied the satisfaction 
of it. 

At present I consider you bound in by 
the Irish sea, like the ghosts in Virgil, 

T/isii palus inamabUis unda 
Alligat, et novies Styx circumfusa coercet ! 

and I cannot express how I long to renew 
our old intercourse and conversation, our 
morning conferences in bed in the same 
room, our evening walks in the park, our 
amusing voyages on the water, our phi- 
losophical suppers, our lectures, our dis- 
sertations, our gTavities, our reveries, our 
fooleries, our what not ? This awakens 
the memory of some of those who have 
made a part in all these. Poor Parnelle, 
Garth, Rowe ! You justly reprove me for 
not speaking of the death of the last ; 
Parnelle was too much in my mind, to 
Avliose memory I am erecting the best 
monument I can. What he gave me to 
publish was but a small part of what he 
left behind him ; but it was the best, and 
I will not make it Avorse by enlarging it. 
I would fain know if he be buried at Ches- 
ter or Dublin ; and what care has been, 
or is to be taken for his monument, &c. 
Yet I have not neglected my devoirs to 
Mr. Rowe : I am writing this very day 
his epitaph for Westminster Abbey. 
After these, the best-natured of men, 
sir Samuel Garth, has left me in the 
truest concern for his loss. His death 
w^as very heroical, and yet unaffected 
enough to have made a saint or a philo- 
sopher famous. But iU tongues and worse 
hearts have branded even his last mo- 
ments, as wrongfully as they did his life, 
with irreligion. You must have heard 
.many tales on this subject ; but if ever 
Uhere was a good Christian, without 



knowing himself to be so, it was Dr. 
Garth. Your, &c. 

LErrER LXXIV. 

Mr, Pope io* * * *. 

Sept. 17, 
The gaiety of your letter proves you 
not so studious of wealth as many of 
your profession are, since you can derive 
matter of mirth fi'om want of business. 
You are none of those laAvyers who de- 
serve the motto of the devil, Circuit, quce- 
rens quern devoret. But your circuit will 
at least procure you one of the greatest 
of temporal blessings — ^liealth. What an 
advantageous circumstance is it, for one 
that loves rambling so well, to be a grave 
and reputable rambler ! While (like your 
fellow-circuiteer, the sun) you travel the 
round of the earth, and behold all the ini- 
quities under the heavens. You are much 
a superior genius to me in rambling ; 
you, like a pigeon (to which I would 
sooner compare a lawyer than to a 
hawk) can fly some hundred leagues at a 
pitch ; I, like a poor squirrel, am conti- 
nually in motion indeed, but it is about a 
cage of three foot : my little excursions 
are like those of a shop-keeper, who 
walks every day a mile or two before 
his own door, but minds his business all 
the while. Your letter of the cause lately 
before you, I could not but commu- 
nicate to some ladies of your acquaint- 
ance. I am of opinion, if you continued 
a correspondence of the same sort dur- 
ing a whole circuit, it could not fail to 
please the sex better than half the novels 
they read ; there would be in them what 
they love above all thing's — a most happy 
union of truth and scandal. I assure you 
the Bath affords nothing equal to it : it 
is, on the contrary, full of grave and sad 
men, Mr. Baron S., Lord Chief Justice 
A., Judge P., and Counsellor B., who 
has a large pimple on the tip of his 
nose ; but thinks it inconsistent with his 
gravity to wear a patch, notwithstanding 
the precedent of an eminent judge. I 
am, dear sir, your, &c. 

LETTER LXXV. 

Mr. Pope to the Earl of Burlington. 

My lord. 
If your mare could speak, she would 
give an account of what extraordinary 



250 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book HI, 



company she had on tlie road ; which, 
since since she cannot do, I will. 

It was the enterprising Mr. Lintot, the 
redoubtable rival of Mr. Ton son, who, 
mounted on a stone-horse (no disagree- 
able companion to your lordship's mare) 
overtook me in Windsor forest. He said, 
he heard I designed for Oxford, the seat 
of the Muses, and would, as my book- 
seller, by all means accompany me 
thither. 

I asked him where he got his horse ? 
He answered, he got it of his publisher : 
" For that rogue, my printer (said he), 
disappointed me : I hoped to put him 
into good-humour by a treat at the ta- 
vern, of a brown fricasee of rabbits, 
which cost two shillings, with two quarts 
of wine, beside my conversation. I 
thought myself cocksure of his horse, 
which he readily promised me ; but said 
that Mr. Tonson had just such another 
design of going to Cambridge, expecting 
there the copy of a new kind of Horace 

from Dr. ; and if Mr. Tonson went, 

he was pre-engaged to attend him, being 
to have the printing of the said copy. 

" So, in short, I borrowed this stone- 
horse of my publisher, which he had of 
Mr. Oldmixon for a debt ; he lent me 
too the pretty boy you see after me : he 
was a smutty dog yesterday, and cost me 
near two hours to wash the ink off his 
face ; but the devil is a fair-cokditioned 
devil, and very forward in his catechise : 
if you have any more bags, he shall carry 
them." 

I thought Mr. Lintot's civility not to 
be neglected ; so gave the boy a small 
bag, containing three shirts, and an El- 
zevir Virgil ; and mounting in an instant 
proceeded on the road, with my man be- 
fore, my courteous stationer beside, and 
the aforesaid devil behind, 

Mr. Lintot began in this manner ; 
" Now, damn them ! what if they should 
put it into the newspaper how you and 
I went together to Oxford ; Avhat would 
I care ? If I should go down into Sussex , 
they would say I was gone to the Speaker. 
But what of that? If my son were but 
big enough to go on with the business, 
by G — d, I would keep as good company 
as old Jacob." 

Hereupon I inquired of his son. 
" The lad (says he) has fine parts, but is 
somewhat sickly, much as you are — I 
spare for nothing in his education at 
Westminster. Pray do not you think 



Westminster to be the best school in 
England? Most of the late ministry 
came out of it, so did many of this 
ministry. I hope the boy will make his 
fortune." 

'* Do not you design to let him pass a 
year at Oxford?" — " To what purpose? 
(said he) The universities do but make 
pedants ; and I intend to breed him a 
man of business." 

As Mr. liintot was talking, I observed 
he sat uneasy on his saddle, for which I 
expressed some solicitude : " Nothing," 
says he ; "I can bear it well enough : but 
since we have the day before us, me- 
thinkgi it would be very pleasant for you 
to rest a while under the woods." — When 
we were alighted: " See here what a 
mighty pretty Horace I have in my 
pocket ! what if you amused yourself in 
turning an ode, till we mount again? 
Lord ! if you pleased, what a clever 
miscellany might you make at leisure 
hours?" — " Perhaps I may," said I, 
" if we ride on; the motion is an aid 
to my fancy, a round trot very much 
awakens my spirits : then jog on 
apace, and 1 will think as hard as I 
can." 

Silence ensued for a full hour ; after 
which Mr. Lintot lugged the reins, 
stopped short, and broke out, " Well, 
sir, how far have you gone ? " I an- 
swered, "Seven miles." — "Zounds, 
sir (said Lintot), 1 thought you had 
done seven stanzas. Olds worth, in a 
ramble round Wimbleton Hill, would 
translate a whole ode in half this time. I 
will say that for Oldsworth (though I 
lost by his Timothy's), he translates an 
ode of Horace the quickest of any man 
in England. I remember Dr. King 
would write verses in a tavern three 
hours after he could not speak : and 
there's sir Richard, in that rumbling 
old chariot of his, between Fleet Ditch 
and St. Giles's Pound shall make you 
half a job." 

" Pray, Mr. Lintot (said I), now you 
talk of translators, what is your method 
of managing them?" — " Sir (replied he), 
those are the saddest pack of rogues in 
the world: in a hungry fit, they wili 
swear they understand all the languages 
in the universe. 1 have known one of 
them to take down a Greek book upon 
my counter, and cry, ' Ay, this is Hebrew, 
I must read it from the latter end.' By 
G — d I can never be sure in these fellows*-, 



Sect. I. 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



251 



for I neither understand Greek, Latin, 
French, nor Italian myself. But this is 
my way : I agree with them for ten shil- 
lings per slieet, with a proviso, that I 
will have their doings corrected by whom 
I please ; so by one or other they are led 
at last to the true sense of an author ; 
my judgment giving a negative to all my 
translators." — " But how are you secure 
those correctors may not impose upon 
you?" — " Why, I get any civil gentleman 
(especially any Scotchman) that comes 
into my shop, to read the original to 
me in English ; by this I know wliether 
my first translator be deficient, and whe- 
ther my corrector merits his money or 
not. 

" I will tell you what happened to me 
last month : I bargained with S — for a 
new version of Lucretius, to publish 
against Tonson's ; agreeing to pay the 
author so many shillings at his producing 
so many lines. He made a great pro- 
gress in a very short time, and I gave 
it to the corrector to compare with the 
Latin ; but he T^nt directly to Creech's 
translation, and found it the same, word 
for word, all but the first page. Now, 
what do you think I did ? 1 arrested the 
translator for a cheat ; nay, and I stopt 
the corrector's pay too, upon this proof 
that he had made use of Creech instead 
of the original." 

" Pray tell me next how you deal with 
the critics." — " Sir (said he), nothing 
more easy. I can silence the most for- 
midable of them : the rich ones for a 
sheet a piece of the blotted manuscript, 
which costs me nothing ; they will go 
about with it to their acquaintance, and 
pretend they had it from the author, who 
submitted to their correction : this has 
given some of them such an air, that in 
time they come to be consulted with, and 
dedicated to as the top critics of the town. 
As for the poor critics, I will give you 
one instance of my management, by 
which you may guess at the rest. A 
lean man, that looked like a very good 
scholar, came to me the other day ; he 
turned over your Homer, shook his head, 
shrugged up his shoulders, and pished at 
every line of it : ' One would wonder (says 
he) at the strange presumption of some 
men ; Homer is no such easy task, that 
every stripling, every versifier — ' He was 
going on, when my wife called to din- 
ner. ' Sir (said I), will you please to eat 
a piece of beef with me ?' — ' Mr, Lintot 



(said he), I am sorry you should be at the 
expense of this great book, I am really 
concerned on your account — ' ' Sir, I am 
much obliged to you : if you can dine 
upon a piece of beef, together with a 
slice of pudding — ' ' Mr. Lintot, I do not 
say but Mr. Pope, if he would condescend 
to advise with men of learning — ' ' Sir, 
the pudding is upon the table, if you 
please to go in.' — My critic complies : he 
comes to a taste of your poetry, and tells 
me in the same breath, that the book is 
commendable and the pudding excel- 
lent. 

" Now, sir (concluded Mr. Lintot), 
in return to the frankness I have shewn, 
pray tell me, is it the opinion of your 
friends at court that my lord Lansdown 
will be brought to the bar or not ? " I 
told him, I heard he would not, and I 
hoped it, my lord being one I owed par- 
ticular obligations to. " That may be 
(replied Mr. Lintot) ; but by G — d, if he 
is not, I shall lose the printing of a 
very good trial." 

These, my lord, are a few traits, by 
which you may discern the genius of 
Mr. Lintot, which I have chosen for the 
subject of a letter. I dropt him as soon 
as I got to Oxford, and paid a visit to 
my lord Carleton at Middleton. 

The conversations I enjoy here are 
not to be prejudiced by my pen, and the 
pleasures from them only to be equalled 
when I meet your lordship. I hope in 
a few days to cast myself from your horse 
at your feet. I am, &c. 

LETTER LXXVL 

Mr. Pope to the Duke of Buckingha??i* 

[In answer to a letter in which he inclosed the 
description of Buckingham House, written 
by him to the D. of Sh.] 

Pliny was one of those few authors who 
had a warm house over his head, nay 
two houses, as appears by two of his 
epistles. I believe, if any of his contem- 
porary authors durst have informed the 
public where they lodged, we should 
have found the garrets of Rome as well 
inhabited as those of Fleet Street ; but it 
is dangerous to let creditors into such a 
secret, therefore we may presume that 
then, as well as now-a-days, nobody 
knew where they lived but theii- book- 
sellers. 

It seems that when Virsril came to 



252 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IIL 



Rome he had no lodging at all : he first 
introduced himself to Augustus by an 
epigram, beginning Nocte pluit toto — an 
observation which probably he had not 
made, unless he had lain all night in the 
street. 

Where Juvenal lived we cannot af- 
firm ; but in one of his satires he com- 
plains of the excessive price of lodgings ; 
neither do I believe he would have talked 
so feelingly of Codrus's bed, if there had 
been room for a bedfellow in it. 

I believe, with all the ostentation of 
Pliny, he would have been glad to have 
changed both his houses for your grace's 
one ; which is a country house in the 
summer, and a town house in the win- 
ter, and must be owned to be the pro- 
perest habitation for a wise man, who 
sees all the world change every season, 
without ever changing himself. 

I have been reading the description of 
Pliny's house, with an eye to yours ; but 
finding they will bear no comparison, 
will try if it can be matched by the large 
country seat I inhabit at present, and 
see what figure it may make by the help 
of a florid description. 

You must expect nothing regular in 
my description, any more than in the 
house ; the whole vast edifice is so dis- 
jointed, and the several parts of it so de- 
tached one from the other, and yet so 
joining again, one cannot tell how, that, 
in one of my poetical fits, I imagined it 
had been a village in Amphion's time, 
where the cottages, having taken a coun- 
try dance together, had been all out, and 
stood stone still with amazement ever 
since. 

You must excuse me, if I say nothing 
of the front ; indeed I do not know 
which it is. A stranger would be grie- 
vously disappointed, who endeavoured 
to get into the house the right way. 
One would reasonably expect after the 
entry through the porch to be let 
into the hall : alas, nothing less ! you 
find yourself in the house of office. 
From the parlour you think to step 
into the drawing room ; but upon open- 
ing the iron-nailed door, you are con- 
vinced by a flight of birds about your 
ears, and a cloud of dust in your eyes, 
that it is the pigeon house. If you come 
into the chapel, you find its altars, like 
those of the ancients, continually smok- 
ing, but it is with the steams of the 
adjoining kitchen. 



The great hall within is high and 
spacious, flanked on one side with a 
very long table, a true image of ancient 
hospitality : the walls are all over orna- 
mented with monstrous horns of ani- 
mals, about twenty broken pikes, ten 
or a dozen blunderbusses, and a rusty 
match-lock musket or two, which we 
were informed had served in the civil 
wars. Here is one vast arched win- 
dow beautifully darkened with divers 
escutcheons of painted glass : one shin- 
ing pane in particular bears date 1286, 
which alone preserves the memory of 
a knight whose iron armour is long 
since perished with rust, and whose 
alabaster nose is mouldered from his 
moijument. The face of Dame Eleanor, 
in another piece, owes more to that 
single pane than to all the glasses she 
ever consulted in her life. After this, 
who can say that glass is frail, when it 
is not half so frail as human beauty or 
glory ! and yet I cannot but sigh to 
think that the most authentic record of 
so ancient a family should lie at the 
mercy of every infant who flings a stone. 
In former days there have dined in this 
hall gartered knights, and courtly dames, 
attended by ushers, sewers, and senes- 
chals ; and yet it was but last night 
that an owl flew hither, and mistook it 
for a barn. 

This hall lets you (up and down) over 
a very high threshold into the great par- 
lour. Its contents are a broken-bellied 
virginal, a couple of crippled velvet 
chairs, with two or three mildewed pic- 
tures of mouldy ancestors, who look as 
dismally as if they came fresh from hell 
with all their brimstone about them ; 
these are carefully set at the farther 
corner, for the windows being every- 
where broken, made it so convenient 
a place to dry poppies and mustard- 
seed, that the room is appropriated to 
that use. 

Next this parlour, as I said before, 
lies the pigeon house, by the side of 
which runs an entry, which lets you 
on one hand and the other into a bed- 
chamber, a buttery, and a small hole 
called the chaplain's study : then fol- 
low a brewhouse, a little green-and- 
gilt parlour, and the great stairs, under 
which is the dairy : a little farther on 
the right the servants' hall ; and by 
the side of it, up six steps, the old lady's 
closet for her private devotions, which 



Sect. I. 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



253 



has a lattice into the hall ; intended 
(as we imagine) that at the same time 
as she prayed, she might have an eye 
upon the men and maids. There are 
upon the ground floor, in all, twenty- 
six apartments, among which I must 
not forget a chamber which has in it 
a large quantity of timber, that seems 
to have been either a bedstead or a 
cyder-press. 

The kitchen is built in form of the Ro- 
tunda, being one vast vault to the top of 
the house ; where one aperture serves to 
let out the smoke and let in the light. 
by the blackness of the walls, the circu- 
lar fires, vast cauldrons, yawning mouths 
of ovens and furnaces, you would think it 
either the forge of Vulcan, the cave of 
Polypheme, or the temple of Moloch. 
The horror of this place has made such 
an impression on the country people, 
that they believe the witches keep their 
Sabbath here, and that once a year the 
devil treats them with infernal venison, 
a roasted tyger stuffed with ten-penny 
nails. 

Above stairs we have a number of 
rooms : you never pass out of one into 
another but by the ascent or descent of 
two or three stairs. Our best room is 
very long and low, of the exact propor- 
tion of a band box. In most of these 
rooms there are hangings of the finest 
work in the world, that is to say, those 
which Araehne spins from her own 
bowels. Were it not for this only 
furniture, the whole would be a mise- 
rable scene of naked^ walls, flawed 
ceilings, broken windows, and rusty 
locks. The roof is sc^ decayed, that, 
after a favourable shower, we may ex- 
pect a crop of mushro<|ms between the 
chinks of our floors. All the doors are 
as little and low as those to the cabins 
of packet boats. These rooms have for 
many years had no other inhabitants 
than certain rats, whose very age renders 
them worthy of this seat ; for the very 
rats of this venerable house are grey. 
Since these have not yet quitted it, we 
hope, at least, that this ancient man- 
sion may not fall during the small rem- 
nant these poor animals have to live, 
who are now too infirm to remove to 
another. There is yet a small subsist- 
ence left them in the few remaining 
books of the library. 

We had never seen half what I have 
described, but for a starched grey-headed 



steward, who is as much an antiquity as 
any in this place, and looks like an old 
family -picture walked out of its frame. 
He entertained us as we passed from 
room to room with several relations of 
the family ; but his observations were 
particularly curious when he came to the 
cellar : he informed us where stood the 
triple row of butts of sack, and where 
were ranged the bottles of tent, for toasts 
in a morning : he pointed to the stands 
that supported the iron hooped hogsheads 
of strong beer : then stepping to a cor- 
ner, he lugged out the tattered frag- 
ments of an unframed picture : " This 
(says he, with tears) was poor sir Tho- 
mas ! once master of all this drink. 
He had two sons, poor young masters, 
who never arrived to the age of his beer ; 
they both fell ill in this very room, and 
never went out on their own legs." He 
could not pass by a heap of broken bot- 
tles without taking up a piece to shew 
us the arms of the family upon it. He 
then led us up the tower by dark wind- 
ing stone steps, which landed us into 
several little rooms, one above another. 
One of these was nailed up ; and our 
guide whispered to us, as a secret, the 
occasion of it. It seems the course of 
this noble blood was a little interrupted 
about two centuries ago, by a freak of 
the lady Frances, who was here taken 
in the fact with a neighbouring prior ; 
ever since which the room has been 
nailed up, and branded with the name 
of the Adultery Chamber. The ghost 
of lady Frances is supposed to walk 
there ; and some prying maids of the fa- 
mily report that they have seen a lady 
in fardingale through the key-hole ; but 
this matter is hushed up, and the ser- 
vants are forbid to talk of it. 

I must needs have tired you by this 
long description : but what engaged me 
in it, was a generous principle to preserve 
the memory of that which itself must 
soon fall into dust ; nay, perhaps part 
of it, before this letter reaches your 
hands. 

Indeed we owe this old house the 
same kind of gratitude that we do 
to an old friend who harbours us 
in his declining condition, nay even 
in his last extremities. How fit is 
this retreat for uninterrupted study, 
where no one that passes by can 
dream there is an inhabitant, and even 
those who would dine with us dare 



254 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book 111. 



not stay under our roof ! Any one that 
sees it will own I could not have chosen 
a more likely place to converse with the 
dead in. I had been mad indeed if I had 
left your grace for any one but Homer. 
But when I return to the living, 1 shall 
have the sense to endeavour to converse 
with the best of them, and shall there- 
fore, as soon as possible, tell you in per- 
son how much I am, &c. 



LETTER LXXVII. 

The Duke of Buckingham to Mr. Pope. 

You desire my opinion as to the late 
dispute in France concerning Homer: 
and I think it excuseable (at an age, 
alas ! of not much pleasure) to amuse 
myself a little in taking notice of a con- 
troversy, than which nothing is at pre- 
sent more remarkable (even in a nation 
who value themselves so much upon the 
belles lettres), both on account of the 
illustrious subject of it, and of the two 
persons engaged in the quarrel. 

The one is extraordinary in all the ly- 
ric kind of poetry, even in the opinion 
of his very adversary. The other, a lady 
(and of more value for being so) not only 
of great learning, but with a genius ad- 
mirably turned to that sort of it which 
most becomes her sex, for softness, gen- 
tleness, and promoting of virtue ; and 
such (as one would think) is not so liable 
as other parts of scholarship to rough 
disputes or violent animosity. 

Yet it has so happened, that no writers, 
even about divinity itself, have been more 
outrageous or uncharitable than these 
two polite authors ; by suffering their 
judgments to be a little warped (if I may 
use that expression) by the heat of their 
eager inclinations to attack or defend so 
great an author under debate. I wish for 
the sake of the public, which is now so 
well entertained by their quarrel, it may 
not end at last in their agreeing to blame 
a third man, who is not so presumptuous 
as to censure both, if they should chance 
to hear it. 

To begin with matter of fact: M. 
d'Acier has well judged, that the best 
of all poets certainly deserved a better 
translation, at least into French prose, 
because to see it done in verse was de- 
spaired of: I believe, indeed, from a de- 
fect in that language, incapable of mount- 



ing to any degree of excellence suitable 
to so very great an undertaking. 

She has not only performed this task 
as Avell as prose can do it (which is in- 
deed but as the wrong side of tapestry is 
able to represent the right), but she has 
added to it also many learned and useful 
annotations. With all which she most 
obligingly delighted not only her own 
sex, but most of ours, ignorant of the 
Greek, and consequently her adversary 
himself, who frankly acknowledges that 
ignorance. 

It is no wonder, therefore, if in doing 
this she is grown so enamoured of that 
unspeakably charming author, as to have 
a kind of horror at the least mention of 
a man bold enough to blame him. 

Now as to M. de la Motte, he, being 
already deservedly famous for all sorts 
of lyric poetry, was so far introduced 
by her into those beauties of the epic 
kind (though but in that way of transla- 
tion), as not to resist the pleasure and 
hope of reputation, by attempting that 
in verse which had been applauded so 
much for the difficulty of doing it 
even in prose : knowing how this, well 
executed, must extremely transcend the 
other. 

But as great poets are a little apt to 
think they have an ancient right of being 
excused for vanity on all occasions, he 
was not content to outdo M. d'Acier, 
but endeavoured to outdo Homer himself, 
and all that ever in any age or nation 
went before him in the same enterprise ; 
by leaving out, altering, or adding what- 
ever he thought best. 

Against this presumptuous attempt. 
Homer has been in all times so well de- 
fended, as not to need my small assist- 
ance ; yet I must needs say, his excellen- 
cies are such, that for their sakes he de- 
serves a much gentler touch for his seem- 
ing errors. These if M. de la Motte had 
translated as well as the rest, with an 
apology for having retained them only 
out of mere veneration, his judgment, in 
my opinion, would have appeared much 
greater than by the best of his alterations, 
though I admit them to be written very 
finely. I join v/ith M. de la Motte in 
wondering at some odd things in Homer, 
but it is chiefly because of his sublime 
ones ; I was about to say his divine ones, 
which almost surprise me at finding him 
any wliere in the fallible condition of hu- 
man nature. 



Sect. 1. 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



255 



And now we dre wondering, I am in 
a difficulty to guess what can be the rea- 
son of these exceptions against Homer, 
lyom one who has himself translated him, 
con'*r^^y to rtie general custom of trans- 
lators! Is there not a little of that in 
it? I n?ean, to be singular, in getting 
above the title of a translator, though 
sufficiently hv^nourable in this case. For 
such an ambition nobody has less oc- 
casion than one who is sO fine a poet in 
other kinds ; and who must i^ave too much 
wit to believe any alteration of another 
can entitle him to the denomination of 
an epic poet himself : though no man in 
this age seems more capable of being* a 
good one, if the French tongue would 
bear it. Yet in his translation he has 
done too well to leave any doubt (with 
all his faults) that hers can be ever pa- 
ralleled with it. 

Besides, he could not be ignorant that 
finding faults is the most easy and vulgar 
part of a critic ; whereas nothing sliews 
so much skill and taste both, as the 
being thoroughly sensible of the sub- 
limest excellencies. 

What can we say in excuse of all this ? 
Humanum est errare : since as good a 
poet as I believe the French language is 
capable of, and as sharp a critic as any 
nation can produce, has, by too much 
censuring Homer, subjected a translation 
to censure, that would have otherwise 
stood the test of the severest adversary. 

But since he would needs choose that 
wrong way of criticism, I wonder he 
missed a stone so easy to be thrown 
against Homer, not for his filling the 
Hiad with so much slaughter (for that is 
to be excused, since a war is not capable 
of being described without it), but with 
so many various particulars of wounds 
and horror, as shew the writer (I am 
afraid) so delighted that way himself, as 
not the least to doubt his reader being so 
also : — like Spanioletta, whose dismal 
pictures are the more disagreeable, for 
being always so very movingly painted. 
Even Hector's last parting from his son 
and Andromache, hardly makes us amends 
for his body being dragged thrice round 
the town. M. de la Motte, in his strong- 
est objections about that dismal combat, 
has sufficient cause to blame his enraged 
adversary; who here gives an instance 
that it is impossible to be violent with- 
out committing some mistake ; her pas- 
sion for Homer blinding her too much to 



perceive the very grossest of his failings. 
By which warning 1 am become a little 
more capable of impartiality, though in 
a dispute about that very poet for whom 
I have the greatest veneration. 

M. d'Acier might have considered a 
little, that whatever were the motives of 
M. de la Motte to so bold a proceeding, 
it could not darken that fame which I 
am sure she thinks shines securely even 
after the vain attempts of Plato himself 
against it : caused only perhaps by a like 
reason with that of Madame d'Acier's 
anger against M. de la Motte, namely, 
the finding that in his prose his genius 
(great as it was) could not be capable of 
the sublime heights of poetry, which 
therefore he banished out of his com- 
monwealth. 

Nor were these objections to Homer 
any more lessening of her merit in trans- 
lating him, as well as that way is capa- 
ble of, viz. fully, plainly, and elegant- 
ly, than the most admirable verses can 
be any disparagement to as excellent 
prose. 

The best excuse for all this violence 
is, its being in a cause which gives a 
kind of reputation even to suffering, not- 
withstanding ever so ill a fiianagement 
of it. 

The worst of defending even Homer 
in such a passionate manner, is, its being 
more a proof of her weakness, than of his 
being liable to none. For what is it can 
excuse Homer, any more than Hector, 
for flying at the first sight of Achilles ? 
whose terrible aspect sure needed not 
such an inexcusable fright to set it off ; 
and methinks all that account of Miner- 
va's restoring his dart to Achilles, comes 
a little too late for excusing Hector's so 
terrible apprehension at the very first. 



LETTER LXXVIII. 

Mr. Pope to the Duke of Buckingham. 

Sept. 1, 1718. 
I AM much honoured by your grace's 
compliance with my request, in giving 
me your opinion of tlie French dispute 
concerning Homer ; and I shall keep my 
word, in fairly telling wherein I disagree 
from you. It is but in two or three very 
small points, not so much of the dispute 
as of the parties concerned in it. I can- 
not think quite so highly of the lady's 



256 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book III. 



learning-, though I respect it very much. 
It is great complaisance in that polite 
nation to allow her to be a critic of equal 
rank with her husband. To instance no 
further, his remarks on Horace shew 
more good sense, penetration, and abet- 
ter taste of his author, and those upon 
Aristotle's Art of Poetry more skill and 
science, than any of hers on any author 
whatever. In truth, they are much more 
slight, dwell more in generals, and are 
besides, for the most part, less her ov/n ; 
of which her remarks upon Homer are an 
example, where Eustathius is transcribed 
ten times for once that he is quoted. Nor 
is there at all more depth of learning in 
those upon Terence, Piautus, or (where 
they were most wanted) upon Aristo- 
phanes ; only the Greek scholia upon the 
latter are some of the best extant. 

Your grace will believe me, that I did 
not search to find defects in a lady ; my 
employment upon the Iliad forced me to 
see them ; yet I liave had so much of 
the French complaisance as to conceal 
her thefts ; for wherever I have found 
her notes to be wholly another's (which 
is the case in some hundreds) I have 
barely quoted the true proprietor, with- 
out observing upon it. If Madame d'Acier 
has ever seen my observations, she will 
be sensible of this conduct; but what 
effect it may have upon a lady, I will 
not answer for. 

In the next place, as to M. de la Motte, 
I think your grace hardly does him right, 
in supposing he could have no idea of 
the beauty of Homer's epic poetry but 
what he learned from Madame d'Acier's 
prose translation. There had been a 
very elegant prose translation before, 
that of Monsieur de la Valterie ; so ele- 
gant, that the style of it was evidently 
the original and model of the famous 
Telemaque. Your grace very justly ani- 
madverts against the too great disposi- 
tion of finding faults in the one, and of 
confessing none in the other. But 
doubtless, as to violence, the lady has 
infinitely the better of the gentleman. 
Nothing can be more polite, dispassion- 
ate, or sensible, than M. de la Motte's 
manner of managing the dispute : and 
so much as I see your grace admires the 
beauty of his verse (in which you have 
the suffrage too of the archbishop of 
Cambray), I will venture to say, his prose 
is full as good. I think therefore when 
you say, No disputants, even in divinity, 



could be more outrageous and unchari- 
table than these two authors, you are a 
little too hard upon M. de la Motte. 
Not but that (with your grace) I doubt 
as little of the zeal of commentators as 
of the zeal of divines, and am as ready 
to believe of the passions and pride of 
mankind in general, that (did but the 
same interest go along with them) they 
would carry the learned world to as vio- 
lent extremes, animosities, and even 
persecutions, about a variety of opinions 
in criticism, as ever they did about re- 
ligion ; and that, in defect of Scripture 
to quarrel upon, we should have the 
French, Italian, and Dutch commenta- 
tors ready to burn one another about 
Homer, Virgil, Terence, and Horace. 

1 do not wonder your grace is shocked 
at the flight of Hector upon the first ap- 
pearance of Achilles, in the twenty-se- 
cond Iliad. However (to shew myself a 
true commentator, if not a true critic) I 
will endeavour to excuse, if not to defend 
it, in my notes on that book : and to 
save myself what trouble I can, instead 
of doing it in this letter, I will draw up 
the substance of what I have to say for 
it in a separate paper, which I'll shew 
your grace when we next meet. I will 
only desire you to allow me, that Hector 
was in an absolute certainty of death, 
and depressed over and above with the 
conscience of being in an ill cause. If 
your heart be so great, as not to grant 
the first of these will sink the spirit of 
a hero, you will at least be so good as 
to allow the second may. But I can tell 
your grace, no less a hero than my lord 
Peterborrow, when a person compli- 
mented him for never being afraid, made 
this answer ; "Sir, shew me a danger 
that I think an imminent and real one, 
and I promise you I will be as much 
afraid as any of you." I am your grace's, 
&c. 

LETTER LXXIX. 

Dr. Arbuthnoi to Mr. Pope. 

London, Sept. 7, 1714. 
I A3I extremely obliged to you for taking 
notice of a poor old distrest courtier, 
commonly the most despisable thing in 
the world. This blow has so roused 
Scriblerus, that he has recovered his 
senses, and thinks and talks like other 
men. From being frolicsome and gay. 



Sect. I, 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



237 



he is turned grave and morose. His 
lucubrations lie neglected among old 
newspapers, cases, petitions, and abun- 
dance of unansAverable letters. I wish to 
God they had been among the papers of 
a noble lord sealed up. Then might 
Scriblerus have passed for the Pretender, 
and it would have been a most excellent 
and laborious work for the Flying Post, 
or some such author, to have allegorized 
all his adventures into a plot, and found 
out mysteries somewhat like the Key to 
the Lock. Martin's office is now the se- 
cond door on the left hand in Dover- 
street, where he will be glad to see Dr. 
Parnelle, Mr. Pope, and his old friends, 
to whom he can still afford a half pint 
of claret. It is with some pleasure that 
he contemplates the world still busy, and 
all mankind at work for him. I have 
seen a letter from dean Swift ; he keeps 
up his noble spirit, and though like a 
man knocked down, you may behold him 
still with a stern countenance, and aiming 
a blow at his adversaries. I will add no 
more, being in haste, only that I will 
never forgive you if you do not use my 
aforesaid house in Dover-street with the 
same freedom as you did that in St. 
James's ; for as our friendship was not 
begun upon the relation of a courtier, 
so I hope it will not end with it. I will 
always be proud to be reckoned amongst 
the number of your friends and humble 
servants. 

LETTER LXXX. 

Mr. Pope to Dr. Arhuthnot. 

Sept. 10, 
I AM glad your travels delighted you ; 
improve you I am sure they could not : 
you are not so much a youth as that, 
though you run about with a king of six- 
teen, and (what makes him still more a 
child) a king of Frenchmen. My own 
time has been more melancholy, spent 
in an attendance upon death, which has 
seized one of our family : my mother is 
something better, though at her advanced 
age, every day is a climacteric. There 
was joined to this an indisposition of my 
own, which I ought to look upon as a 
slight one compared with my mother's, 
because my life is not of half the conse- 
quence to any body that hers is to me. 
All these incidents have hindered my 
more speedy reply to your obliging letter. 



The article you inquire of, is of as 
little concern to me as you desire it 
should ; namely, the railing papers about 
the Odyssey. If the book has merit, it 
will extinguish all such nasty scandal ; as 
the sun puts an end to stinks, merely by 
coming out. 

I wish 1 had nothing to trouble me 
more ; an honest mind is not in the pow- 
er of any dishonest one. To break its 
peace, there must be some guilt or con- 
sciousness, which is inconsistent with its 
own principles. Not but malice and in- 
justice have their day, like some poor 
short-lived vermin that die in shooting 
their own stings. Falsehood is folly 
(says Homer) ; and liars and calumni- 
ators at last hurt none but themselves, 
even in this world : in the next, it is 
charity to say, God have mercy on them ! 
they were the devil's vicegerents upon 
earth, who is the father of lies, and, I 
fear, has a right to dispose of his children. 

I have had an occasion to make these 
reflections of late more justly than from 
any thing that concerns my writings ; for 
it is one that concerns my morals, and 
(which I ought to be as tender of as my 
ov/n) the good character of another very 
innocent person, who I am sure shares 
your friendship no less than I do. No 
creature has better natural dispositions, 
or could act more rightly or reasonably 
in every duty, did she act by herself, or 
from herself; but you know it is the 
misfortune of that family to be governed 
like a ship, I mean the head guided by 
the tail, and that by every wind that 
XAows in it. 



LETTER LXXXI. 

Mr. Pope to the Earl of Oxford. 

Oct. 21, 1721. 

My lord, 
Your lordship may be surprised at the 
liberty I take in writing to you : though 
you will allow me always to remember, 
that you once permitted me that honour, 
in conjunction with some others who 
better deserved it. I hope you will not 
wonder I am still desirous to have you 
think me your grateful and faithfid ser- 
vant ; but, I own, I have an ambition 
yet farther, to have others think me so, 
which is the occasion I give your lord- 
ship the trouble of this. Poor Parnelle, 



258 



ELEGANT EPISTLES, 



Book IlL 



before he died, left me the charge of pub- 
lishing these few remains of his ; I have 
a strong desire to make them, their au- 
thor, and their publisher, more consider- 
able, by addressing and dedicating them 
all to you. There is a pleasure in bearing 
testimony to truth, and a vanity, per- 
haps, which, at least, is as excusable as 
any vanity can be. I beg you, my lord, 
to aUow me to gratify it in prefixing this 
paper of honest verses to the book. I 
send the book itself, which, I dare say, 
you will receive more satisfaction in pe- 
rusing, than you can from any thing 
written upon the subject of yourself. 
Therefore I am a good deal in doubt, 
whether you will care for such an addi- 
tion to it. All I say for it is, that it is 
the only dedication I ever writ, and shall 
be the only one, whether you accept of 
it or not : for I will not bow the knee to 
a less man than my lord Oxford ; and I 
expect to see no greater in my time. 

After all, if your lordship will tell my 
lord Harley that I must not do this, you 
may depend upon a suppression of these 
verses (the only copy whereof I send 
you) ; but you never shall suppress that 
great, sincere, and entire respect, with 
which I am always, my lord, your, &c. 



LETTER LXXXIL 

The Earl of Oxford to Mr. Pope. 



Brampton Castle, Nov. 6, 1721. 



Sir 



I RECEIVED your packet, which could 
not but give me great pleasure, to see 
you preserve an old friend in your me- 
mory : for it must needs be very agreeable 
to be remembered by those we highly 
value. But then how much shame did it 
cause me, when I read your very fine 
verses inclosed! My mind reproached 
me how far short I came of what your 
great friendship and delicate pen would 
partially describe me. You ask my 
consent to publish it: to v/hat straits 
doth this reduce me ! I look back indeed 
to those evenings I have usefully and plea- 
santly spent with Mr. Pope, Mr. Parnelle, 
dean Swift, the Doctor, &c. I should 
be glad the world knew you admitted me 
to your friendship ; and since your af- 
fection is too hard for your judgment, I 
am contented to let the world know how 
well Mr. Pope can write upon a barren 



subject. I return you an exact copy of 
the verses, that 1 may keep the original, 
as a testimony of the only error you have 
been guilty of. I hope very speedily to 
embrace you in London, and to assure 
you of the particular esteem and friend- 
ship wherewith I am your, &c. 



LETTER LXXXIIL 

Mr. Pope to Edward Blount ^ Esq. 

August 27, 1714. 
Whatever studies on the one hand, or 
amusements on the other, it shall be my 
fortune to fall into, I shall be equally in- 
capable of forgetting you in any of them. 
The task I undertook, though of weight 
enough in itself, has had a voluntary 
increase by the enlarging my design of 
the Notes ; and the necessity of consult- 
ing a number of books has carried me to 
Oxford ; but I fear, through my lord 
Harcourt and Dr. Clark's means, I shall 
be more conversant with the pleasures 
and company of the place, than with the 
books and manuscripts of it. 

I find still more reason to complain of 
the negligence of the geographers in 
their maps of old Greece, since I looked 
upon two or three more noted names in 
the public libraries here. But with all 
the care I am capable of, I have «ome 
cause to fear the engraver will prejudice 
me in a few situations. I have been 
forced to write to him in so high a style, 
that were my epistle intercepted, it 
would raise no small admiration in an 
ordinary man. There is scarce an order 
in it of less importance than to remove 
such and such mountains, alter the 
course of such and such rivers, place a 
large city on such a coast, and raise an- 
other in another country. I have set 
bounds to the sea, and said to the land. 
Thus far shalt thou advance, and no far- 
ther*. In the mean time, I, who talk 
and command at this rate, am in danger 
of losing my horse ; and stand in some 
fear of a country justicef. To disarm 
me indeed may be but prudential, con- 
sidering what armies I have at present 
on foot, and in my service : — a hundred 

* This relates to the map of ancient Greece, 
laid down by our author in his observations on 
the second Iliad. 

f Some of the laws were; at this time, put in 
force against the papists. 



Sect. I. 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



259 



thousand Grecians are no contemptible 
body ; for all that I can tell, they may 
be as formidable as four thousand priests ; 
and they seem proper forces to send 
against those in Barcelona. That siege 
deserves as fine a poem as the Iliad, and 
the machining part of poetry would he 
the juster in it, as they say the inhabi- 
tants expect angels from heaven to their 
assistance. May I venture to say, who 
am a papist, and say to you who are a 
papist, that nothing is more astonishing 
to me than that people, so greatly warmed 
with a sense of liberty, should be capa- 
ble of harbouring such weak superstition, 
and that so much folly can inhabit the 
same breasts ! 

I could not but take a trip to London 
on the death of the queen, moved by the 
common curiosity of mankind, who leave 
their own business to he looking upon 
that of other men. I thank God that, 
as for myself, I am below all the acci- 
dents of state-changes by my circum- 
stances, and above them by my philoso- 
phy. Common charity of man to man, 
and universal good-will to all, are the 
points I have most at heart ; and I am 
sure, those are not to be broken for the 
sake of any governors or government. 
I am willing to hope the best ; and what 
I more wish than my own or any parti- 
cular man's advancement is, that this 
turn may put an end entirely to the di- 
visions of whig and tory ; that the parties 
may love each other as well as 1 love 
them both, or at least hurt each other as 
little as I would either : and that our own 
people may live as quietly as we shall 
certainly let theirs ; that is to say, that 
want of power itself in us may not be a 
surer prevention of harm, than want of 
will in them. I am sure, if all whigs 
and all tories had the spirit of one Roman 
Catholic that I know, it would be well 
for all Roman Catholics ; and if all Roman 
Catholics had always had that spirit, it 
had been well for all others ; and we had 
never been charged with so wicked a 
spirit as that of persecution. 

I agree with you in my sentiments of 
the state of our nation since this change : 
I find myself just in the same situation of 
mind you describe as your own ; heartily 
wishing the good, that is, the quiet of my 
country, and hoping a total end of all the 
unhappy divisions of mankind by party- 
spirit, which at best is but the madness 
of many for the gain of a few. I am, &c. 



LETTER LXXXIV. 

Edivard Blount, Esq. to Mr. Pope, 

It is with a great deal of pleasure I see 
your letter, dear sir, written in a style 
that shews you full of health, and in the 
midst of diversions ; I think those two 
things necessary to a man who has such 
undertakings in hand as yours. All 
lovers of Homer are indebted to you for 
taking so much pains about the situation 
of his hero's kingdoms : it will not only 
be of great use with regard to his works, 
but to all that read any of the Greek his- 
torians ; who generally are ill understood 
through the difference of the maps as to 
the places they treat of, which makes 
one think one author contradicts ano- 
ther. You are going to set us right ; 
and it is an advantage every body will 
gladly see you engross the glory of. 

You can draw rules to be free and easy 
from formal pedants ; and teach men to 
be short and pertinent from tedious 
commentators. However, I congratulate 
your happy deliverance from such authors 
as you (with all your humanity) cannot 
wish alive again to converse with. 
Critics will quarrel with you, if you dare 
to please without their leave ; and zea- 
lots will shrug up their shoulders at a 
man that pretends to go to heaven out of 
their form, dress, and diet. I would no 
more make a judgment of an author's 
genius from a damning critic, than I 
would of a man's religion from an un- 
saying zealot. 

I could take great delight in affording 
you the new glory of making a Barce- 
loniad (if I may venture to coin such a 
word) : I fancy you would find a juster 
parallel than it seems at first sight : for 
the Trojans too had a great mixture of 
folly with their bravery : and I am out 
of countenance for them, when I read 
the wise result of their council, where, 
after a warm debate between Antenor 
and Paris, about restoring Helen, Priam 
sagely determines that 6iey shall go to 
supper. And as for the Greeks, what 
can equal their superstition in sacrificing 
an innocent lady ! 

Tanlum religio potuU, S^c. 

I have a good opinion of my politics, 

since they agree with a man who always 

thinks so justly as you. I wish it were 

in our power to persuade all the nation 

S 2 



260 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book III, 



into as calm and steady a disposition of 
mind. 

We have received the late melancholy 
news, with the usual ceremony, of con- 
doling in one hreath for the loss of a 
gracious queen, and in another rejoicing 
for an illustrious king. My views carry 
me no farther than to wish the peace 
and welfare of my country ; and my 
morals and politics teach me to leave 
all that to be adjusted by our represen- 
tatives above, and to Divine Providence. 
It is much at one to you and me who 
sit at the helm, provided they will per- 
mit us to sail quietly in the great ship. 
Ambition is a vice that is timely mor- 
tified in us poor papists ; we ought in 
recompence to cultivate as many vir- 
tues in ourselves as we can, that we 
may be truly great. Among my am- 
bitions, that of being a sincere friend 
is one of the chief : yet I will confess 
that I have a secret pleasure to have 
some of my descendants know that their 
ancestor was great with Mr. Pope. I 
am, &c. 

LETTER LXXXV. 

Edward Blount, Esq. to Mr. Pope. 

Nov. 15, 1715. 
It is an agreement of long date between 
you and me, that you should do with 
my letters just as you pleased, and an- 
swer them at your leisure ; and that is as 
soon as I shall think you ought. I have 
so true a taste of the substantial part of 
your friendship, that I wave all cere- 
monials ; and am sure to make you as 
many visits as I can, and leave you to 
retui-n them whenever you please, as- 
suring you they shall at all times be 
heartily welcome to me. 

The many alarms we have from your 
parts, have no effect upon the genius 
that reigns in our country, which is hap- 
pily turned to preserve peace and quiet 
among us. What a dismal scene has 
there been opened in the north ! What 
ruin have those unfortunate rash gentle- 
men drawn upon themselves and their 
miserable followers, and perchance upon 
many others too, who upon no account 
would be their followers ! However, it 
may look ungenerous to reproach people 
in distress. I do not remember you and 
I ever used to trouble ourselves about 
politics ; but when any matter happened 
to fall into our discourse, we used to 



condemn all undertakings that tended 
towards the disturbing the peace and 
quiet of our country, as contrary to the 
notions we had of morality and religion, 
which oblige us on no pretence whatso- 
ever to violate the laws of charity. How 
many lives have there been lost in hot 
blood ! and how many more are there 
like to be taken off in cold ! If the broils 
of the nation affect you, come down to 
me, and though we are farmers, you 
know Eumeus made his friends welcome. 
You shall here worship the echo at your 
ease ; indeed we are forced to do so, 
because we cannot hear the first report, 
and therefore are obliged to listen to the 
second ; which, for security's sake, I do 
not always believe neither. 

It is a great many years since I fell in 
love with the character of Pomponius 
Atticus : I longed to imitate him a little, 
and have contrived hitherto to be, like 
him, engaged in no party, but to be a 
faithful friend to some in both. I find 
myself very well in this way hitherto, 
and live in a certain peace of mind by it, 
which, I am persuaded, brings a man 
more content than all the perquisites of 
wild ambition. I with pleasure join with 
you in wishing, nay I am not ashamed 
to say in praying, for the welfare, tem- 
poral and eternal, of all mankind. How 
much more affectionately then shall I do 
so for you, since I am in a most particu- 
lar manner, and with all sincerity, your, 
&c. 

LETTER LXXXVI. 

Mr. Pope to Edward Blount, Esq. 

Jan. 21, 1715-16. 

I KNOW of nothing that will be so inte- 
resting to you at present, as some cir- 
cumstances of the last act of that eminent 
comic poet, and our friend, Wycherley. 
He had often told me, as I doubt not he 
did all his acquaintance, that he would 
marry as soon as his life was despaired 
of. Accordingly, a few days before his 
death, he underwent the ceremony ; and 
joined together those two sacraments 
which, wise men say, should be the last 
we receive ; for if you observe, matri- 
mony is placed after extreme unction in 
our Catechism, as a kind of hint of the 
order of time in which they are to be 
taken. The old man then lay down, satis- 
fied in the conscience of having by this 
one act paid his just debts, obliged a wo- 



Sect. I. 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



261 



Hian who (he was told) had merit, and 
shewn an heroic resentment of the ill 
usage of his next heir. Some lumdred 
l>ounds which he had with the lady dis- 
charged those dehts ; a jointure of four 
hundred a year made her a recompence ; 
and the nephew he left to comfort him- 
self as well as he could, with the miser- 
able remains of a mortgaged estate. I 
saw our friend twice after this was done, 
less peeyisb in his sickness than he used 
to be in his health ; neither much afraid 
of dying, nor (which in him had been 
more likely) much ashamed of marrying. 
Tlie evening before he expired, he called 
his young wife to the bedside, and ear- 
nestly entreated her not to deny him one 
request, the last he should make. Upon 
her assurances of consenting to it, he 
told her, " My dear, it is only this, that 
you will never marry an old man again." 
I cannot help remarking, that sickness, 
wliich often destroys both v>'it and wis- 
dom, yet seldom has power to remove 
that talent which we call humour. Mr. 
Wyeherley shewed this, even in this last 
compliment ; though I think his request 
a little hard ; for why should he bar her 
from doubling her jointure on the same 
easy terms ? 

So trivial as these circumstances are, I 
should not be displeased myself to know 
such trifles, when they concern or cha- 
racterize any eminent person. The wisest 
and wittiest of men are seldom wiser or 
wittier than others in these sober mo- 
ments ; at least, our friend ended much 
in the cliaracter he had lived in; and 
Horace's rule for a play may as well be 
applied to him as a playwright : 

Servef.iir ad imum, 
•^ualis ab incepto processerit, et sihi consiet. 

I am, &c. 

LETTER LXXXVII. 

From the sa?ne to the same. 

Feb. 10, 1715-16. 
I AM just returned from the country, 
whither Mr. Rowe accompanied me, and 
passed a week in the Forest. I need not 
tell you how much a man of his turn en- 
tertained me ; but I must acquaint you, 
there is a vivacity and gaiety of disposi- 
tion almost peculiar to him, which makes 
it impossible to part from him without 
that uneasiness which generally succeeds 
all our pleasures. I have been just tak- 
ing a solitary walk by moonshine, full of 



reflections on the transitory nature of all 
human delights ; and giving my thoughts 
a loose in the contemplation of those sa- 
tisfactions which probably we may here- 
after taste in the company of separate 
spirits, when we shall range the walks 
above, and perhaps gaze on this w^orld at 
as vast a distance as we now do on those 
worlds. The pleasures we are to enjoy 
in that conversation must undoubtedly 
be of a nobler kind, and (not unlikely) 
may proceed from the discoveries each 
shall communicate to another, of God 
and of Nature ; for the happiness of 
minds can surely be nothing but know- 
ledge. 

The highest gratification we receive 
here from company is mirth, which, at 
the best, is but a fluttering unquiet mo- 
tion, that beats about the breast for a few 
moments, and after, leaves it void and 
empty. Keeping good company, even 
the best, is but a less shameful art of 
losing time. What we here call Science 
and Study are little better : the greater 
number of arts to wliich we apply our- 
selves are mere groping in the dark ; 
and even the search of our most im- 
portant concerns in a future being is but 
a needless, anxious, and uncertain haste 
to be knowing, sooner than we can, 
what, without all this solicitude, we shall 
know a little later. We are but curious 
impertinents in the case of futurity. It 
is not our business to be guessing what 
the state of souls shall be, but to be doing 
what may make our own state happy : 
we cannot be knOT^dng, but we can be 
virtuous. 

If this be my notion of a great part of 
that high science, Divinity, you will be 
so civil as to imagine I lay no mighty 
stress upon the rest. Even of my dar- 
ling poetry I really make no other use, 
than horses of tlie bells that jingle about 
their ears (though now and then they 
toss their heads as if they v.'ere proud of 
them), only to jog on a little more mer- 
rily. 

Your observations en the narrow con- 
ceptions of mankind in the point of 
friendship, confirm me in what I Avas so 
fortunate as at my first knowledge of 
you to hope, and since so amply to expe- 
rience. Let me take so much decent 
pride and dignity upon me as to tell you, 
that but for opinions like these which I 
discovered in your mind, I had never 
made the trial I have done, which has 



262 



ELEGANT EPlSXi^ES. 



EooK II L 



succeeded so mueh to mine, and, I be- 
lieve, not less to your satisfaction ; for, 
if I know you right, your pleasure is 
greater in obliging me than I can feel on 
my part, till it falls in my power to 
oblige you. 

Your remark, that the variety of opi- 
nions in politics or religion, is often ra- 
ther a gratification than an objection, to 
people who have sense enough to con- 
sider the beautiful order of nature in her 
variations, makes me think you have not 
construed Joannes Secundus wrong, in 
the verse which precedes that which you 
quote : bene nota fides, as I take it, does 
no way signify the Roman Catholic reli- 
gion, though Secundus was of it. I 
think it was a generous thought, and one 
that flowed from an exalted mind, that 
it was not improbable but God might be 
delighted with the various methods of 
worshipping him, which divided the 
whole world. I am pretty sure you and 
I should no more make good inquisitors 
to the modern tyrants in faith, than we 
could have been qualified for lictors to 
Procrustes, when he converted refractory 
members with the rack. In a word, I 
can only repeat to you what, I think, I 
have formerly said — -that I as little fear 
God will damn a man who has charity, 
as I hope that any priest can save him 
without it. I am, &c. 



LETTER LXXXVIII. 

Mr. Pope to Edward Blount, Esq. 

March 20, 171 5-1 r. 
I FIND that a real concern is not only a 
hindrance to speaking, but to writing 
too : the more time v/e give ourselves to 
think over one's own or a friend's un- 
happiness, the more unable we grow to 
express the grief that proceeds from it. 
It is as natural to delay a letter at such 
a season as this, as to retard a melan- 
choly visit to a person one cannot re- 
lieve. One is ashamed in that circum- 
stance to pretend to entertain people 
with trifling, insignificant affectations of 
sorrow on the one hand, or unseasonable 
and forced gaieties on the other. It is a 
kind of profanation of things sacred to 
treat so solemn a matter as a generous 
voluntary suffering with compliments, or 
heroic gallantries. Such a mind as yours 
has no need of being spirited up into 
honour, or, like a weak woman, praised 



into an opinion of its ov.'n virtue. It is 
enough to do and suffer what we ought ; 
and men should know, that the noble 
power of suffering bravely is as far above 
that of enterprising- greatly, as an un- 
blemished conscience and inflexible re- 
solution are above an accidental flow of 
spirits, or a sudden tide of blood. If the 
whole religious business of mankind be 
included in resignation to our Maker 
and charity to our fellow creatures, there 
are now some people who give us as 
good an opportunity of practising the 
one, as themselves have given an in- 
stance of the violation of the other. 
Whoever is really brave, has always this 
comfort when he is oppressed, that 
he knows himself to be superior to 
those who injure him : for the greatest 
power on earth can no sooner do 
him that injury, but the brave man 
can make himself greater by forgiv- 
ing it. 

If it were generous to seek for alle- 
viating consolations in a calamity of so 
much glory, one might say that to be 
ruined thus in the gross with the whole 
people, is but like perishing in the gene- 
ral conflagration, where nothing we can 
value is left behind us. 

Methinks, the most heroic thing we 
are left capable of doing, is to endeavour 
to lighten each other's load, and (op- 
pressed as we are) to succour such as are 
yet more oppressed. If there are too 
many who cannot be assisted but by what 
we cannot give, our money, there are 
yet others who may be relieved by our 
counsel, by our countenance, and even by 
our cheerfulness. The misfortunes of 
private families, the misunderstandings 
of people whom distresses make suspi- 
cious, the coldness of relations whom 
change of religion may disunite, or the 
necessities of half-ruined estates render 
unkind to each other : these at least may 
be softened, in some degree, by a general 
well -managed humanity among our- 
selves — if all those who have your prin- 
ciples or belief, had also your sense and 
conduct. But indeed most of them have 
given lamentable jiroofs of the con- 
trary ; and it is to be apprehended that 
they who want sense are only religious 
through weakness, and good-natured 
through shame. These are narrow- 
minded creatures, that never deal in es- 
sentials, their faith never looks beyond 
ceremonials, nor their charity beyond 



Sect. I. 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



^3 



relations. As poor as I am, I would 
gladly relieve any distressed, conscien- 
tious French refugee at this instant. 
What must my concern then be, when I 
perceive so many anxieties now tearing 
those hearts which I have desired a place 
in, and clouds of melancholy rising on 
those faces which I have long looked 
upon with affection ! I begin already to 
feel both what some apprehend, and 
what others are yet too stupid to appre- 
hend. I grieve with the old, for so many 
additional inconveniences and chagrins, 
more than their small remain of life seem- 
ed destined to undergo ; and with the 
young, for so many of those gaieties and 
pleasures (the portion of youth) which 
they will by this means be deprived of. 
This brings into my mind one or other 
of those I love best, and among them the 

widow and fatherless, late of , As I 

am certain no people living had an ear- 
lier and truer sense of others' misfortunes, 
or a more generous resignation as to what 
might be their own, so I earnestly wish, 
that whatever part they must bear may 
be rendered as supportable to them as is 
in the power of any friend to make it. 

But I know you have prevented me in 
this thought, as you always will in any 
thing that is good or generous. I find 
by a letter of your lady's (which I have 
seen) that their ease and tranquillity is 
part of your care. I believe there is 
some fatality in it, that you should al- 
ways, from time to time, be doing those 
particular things that make me ena- 
moured of you. 

I write this from Windsor Forest, of 
which I am come to take my last look. 
We here bid our neighbours adieu, much 
as those who go to be hanged do their 
fellow-prisoners, who are condemned to 
follow them a few weeks after. I parted 
from honest Mr. D — with tenderness ; 
and from old sir William Trumbull, as 
from a venerable prophet, foretelling, 
with lifted hands, the miseries to come, 
from which he is just going to be re- 
moved himself. 

Perhaps, now I have learnt so far as 

Nos dulcia linquimis arva, 

my next lesson may be 

Nos patriam fagimus. 

Let that, and all else, be as Heaven 
pleases ! I have provided just enough to 
keep me a man of honour. 1 believe 



you and I shall never be ashamed of each 
other. I know I wish my country well ; 
and, if it undoes me, it shall not make 
me wish it otherwise. 

LETTER LXXXIX. 

Edward Blount, Esq. to Mr. Pope. 

March 24, 1715-10. 
Your letters give me a gleam of satis- 
faction, in the midst of a very dark and 
cloudy situation of thoughts, which, it 
would be more than human to be exempt 
from at this time, when our homes 
must either be left, or be made too nar- 
row for us to turn in. Poetically speak- 
ing, I should lament the loss Windsor 
Forest and you sustain of each other, 
but that, methinks, one cannot say you 
are parted, because you will live by and 
in one another, while verse is verse. This 
consideration hardens me in my opinion 
rather to congratulate you, since you 
have the pleasure of the prospect when- 
ever you take it from your shelf, and at 
the same time the solid cash you sold it 
for, of which Virgil, in his exile, knew 
nothing in those days, and which will 
make every place easy to you. I, for 
my part, am not so happy ; my parva 
rura are fastened to me, so that I can- 
not exchange them, as you have, for 
more portable means of subsistence ; 
and yet I hope to gather enough to make 
the patriam fugimus supportable to me ; 
it is what I am resolved on, with my 
penates. If therefore you ask me to whom 
you shall complain ? I will exhort you to 
leave laziness and the elms of St. James's 
Park, and choose to join the other two 
proposals in one, safety and friendship 
(the least of which is a good motive for 
most things, as the other is for almost 
every thing), and go with me where war 
will not reach us, nor paltry constables 
summon us to vestries. 

The future epistle you flatter me with 
will find me still here, and I think 1 may 
be here a month longer. Whenever I 
go from hence, one of the few reasons 
to make mc regret my home will be, 
that I shall not have the pleasure of 
saying to you, 

Hk tamen hanc mecum poteris reqiiiesccre 
noctem ; 

which would have rendered this place 
more agreeable than ever it else cotild 
be to me ; for I protet^t, it its with the ut- 



264 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IlL 



most sincerity that I assure you 1 am 
entirely, dear sir, your, &c. 

LETTER XC. 

Mr. Pope to Edward Blount, Esq. 

Sept. 8, 1717. 
I THINK your leaving England was like 
a good man's leaving thev»^orld, with the 
blessed conscience of having acted well 
in it ; and I hope you have received your 
reward, in being happy where you are. 
I believe, in the religious country you 
inhabit, you will be better pleased to find 
I consider you in this light, than if I 
compared you to those Greeks and 
Romans, whose constancy in suffering 
pain, and whose resolution in pursuit of 
a generous end, you would rather imitate 
than boast of. 

But I had a melancholy hint the other 
day, as if you were yet a martyr to the 
fatigue your virtue made you undergo on 
this side the water. I beg, if your health 
be restored to you, not to deny me the 
joy of knowing it. Your endeavours of 
service and good advice to the poor pa- 
pists, put me in mind of Noah's preach- 
ing forty years to those folks that were 
to be drowned at last. At the worst, I 
heartily wish your ark may find an Ar- 
arat, and the wife and family (the hopes 
of the good patriarch) land safely after 
the deluge upon the shore of Totness. 

If I durst mix profane with sacred his- 
tory, I would cheer you with the old tale 
of Brutus, the wandering Trojan, who 
found on that very coast the happy end 
of his peregrinations and adventures. 

I have very lately read Jeffery of Mon- 
mouth (to whom your Cornwall is not a 
little beholden) in the translation of a 
clergyman in my neighbourhood. The 
poor man is highly concerned to vindi- 
cate Jeffery's veracity as an historian ; 
and told me, he was perfectly astonished 
we of the Roman communion could 
doubt of the legends of his giants, while 
we believe those of our saints. I am 
forced to make a fair composition with 
him ; and, by crediting some of the won- 
ders of Corinseus and Gogmagog, have 
brought him so far already, that he speaks 
respectfully of St. Christopher's carry- 
ing Christ, and the resuscitation of St. 
Nicholas Tolentine's chicken. Thus we 
proceed apace in converting each other 
from all manner of infidelity. 



Ajax and Hector are no more to be 
compared to Corinseus and Arthur, than 
the Guelphs and Ghibellines are to the 
Mohocks of ever dreadful memory. This 
amazing writer has made me lay aside 
Homer for a week, and, when I take 
him up again, I shall be very well pre- 
pared to translate, with belief and reve- 
rence, the speech of Achilles's horse. 

You will excuse all this trifling, or 
any thing else which prevents a sheet 
full of compliments; and believe there 
is nothing more true (even more true 
than any thing in Jeffery is false) than 
that I have a constant affection for you. 



P. S. I know you will take part in re- 
joicing for the victory of prince Eugene 
over the Turks, in the zeal you bear to 
the Christian interest, though your 
cousin of Oxford (with whom I dined 
yesterday) says, there is no other differ- 
ence in the Christians beating the Turks, 
or the Turks beating the Christians, 
than whether the emperor shall first de- 
clare war against Spain, or Spain declare 
it against the emperor. 

LETTER XCL 

From the same to the same. 

Nov. 17, 1717. 
The question you proposed to me is 
what at present I am the most unfit 
man in the world to answer, by my loss 
of one of the best of fathers. 

He had lived in such a course of tem- 
perance as was enough to make the long- 
est life agreeable to him, and in such a 
course of piety as sufl&ced to make the 
most sudden death so also. Sudden, in- 
deed, it was ; however, I heartily beg of 
God to give me such a one, provided I 
can lead such a life. I leave him to the 
mercy of God, and to the jjiety of a re- 
ligion that extends beyond the grave ; 
Si qua est ea cur a, &c. 

He has left me to the ticklish manage- 
ment of so narrow a fortune, that any 
one fklse step would be fatal. My mo- 
ther is in that dispirited state of resigna- 
tion, which is the effect of long life, and 
the loss of what is dear to us. We are 
really each of us in want of a friend, of 
such a humane turn as yourself, to 
make almost any thing desirable to us. 
I feel your absence more than ever, at 
the same time T can less express my re- 



Sect. I. 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



265 



gards to you than ever ; and shall make 
this, which is the most sincere letter I 
ever writ to you, the shortest and faint- 
est, perhaps, of any you have received. 
It is enough if you reflect, that barely to 
remember any person when one's mind 
is taken up with a sensible sorrow, is a 
great degree of friendship. I can say no 
more, but that I love you, and all that 
are yours ; and that I wish it may be 
very long- before any of yours shall feel 
for you what I now feel for my father. 
Adieu. 

LETTER XCII. 

F7'07n the same to the sa?ne. 

Reiscomb in Gloucestershire, Oct. 3, 1721. 
Your kind letter has overtaken me 
here, tor I have been in and about this 
country ever since your departure. 1 
am well pleased to date this from a 
place so well known to Mrs. Blount, 
where I write as if I were dictated to by 
her ancestors, whose faces are all upon 
me. I fear none so much as sir Christo- 
pher Guise, who, being- in his shirt, 
seems as ready to combat me as her own 
sir John was to demolish duke Lancas- 
ter. I dare say your lady wiQ recol- 
lect his figure. I looked upon the man- 
sion, walls, and terraces ; the plantations 
and slopes which nature has made to 
command a variety of valleys and rising 
woods, with a veneration mixed with a 
pleasure, that represented her to me in 
those puerile amusements, which en- 
gaged her so many years ago in this 
place. I fancied I saw her sober over a 
sampler, or gay over a jointed baby. I 
dare say she did one thing more, even 
in those early times ; — " remembered 
her Creator in the days of her youth." 

You describe so well your hermitical 
state of life, that none of the ancient an- 
chorites could go beyond you for a cave 
in a rock, with a fine spring, or any of 
the accommodations that befit a solitary. 
Only I do not remember to have read 
that any of those venerable and holy per- 
sonages took with them a lady, and be- 
gat sons and daughters. You must mo- 
destly be content to be accounted a pa- 
triarch. But were you a little younger, 
I should rather rank you with sir Amadis, 
and his fellows. If piety be so romantic, 
I shall turn hermit in good earnest ; for, 
I see, one may go so far as to be poetical, 



and hope to save one's soul at the same 
time. I really wish myself something 
more, — that is, a prophet ; for I wish I 
were, as Habakkuk, to be taken by the 
hair of his head, and visit Daniel in his 
den. You are very obliging in saying 
I have now a whole family upon my 
hands ; to whom to discharge the part of 
a friend, I assure you, I like them all so 
well, that I will never quit my here- 
ditary right to them ; you have made me 
yours, and, consequently, them mine. 
I still see them walking on my green 
at Tv/ickenham, and gratefully remem- 
ber, not only their green gowns, but the 
instructions they gave me how to slide 
down and trip up the steepest slopes of 
my mount. 

Pray think of me sometimes, as I shall 
often of you ; and know me for what I 
am, that is, your, &c. 

LETTER XCIII. 

From the same to the same. 

Oct. 21, 1721. 
Your very kind and obliging manner of 
inquiring after me, among the first con- 
cerns of life, at your resuscitation, should 
have been sooner answered and acknow- 
ledged. I sincerely rejoice at your re- 
covery from an illness which gave me 
less pain than it did you, only from my 
ignorance of it. I should have else been 
seriously and deeply afflicted in the 
thought of your danger by a fever. I 
think it a fine and a natural thought 
which I lately read in a letter of Mon- 
taigne's, published by P. Coste, giving 
an account of the last words of an in- 
timate friend of his : " Adieu, my friend ! 
the pain I feel will soon be over ; but I 
grieve for what you are to feel, which is 
to last you for life." 

I join with your family in giving God 
thanks for lending us a worthy man 
somewhat longer. The comforts you 
receive from their attendance put me in 
mind of what old Fletcher of Saltoune 
said one day to me : " Alas, I have no- 
thing to do but to die! — I am a poor 
individual ; no creature to wish or to 
fear for my life or death : it is the only 
reason I have to repent being a single 
man : now I grow old, I am like a tree 
without a prop, and without young trees 
to grow round me, for company and de- 
fence." 



266 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IlL 



I hope the gout will soon go after the 
fever, and all evil things remove far from 
you. But pray tell me, when will you 
move towards us ? If you had an interval 
to get hither, I care not what fixes you 
afterwards, except the gout. Pray come, 
and never stir from us again. Do away 
your dirty acres ; cast them to dirty peo- 
ple, such as, in the Scripture-phrase, 
possess the land. Shake off your earth, 
like the nohle animal in Milton : — 

The tawny lion, pawing to get free 

His hinder parts, he springs as broke from 

bonds, 
And, rampant, shakes his brinded mane: the 

ounce. 
The libbard, and the tyger, as the mole 
Rising, the crumbled earth above them threw 
In hillocks ! 

But, I believe, Milton never thought 
these fine verses of his should be applied 
to a man selling a parcel of dirty acres ; 
though in the main, I think it may have 
some resemblance. For, God knows I 
this little space of ground nourishes, 
buries, and confines us, as that of Eden 
did those creatures, till we can shake it 
loose, at least in our affections and de- 
sires. 

Believe, dear sir, I truly love and va- 
lue you ; let Mrs. Blount know that she 
is in the list of my Memento, Dojuine, 
famulorum famularumque, &c. My poor 
mother is far from well, declining ; and 
I am watching over her as we watch an 
expiring taper, that even when it looks 
brightest, wastes fastest. I am (as you 
will see from the whole air of this letter) 
not in the gayest nor easiest humour, 
but always with sincerity your, 8cc. 

LETTER XCIV. 

Mr. Pope to E. Blount, Esq. 

June 27, I7:,'3. 

You may truly do me the justice to 
think no man is more your sincere well- 
wisher tlian myself, or more the sincere 
well-wisher of your whole family : with 
all which, I cannot deny but I have a 
mixture of envy to you all, for loving 
one another so well, and for enjoying the 
sweets of that life which can only be 
tasted by people of good- will. 

They from all shades the darkness can exclude, 
And from a desert banish solitude. 

Torbay is a paradise : and a storm is but 
an amusement to such people. If you 



drink tea upon a promontory that over- 
hangs the sea, it is preferable to an as- 
sembly ; and the Avhistling of the wind bet- 
ter music to contented and loving minds, 
than the opera to the spleenful, ambitious, 
diseased, distasted, and distracted souls 
which this world affords ; nay, this world 
affords no otlier. Happy they who are 
banished from us ! but happier they who 
can banish themselves, or, more properly, 
banish the world from them ! 

Alas ! I live at Twickenham ! 

I take that period to be very sublime, 
and to include more than a hundred sen- 
tences that might be writ to express dis- 
traction, hurry, multiplication of no- 
things, and all the fatiguing perpetual 
business of having no business to do. 
You'll wonder I reckon translating the 
Odyssey as nothing. But whenever I 
think seriously (and of late I have met 
with so many occasions of thinking seri- 
ously, that I begin never to think other- 
wise) I cannot but think these things 
very idle ; as idle as if a beast of burden 
should go on jingling his bells, without 
bearing any thing valuable about him, or 
ever serving his master. 

Life's vain amusements, amidst which we 

dwell; [hell! 

Not weigh'd, or understood, by the grim god of 

said a heathen poet ; as he is translated 
by a Christian bishop, who has, first by 
his exhortations, and since by his exam- 
ple, taught me to think as becomes a 
reasonable creature ; but he is gone ! 

I remember I promised to write to 
you, as soon as 1 should hear you were 
got home. You must look on this as the 
first day I have been myself, and pass 
over the mad interval unimputed to me. 
How punctual a correspondent I shall 
henceforward be able or not able to be, 
God knows : but he knows I shall ever 
be a pimctual and grateful friend, and all 
the good wishes of such an one will ever 
attend you. 

LETTER XCV. 

Ffom the same to the same. 

Twickenham, June '2, 1725. 
You shew yourself a just man and a 
friend in those guesses and suppositions 
you make at the possible reasons of my 
silence : cverv one of which is a true 



Sect. I, 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



267 



one. As to forgetfulness of you, or 
yours, I assure you, tlie promiscuous 
conversations of the town serve only to 
put me in mind of better, and more quiet, 
to be had in a corner of the world (un- 
disturbed, innocent, serene, and sensible) 
with such as you. Let no access of any 
distrust make you think of me differently 
in a cloudy day from what you do in the 
most sunshiny weather. Let the young- 
ladies be assured I make nothing new in 
my gardens without wishing to see the 
print of their fairy steps in every part of 
them. I have put the last hand to my 
works of this kind in happily finishing 
the subterraneous way and grotto : I 
there found a spring of the clearest wa- 
ter, which falls in a perpetual rill, that 
echoes through the cavern day and night. 
From the river Thames, you see through 
my arch up a walk of the wilderness, to 
a kind of open temple, wholly composed 
of shells in the rustic manner ; and from 
that distance, under the temple you look 
down through a sloping arcade of trees, 
and see the sails on the river passing sud- 
denly and vanishing, as through a per- 
spective glass. Wlien you shut the doors 
of this grotto it becomes on the instant, 
from a luminous room, a camera obscura ; 
on the walls of which all the objects of 
the river, hills, woods, and boats, are 
forming a moving picture in their visible 
radiations : and when you have a mind 
to light it up, it affords you a very differ- 
ent scene ; it is finished with shells in- 
terspersed with pieces of looking-glass 
in angular forms ; and in the ceiling is a 
star of the same material, at which, when 
a lamp (of an orbicular figure of thin ala- 
baster) is hung in the middle, a thousand 
pointed rays glitter, and are reflected 
over the place. There are connected to 
this grotto, by a narrower passage, two 
porches ; one towards the river, of smooth 
stones full of light, and open ; the other 
toward the garden, shadowed with trees, 
rough with shells, flints, and iron ore. 
The bottom is paved with simple pebble, 
as is also the adjoining walk up the wil- 
derness to the temple, in the natural 
taste, agreeing not ill with the little 
dripping murmur, and the aquatic idea 
of the whole place. It wants nothing to 
complete it but a good statue with an in- 
scription, like that beautiful antique one 
which you know I am so fond of. 

Hiijus Nympha loci, sacri cuslodia funt'is ; 
Donnioj dam bkaida: scntio murmur nqucc. 



Parc(B meum, quisqiiis iangis cava marmora 
somnum 
Rumpere ; si bihas, sive lavere, lace. 

Nymph of the grot, these sacred springs I keep. 
And to the murmur of these waters sleep ; 
Ah spare my slumbers, gently tread the cave .' 
And drink in silence, or in silence lave ! 

You will think 1 have been very poetical 
in this description ; but it is pretty near 
the truth. I wish you were here to bear 
testimony how little it owes to art, either 
the place itself, or the image I give of it, 
I am, &c. 

LETTER XCVL 

Fro?n the same to the same. 

Sept. 13, 1725. 
I SHOULD be ashamed to own the re- 
ceipt of a very kind letter from you, 
two whole months from the date of this, 
if I were not more ashamed to tell a lie, 
or to make an excuse, which is worse 
than a lie (for being built upon some 
probable circumstance, it makes use of 
a degree of truth to falsify with, and is 
a lie guarded). Your letter has been 
in my pocket in constant wearing, till 
that, and the pocket, and the suit, are 
worn out ; by which means I have read 
it forty times, and I find by so doing that 
I have not enough considered and re- 
flected upon many others you have obliged 
me with ; for true friendship, as they say 
of good writing, will bear reviewing a 
thousand times, and still discover new 
beauties. 

I have had a fever, a short one, but a 
violent : I am now well ; so it shall take 
up no more of this paper. 

I begin now to expect you in town to 
make the winter to come more tolerable 
to us both. The summer is a kind of 
heaven, when we wander in a paradisia- 
cal scene among groves and gardens ; 
but at this season, we are, like our poor 
first parents, turned out of that agreea- 
ble though solitary life, and forced to 
look about for more people to help to 
bear our labours, to get into warmer 
houses, and to live together in cities. 

I hope you are long since perfectly re- 
stored and risen from your gout, happy 
in the delights of a contented family, 
smiling at storms, laughing at great- 
ness, merry over a Christmas fire, and 
exercising all the functions of an old 
patriarcli in charity and hospitality. I 
will not tell Mrt^ 13— what I think t<he 



268 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book III. 



is doing; for I conclude it is her opinion, 
That he only ought to know it for whom 
it is done ; and she will allow herself to 
be far enough advanced above a fine lady 
not to desire to shine before men. 

Your daughters, perhaps, may have 
some other thoughts, which even their 
mother must excuse them for, because 
she is a mother. I will not, however, 
suppose those thoughts get the better of 
their devotions, but rather excite them 
and assist the warmth of them ; while 
their prayer may be, that they may raise 
up and breed as irreproachable a young 
family as their parents have done. In a 
Avord, I fancy you all well, easy, and 
happy, just as I wish you ; and next to 
that, I wish you all with me. 

Next to God, is a good man : next in 
dignity, and next in value. Minuisti eu?n 
paullo minus ab angelis. If therefore I 
wish well to the good and the deserving, 
and desire they only should be my com- 
panions and correspondents, I must very 
soon and very much think of you. I 
want your company and your example. 
Pray make haste to town, so as not again 
to leave us ; discharge the load of earth 
that lies on you, like one of the moun- 
tains under which, the poets say, the 
giants (the men of the earth) are 
whelmed : leave earth to the sons of the 
earth, your conversation is in heaven; 
which, that it may be accomplished in 
us all, is the prayer of him who maketh 
this short sermon ; value (to you) three- 
pence. Adieu. 

LETTER XCVII. 

Mr. Pope to the Hon. Robert Digby. 

June 2, 1717. 

I HAD pleased myself sooner in writing 
to you, but that 1 have been your suc- 
cessor in a fit of sickness, and am not 
yet so much recovered, but that I have 
thoughts of using your physicians*. 
They are as grave persons as any of the 
faculty, and (like the ancients) carry 
their own medicaments about with them. 
But indeed the moderns are such lovers 
of raillery that nothing is grave enough 
to escape them. Let them laugh, but 
people will still have their opinions : as 
they think our doctors asses to them, 
we will think them asses to our doctors. 

"^ Asses. 



1 am glad you are so much in a better 
state of health as to allow me to jest 
about it. My concern, when I heard of 
your danger, was so very serious, that I 
almost take it ill that Dr. Evans should I 
tell you of it, or you mention it. I tell | 
you fairly, if you and a few more such 
people were to leave the world, I would 
not give sixpence to stay in it. 

I am not so much concerned as to the 
point whether you are to live fat or lean ; 
most men of wit or honesty are usually 
decreed to live very lean ; so I am in- 
clined to the opinion that it is decreed 
you shall ; however, be comforted, and 
reflect that you will make the better 
busto for it. 

It is something particular in you not 
to be satisfied with sending me your own 
books, but to make your acquaintance 
continue the frolic. Mr. Wharton forced 
me to take Gorboduc, which has since 
done me great credit with several peo- 
ple, as it has done Dry den and Oldham 
some diskindness, in shewing there is 
as much difl^erence between their Gor- 
boduc and this, as between queen Anne 
and king George. It is truly a scandal, 
that men should write with contempt of 
a piece which they never once saw, as 
those two poets did, who were ignorant 
even of the sex, as well as sense, of 
Gorboduc. 

Adieu ! I am going to forget you : 
this minute, you took up all my mind ; 
the next, 1 shall think of nothing but the 
reconciliation with Agamemnon, and the 
recovery of Briseis. I shall be Achilles's 
humble servant these two months (with 
the good leave of all my friends). I have 
no ambition so strong at present as that 
noble one of sir Nathaniel Lovel, re- 
corder of London, to furnish out a de- 
cent and plentiful execution of Greeks 
and Trojans. It is not to be expressed 
how heartily I wish the death of all Ho- 
mer's heroes, one after another. The 
Lord preserve me in the day of battle, 
which is just approaching ! Join in your 
prayers for me, and know me to be al- 
ways your, &c. 

LETTER XCVIII. 

From the same to the same. 

London, March 31, 1718. 
To convince you how little pain I give 
myself in corresponding with men of 



Sect. I. 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



269 



good nature and good understanding", 
you see I omit to answer your letters till 
a time when another man would be 
ashamed to own he had received them. 
If therefore you are ever moved on my 
account by that spirit, which I take to 
be as familiar to you as a quotidian ague, 
I mean the spirit of goodness, pray never 
stint it, in any fear of obliging- me to a 
civility beyond my natural inclination. 
I dare trust you, sir, not only with my 
folly when I write, but with negligence 
when I do not ; and expect equally your 
pardon for either. 

If I knew how to entertain you 
through the rest of this paper, it 
should be spotted and diversified with 
conceits all over ; you should be put out 
of breath with laughter at each sentence, 
and pause at each period, to look back 
over how much wit you have passed ; 
but I have found by experience, that 
people now-a-days regard writing as 
little as they do preaching : the most 
we can hope is to be heard just with 
decency and patience, once a week, by 
folks in the country. Here in town 
we hum over a piece of fine writing, and 
we whistle at a sermon. The stage is 
the only place we seem alive at ; there 
indeed we stare, and roar, and clap 
hands for king George and the govern- 
ment. As for all other virtues but this 
loyalty, they are an obsolete train, 
so ill dressed, that men, women, and 
children hiss them out of all good com- 
pany. Humility knocks so sneakingly 
at the door, that every footman outraps 
it, and makes it give way to the free 
entrance of pride, prodigality, and vain 
glory. 

My lady Scudamore, from having rus- 
ticated in your company too long, really 
behaves herself scandalously among us : 
she pretends to open her eyes for the 
sake of seeing the sun, and to sleep be- 
cause it is night ; drinks tea at nine in 
the morning, and is thought to have 
said her prayers before : talks, without 
any manner of shame, of good books, 
and has not seen Gibber's play of the 
Nonjuror. I rejoiced the other day to 
see a libel on her toilette, which gives 
me some hope that you have, at least, a 
taste of scandal left you, in defect of all 
other vices. 

Upon the whole matter, I heartily 
wish you well ; but as I cannot entirely 
desire the ruin of all the joys of this city, 



so all that remains is to wish you would 
keep your happiness to yourselves, that 
the happiest here may not die with envy 
at a bliss which they cannot attain to. 
I am, &c. 



LETTER XCIX. 

Mr. Dighi/ to Mr. Pope. 

Coleshlll, April, 171S. 
I HAVE read your letter over and over 
with delight. By your description of 
the town I imagine it to lie under some 
great enchantment, and am very much 
concerned for you and all my friends in 
it. I am the more afraid, imagining, 
since you do not fly those horrible mon- 
sters, rapine, dissimulation, and luxury, 
that a magic circle is drawn about you, 
and you cannot escape. We are here in 
the country in quite another world, sur- 
rounded with blessings and pleasures, 
without any occasion of exercising our 
irascible faculties ; indeed we cannot 
boast of good-breeding and the art of 
life, but yet we do not live unpleasantly^ 
in primitive simplicity and good humour. 
The fashions of the town affect us but 
just like a raree-show; we /have a curi- 
osity to peep at them, and nothing more. 
What you call pride, prodigality, and 
vain glory, we cannot find in pomp and 
splendour at this distance ; it appears to 
us a fine glittering scene, which if we 
do not envy you, we think you happier 
than Ave are, in your enjoying it. What- 
ever you may think to persuade us of 
the humility of virtue, and her appear- 
ing in rags among you, we can never 
believe : our uninformed minds represent 
her so noble to us, that we necessarily 
annex splendour to her : and we could 
as soon imagine the order of things in- 
verted, and that there is no man in the 
moon, as believe the contrary. I cannot 
forbear telling you we indeed read the 
Spoils of Rapine as boys do the English 
Rogue, and hug ourselves full as much 
over it ; yet our roses are not without 
thorns. Pray give me the pleasure of 
hearing (when you are at leisure) how 
soon I may expect to see the next vo- 
lume of Homer. I am, &c. 



270 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IIL 



LETTER C. 

Mr. Pope to Mr. Digbi/. 

May 1, n20. 
You will think me very full of myself, 
when after long silence (which, how- 
ever, to say truth, has rather been em- 
ployed to contemplate of you than to 
forget you) I begin to talk of my own 
works. I find it is in the finishing a 
book as in concluding a session of par- 
liament, one always thinks it will be very 
soon, and finds it very late. There are 
many unlooked-for incidents to retard 
the clearing any public account ; and 
so I see it is in mine. I have plagued 
myself, like great ministers, with under- 
taking too much for one man ; and, 
with a desire of doing more than was 
expected from me, have done less than 
I ought. 

For having designed four very labo- 
rious and uncommon sort of indexes to 
Homer, 1 am forced, for want of time, 
to publish two only, the design of which 
you will own to be pretty, though far 
from being fully executed. I have also 
been obliged to leave unfinished in my 
desk the heads of two Essays ; one on the 
Theology and Morality of Homer, and 
another on the Oratory of Homer and 
Virgil. So they must wait for future 
editions, or perish : and (one way or 
other, no great matter which) dabit Deus 
his quoque jidem. I think of you every 
day, I assure you, even without such 
good memorials of you as your sisters, 
with whom I sometimes talk of you, and 
find it one of the most agreeable of all 
subjects to them. My lord Digby must 
be perpetually remembered by all who 
ever knew him or knew his children. 
There needs no more than an acquaint- 
ance with your family, to make all 
elder sons wish they had fathers to their 
lives' end. 

I cannot touch upon the subject of 
filial love, without putting you in mind 
of an old woman, who has a sincere, 
hearty, old-fashioned respect for you, and 
constantly blames her son for not having 
writ to you oftener to tell you so. 

I very much wish (but what signifies 
my wishing ! — my lady Scudamore 
wishes, your sisters wish) that you were 
with us to compare the beautiful con- 
trast this season affords us, of the town 
and the country. No ideas you could 



form in the winter can make you imagine 
what Twickenham is (and what your 
friend Mr. Johnson of Twickenham is) 
in this warmer season. Our river glit- 
ters beneath an unclouded sun, at the 
same time that its banks retain the ver- 
dure of showers ; our gardens are offer- 
ing their first nosegays ; our trees, like 
new acquaintance brought happily to- 
gether, are stretching their arms to 
meet each other, and growing nearer 
and nearer every hour : the birds are 
paying their thanksgiving songs for the 
new habitations I have made them ; my 
building rises high enough to attract the 
eye and curiosity of the passenger from 
the river, where, upon beholding a mix- 
ture of beauty and ruin, he inquires 
what house is falling, or what church is 
rising ? So little taste have our common 
tritons of Vitruvius ; whatever delight 
the poetical gods of the river may take, 
in reflecting on their streams, by Tuscan 
porticos or Ionic pilasters. 

But (to descend from all this pomp of 
style) the best account of what I am 
building is, that it will afford me a few 
pleasant rooms for such a friend as your- 
self, or a cool situation for an hour 
or two for lady Scudamore, when she 
will do me the honour (at this public 
house on the road) to drink her own 
cyder. 

The moment I am writing this, I am 
surprised with the account of the death 
of a friend of mine ; which makes all I 
have here been talking of, a mere jest ! 
Building, gardens, writings, pleasures, 
works of whatever stuff man can raise ! 
none of them (God knows) capable of 
advantaging a creature that is mortal, or 
of satisfying a soul that is immortal! 
Dear sir, I am, &c. 

LETTER CI. 

Mr. Digby to Mr. Pope. 

May 21, 1720. 
Your letter, which I had two posts ago, 
was very medicinal to me : and I heartily 
thank you for the relief it gave me. I 
was sick of the thoughts of my not hav- 
ing in all this time given you any testi- 
mony of the affection I owe you, and 
which I as constantly indeed feel as I 
think of you. This indeed was a trou- 
blesome ill to me, till, after reading your 
letter, I found it was a most idle, weak 



Sect. 1, 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



271 



imagination, to think I could so offend 
you. Of all the impressions you have 
made upon me, I never received any 
with greater joy than this of your abun- 
dant good-nature, which bids me be as- 
sured of some share of your affections. 

I had many other pleasures from your 
letter ; that your mother remembers me 
is a very sincere joy to me. I cannot 
but reflect how alike you are : from the 
time you do any one a favour, you think 
yourselves obliged as those that have re- 
ceived one. This is indeed an old- 
fashioned respect, hardly to be found 
out of your house. I have great hopes, 
however, to see many old-fashioned vir- 
tues revive, since you have made our age 
in love with Homer ; I heartily wish you, 
who are as good a citizen as a poet, the 
joy of seeing a reformation from your 
works. I am in doubt whether I should 
congratulate your having finished Ho- 
mer, while the two Essays you mention 
are not completed : but if you expect no 
great trouble from finishing these, I 
heartily rejoice with you. 

I have some faint notion of the beau- 
ties of Twickenham from what I here 
see round me. The verdure of showers 
is poured upon every tree and field about 
us ; the gardens unfold variety of colours 
to the eye every morning, the hedge's 
breath is beyond all perftime, and the 
songs of birds we hear as well as you ; 
but though I hear and see all this, yet I 
think they would delight me more if you 
were here. I found the want of these at 
Twickenham while I was therewith you, 
by which I guess what an increase of 
charms it must now have. How kind is 
it in you to wish me there, and how un- 
fortunate are my circumstances that al- 
low me not to visit you ! If I see you, I 
must leave my father alone ; and this 
uneasy thought would disappoint all my 
proposed pleasures ; the same circum- 
stance v/ill prevent my prospect of many 
happy hours with you in lord Bathurst's 
wood, and I fear of seeing you till winter, 
unless lady Scudamore comes to Sher- 
borne, in which case I shall press you to 
see Dorsetshire as you proposed. May 
you have a long enjoyment of your new 
favourite portico. Your, &c. 



LETTER CIL 

From the same to the same. 

Sherborne, July 9, 1720. 
The London language and conversation 
is, I find, quite changed since I left it, 
though it is not above three or four 
months ago. No violent change in the 
natural world ever astonished a philoso- 
pher so much as this does me. I hope 
this will calm all party rage, and intro- 
duce more humanity than has of late ob- 
tained in conversation. All scandal will 
sure be laid aside, for there can be no 
such disease any more as spleen in this 
new golden age. I am pleased with the 
thoughts of seeing nothing but a gene- 
ral good humour when I come up to 
town ; I rejoice in the universal riches I 
hear of, in the thought of their having 
this effect. They tell me you was soon 
content ; and that you cared not for such 
an increase as others Vv'ished you. By 
this account 1 judge you the richest man 
in the South Sea, and congratulate you 
accordingly. I can wish you only an in- 
crease of health ; for of riches and fame 
you have enough. Your, &c. 

LETTER Cin. 

Mr. Pope to Mr. Digbi/. 

July 20, 1720. 
Your kind desire to know the state of 
my health had not been unsatisfied so 
long, had not that ill state been the 
impediment. Nor should I have seemed 
an unconcerned party in the joys of your 
family, which I heard of from lady 
Scudamore, whose short eschantillon of 
a letter (of a quarter of a page) I value 
as the short glimpse of a vision afforded 
to some devout hermit ; for it includes 
(as those revelations do) a promise of a 
better life in the Elysian groves of Ciren- 
cester, whither, I could say almost in the 
style of a sermon, the Lord bring us all, 
&c. Thither may we tend, by various 
ways, to one blissful bower : thither may 
health, peace, and good-humour wait 
upon us as associates : thither may whole 
cargoes of nectar (liquor of life and lon- 
gevity !), by mortals called SpaAv-water, 
be conveyed ; and there (as Milton has 
it) may we, like the deities, 

On flovv'rs vepos'd, and with fresh garlands 

orovvn'd. 
Quaff immortality and joy. 



^72 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



KooK in. 



When I speak of garlands, I should 
not forget the green vestments and scarfs 
which your sisters promised to make for 
this purpose. I expect you too in green, 
with a hunting-horn by your side, and 
a green hat, the model of which you may 
take from Osborne's description of king 
James the First. 

What words, what numbers, what 
oratory, or what poetry can suffice, to 
express how infinitely 1 esteem, value, 
love, and desire you all, above all the 
great ones of this part of the world ; 
above all the Jews, jobbers, bubblers, 
subscribers, projectors, directors, go- 
vernors, treasurers, &c. &c. &c. in 
scEcula sceculorum ! 

Turn your eyes and attention from this 
miserable mercenary period ; and turn 
yourself in a just contempt of these sons 
of Mammon, to the contemplation of 
books, gardens, and marriage ; in which 
I now leave you, and return (wretch that 
I am !) to water-gruel and palladio. I 
am, &c. 



LETTER CIV. 

Mr. Dighy to Mr. Pope. 

Sherborne, July 30. 
I CONGRATULATE you, dear sir, on the 
return of the golden age, for sure this 
must be such, in which money is show- 
ered down in such abundance upon us. 
I hope this overflowing will produce 
great and good fruits, and bring back 
the figurative moral golden age to us. I 
have some omens to induce me to be- 
lieve it may ; for when the Muses delight 
to be near a court, when I find you fre- 
quently with a first minister, I cannot 
but expect from such an intimacy an en- 
couragement and revival of the polite 
arts. I know you desire to bring them 
into honour, above the golden image 
which is set up and worshipped ; and, if 
you cannot effect it, adieu to all such 
hopes. You seem to intimate in yours 
another face of things from this inunda- 
tion of wealth, as if beauty, wit, and va- 
lour would no more engage our passions 
in the pleasurable pursuit of them, 
though assisted by this increase : if so, 
and if monsters only, as various as those 
of Nile, arise from this abundance, who 
that has any spleen about him, will not 
haste to town to laugh ? What will be- 



come of the play-house? Who will go 
thither, while there is such entertain- 
ment in the streets? 1 hope we shall 
neither want good satire nor comedy ; if 
we do, the age may well be thought 
barren of geniuses, for none has ever 
produced better subjects. Your, &c. 



LETTER GV. 

From the same to the same, 

Coleshill,Nov. 12, 1720. 
I FIND in my heart that I have a taint 
of the corrupt age we live in. I want 
the public spirit so much admired in old 
Home, of sacrificing every thing that is 
dear to us to the commonwealth. I even 
feel a more intimate concern for my 
friends who have suffered in the South 
Sea, than for the public, which is said to 
be undone by it. But I hope the reason 
is, that I do not see so evidently the ruin 
of the public to be a consequence of it, 
as I do the loss of my friends. I fear 
there are few besides yourself that will 
be persuaded by old Hesiod, that half is 
more than the ivhole. I know not whether 
I do not rejoice in your sufferings ; since 
they have shewn me your mind is prin- 
cipled with such a sentiment. I assure 
you I expect from it a performance 
greater still than Homer. I have an 
extreme joy from your communicating 
to me this affection of your mind : 

2uid voveat didc'i nutricula mujus alumno ! 

Believe me, dear sir, no equipage could 
shew you to my eye in so much splen- 
dour. I would not indulge this fit of 
philosophy so far as to be tedious to you, 
else I could prosecute it with pleasure. 

I long to see you, your mother, and 
your villa ; till then I will say nothing 
of lord Bathurst's wood, which I saw in 
my return hither. Soon after Christ- 
mas I design for Ijondon, where I shall 
miss lady Scudamore very much, who 
intends to stay in the country all winter. 
I am angry with her, as I am like to 
suffer by this resolution ; and would fain 
blame her, but cannot find a cause. The 
man is cursed that has a longer letter 
than this to write with as a bad a pen ; 
yet I can use it with pleasure to send my 
services to your good mother, and to 
write myself your, &c. 



Sbct. I. 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



273 



LETTER CVL 

Mr. Pope to Blr, Dighy. 

Sept. ], 1722. 
Doctor Arbiithnot is g"oing to Bath, 
and will stay there a fortnight or more : 
perhaps you would be comforted to have 
a sight of him, whether you need him 
or not. 1 think him as good a doctor 
as any man for one that is ill, and a 
better doctor for one that is well. He 
would do admirably for Mrs. Mary Dig- 
by ; she needed only to follow his hints 
t-o be in eternal business and amusement 
©f mind, and even as active as she could 
desire. But indeed I fear she would out- 
walk him ; for (as dean Swift observed 
to me the very first time I saw the doctor) 
^' He is a man that can do every thing 
but walk." His brother, who is lately 
€ome into England, goes also to the 
Bath ; and is a more extraordinary man 
than he ; worth your going thither on 
purpose to know him. The spirit of 
philanthropy, so long dead to our world, 
is revived in him ; he is a philosopher all 
of fire ; so warmly, nay so wildly in the 
right, that he forces all others about him 
to be so too, and draws them into his 
OAvn vortex. He is a star that looks as 
if it were all fire ; but it is all benignity, 
all gentle and beneficial influence. If 
there be other men in the world that 
would serve a friend, yet he is the only 
one, I believe, that could make even an 
enemy serve a friend. 

As all human life is chequered and 
mixed with acquisitions and losses 
(though the latter are more certain and 
irremediable than the former lasting or 
satisfactory), so at the time I have 
gained the acquaintance of one worthy 
man, I have lost another, a very easy, 
humane, and gentlemanly neighbour, 
Mr. Stonor. It is certain, the loss of 
one of this character puts us naturally 
upon setting a greater value on the few 
that are left, though the degree of our 
esteem may be different. Nothing, says 
Seneca, is so melancholy a circumstance 
in human life, or so soon reconciles us 
to the thought of our own death, as the 
reflection and prospect of one friend 
after another dropping round us ! Who 
would stand alone, the sole remaining 
ruin, the last tottering column of all the 
fabric of friendship ; once so large, seem" 



ingly so strong, and yet so suddenly sunk 
and buried ! I am, &c. 



LETTER CVII. 

From the same to the same, 

I HAVE belief enougli in the goodness 
of your whole family, to think you will 
all be pleased that I am arrived in safety 
at Twickenham ; though it is a sort of 
earnest that you will be troubled again 
with me at Sherborne or Coleshill ^ for 
however I may like one of your places, 
it may be in that as in liking one of 
your family ; when one sees the rest, 
one likes them ail. Pray make my ser- 
vices acceptable to them ; I wish them 
all the happiness they may want, and the 
continuance of all the happiness they 
have : and I take the latter to comprise 
a great deal more than the former. I 
must separate lady Scudamore from you, 
as, I fear, she will do herself before this 
letter reaches you ; so I wish her a good 
journey, and I hope one day to try if she 
lives as well as you do ; though I much 
question if she can live as quietly ; I sus- 
pect the bells will be ringing at her ar- 
rival, and on her own and Miss Scuda- 
more's birth-days, and that all the clergy 
in the country come to pay respects ; 
both the clergy and their bells expecting 
from her, and from the young lady, fur- 
ther business and further employment. 
Besides all this, there dwells on the one 
side of her the lord Conningsby, and on 
the other Mr. W — . Yet I shall, when 
the days and the years come about ad- 
venture upon all this for her sake. 

I beg my lord Digby to think me a 
better man than to content myself with 
thanking him in the common way. I 
am, in as sincere a sense of the word, his 
servant, as you are his son, or. he your 
father. 

I must in my turn insist upon hearing 
how my last fellow-travellers got home 
from Clarendon, and desire Mr. Philips 
to remember me in his cyder, and to tell 
Mr. W — that I am dead and buried. 

I wish the young ladies, whom I aU 
most robbed of their good name, a better 
name in return (even that very name to 
each of them which they shall like best, 
for the sake of the man that bears it). 
Your, &c. 



274 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book III. 



LE'TTER CVIII. 

Mr. Pope to Mr. Digbi/. 

1722. 
Your making a sort of apology for your 
not writing, is a very genteel reproof to 
me. I know I was to blame, but I know 
I did not intend to be so ; and (what is 
the happiest knowledge in the world) I 
know you Yfiil forgive me : for sure no- 
thing is more satisfactory than to be 
certain of such a friend as will overlook 
ona's failings, since every such instance 
is a conviction of his kindness. 

If I am all my life to dwell in inten- 
tions and never to rise to actions, I have 
but too much need of that gentle dispo- 
sition which I experience in you. But I 
hope better things of myself, and fully 
purpose to make you a visit this sum- 
mer at Sherborne. I am told you are 
all upon removal very speedily, and that 
Mrs. Mary Digby talks, in a letter to 
lady Scudamore, of seeing my lord Ba- 
thurst's wood in her way. How much I 
wish to be her guide through that en- 
chanted forest, is not to be exprest : I 
look upon myself as the magician ap- 
propriated to the place, without whom 
iio mortal can penetrate into the re- 
cesses of those sacred shades. I could 
pass whole days in only describing to her 
the future, and as yet visionary beauties, 
that are to rise in those scenes : the 
palace that is to be built, the pavilions 
that are to glitter, the colonnades that 
are to adorn them: nay more, the meet- 
ing of the Thames and the Severn, which 
(when the noble owner has finer dreams 
than ordinary) are to be led into each 
other's embraces through secret caverns 
of not above twelve or fifteen miles, till 
they rise and celebrate their marriage in 
the midst of an immense amphitheatre, 
which is to be the admiration of poste- 
rity a hundred years hence. But till the 
destined time shall arrive that is to ma- 
nifest these wonders, Mrs. Digby must 
content herself with seeing what is at 
present no more than the finest wood in 
England. 

The objects that attract this part of 
the world, are of a quite different na- 
ture. Women of quality are all turned 
followers of the camp in Hyde-park this 
year, whither all the town resort to mag- 
nificent entertainments given by the 
officers, &c. The Scythian ladies that 



dwelt in the waggons of war, were not 
more closely attached to the luggage. 
The matrons, like those of Sparta, at- 
tend their sons to the field, to be wit- 
nesses of their glorious deeds ; and the 
maidens, with all their charms displayed, 
provoke the spirit of the soldiers : tea 
and coffee supply the place of Lacede- 
monian black broth. This camp seems 
crowned with perpetual victory, for every 
sun that rises in the thunder of cannon, 
sets in the music of violins. Nothing is 
yet wanting but the constant presence 
of the princess, to represent the ?nater 
exercitus. 

At Twickenham the world goes other- 
wise. There are certain old people who 
take up all my time, and will hardly 
allow me to keep any other company. 
They were introduced here by a man of 
their own sort, who has made me per- 
fectly rude to all contemporaries, and 
will not so much as suffer me to look up- 
on them. The person I complain of is 
the bishop of Rochester. Yet he allows 
me (from something he has heard of 
your character, and that of your family, 
as if you were of the old sect of moral- 
ists) to write three or four sides of paper 
to you, and to tell you (what these sort 
of people never tell but with truth and 
religious sincerity) that I am, and ever 
will be, your, &c. 

LETTER CIX. 

From the same to the same. 

The same reason that hindered your 
writing, hindered mine ; the pleasing 
expectation to see you in town. Indeed, 
since the willing confinement I have lain 
under here with my mother (whom it is 
natural and reasonable I should rejoice 
with as well as grieve), I could the bet- 
ter bear your absence from London, for 
I could hardly have seen you there ; and 
it would not have been quite reasonable 
to have drawn you to a sick-room hither 
from the first embraces of your friends. 
My mother is now (I thank God) won- 
derfully recovered, though not so much 
as yet to venture out of her chamber, 
but enough to enjoy a few particular 
friends, when they have the good-nature 
to look upon her. I may recommend to 
you the room we sit in, upon one (and 
that a favourite) account, that it is the 
very warmest in the house ; we and our 



Sect. I, 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



275 



fires will equally smile upon your face. 
There is a Persian proverb that says (I 
think very prettily) " The conversation 
of a friend brightens the eyes." This I 
take to be a splendour still more agree- 
able than the fires you so delightfully 
describe. 

That you may long enjoy your own 
fire-side in the metaphorical sense, that 
is, all those of your family who make 
it pleasing to sit and spend whole wintry 
months together (a far more rational de- 
light, and better felt by an honest heart 
than all the glaring entertainments, nu- 
merous lights, and false splendours, of 
an assembly of empty heads, aching 
hearts, and false faces), this is my 
sincere wish to you and yours. 

You say you propose much pleasure 
in seeing some new faces about town of 
my acquaintance. I guess you mean 
Mrs . Howard's and Mrs . Blount's . And 
I assure you, you ought to take as much 
pleasure in their hearts, if they are what 
they sometimes express with regard to 
you. 

Belive me, dear sir, to you all a very 
faithful servant. 



LETTER ex. 

Mi\ Digbi/ to Mr. Pope. 

Sherborne, Aug. 14, 1723. 

I CANNOT return from so agreeable an 
entertainment as yours in the country, 
without acknowledging it. I thank you 
heartily for the new agreeable idea of life 
you there gave me ; it will remain long 
with me, for it is very strongly impressed 
upon my imagination. I repeat the me- 
mory of it often, and sliall value that fa- 
culty of the mind now more -than ever, 
for the power it gives me of being enter- 
tained in your villa when absent from it. 
As you are possessed of all the pleasures 
of the country, and, as 1 think, of a right 
mind, what can I wish you but health 
to enjoy them ? This I so heartily do, that 
I should be even glad to hear your good 
old mother might lose all her present 
pleasures in her unwearied care of you, 
by your better health convincing them 
it is unnecessary. 

I am troubled, and shall be so, till I 
hear you have received this letter : for 
you gave me the greatest pleasure ima- 
ginable in yours ; and I am impatient to 



acknowledge it. If I anyways deserve 
that friendly warmth and affection with 
which you write, it is, that I have a heart 
full of love and esteem for you : so truly, 
that I should lose the greatest pleasure 
of my life if I lost your good opinion. 
It rejoices me very much to be reckoned 
by you in the class of honest men ; for 
though I am not troubled over much 
about the opinion most may have of me, 
yet, 1 own, it would grieve me not to be 
thought well of by you and some few 
others. I will not doubt my own strength ; 
yet I have this further security to main- 
tain my integrity, that I cannot part 
with that, without forfeiting your esteem 
with it. 

Perpetual disorder and ill-health have 
for some years so disguised me, that I 
sometimes fear I do not to my best friends 
enough appeat what 1 really am. Sick- 
ness is a great oppressor ; it does great 
injury to a zealous heart, stifling its 
warmth, and not suflFering it to break 
out into action ; but I hope I shall not 
make this complaint much longer. I 
have other hopes that please me too, 
though not so well grounded ; these are, 
that you may yet make a journey west- 
ward with lord Bathurst ; but of the pro- 
bability of this I do not venture to rea- 
son, because I would not part with the 
pleasure of that belief. It grieves me to 
think how far 1 am removed from you, 
and from that excellent lord, whom I 
love ! Indeed I remember him, as one 
that has made sickness easy to me, by 
bearing with my infirmities in the same 
manner that you have always done. I 
often too consider him in other lights, 
that make him valuable to me. With 
him, I know not by what connection, 
you never fail to come into my mind, as 
if you were inseparable. I have, as you 
guess, many philosophical reveries in the 
shades of sir Walter Raleigh, of which 
you are a great part. You generally en- 
ter there with me, and, like a good genius, 
applaud and strengthen all my senti- 
ments that have honour in them. This 
good ofiice, which you have often done 
me unknowingly, I must acknowledge 
now, that nsy own breat^t may not re- 
proacli me with ingratitude, and dis- 
quiet me when I could muse again in 
that solemn scene. I have not room now 
left to ask you many questions I intended 
about the Odyssey, I beg I may know 
Ijow far you have carried, Ulysses on his 
T2 



276 



ELlEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book 1H. 



journey, and how you have been enter- 
tained with him on the way ? I desire I 
may hear of your health, of Mrs. Pope's, 
and of every thing- else that belongs to 
you. 

How thrive your garden plants ? how 
look the trees ? how spring the broccoli 
and the fenochio ? hard names to spell ! 
how did the poppies bloom? — and how 
is the great room approved ? What par- 
ties have you had of pleasure ? what in 
the grotto ? what upon the Thames ? I 
would know how all your hours pass, all 
you say, and all you do ; of which I 
should question you yet farther ; but my 
paper is full and spares you. My brother 
Ned is wholly yours, and so my father 
desires to be, and every soul here whose 
name is Digby. My sister will be yours 
in particular. What can I add more? 
I am, &c. 

LETTER CXI. 

Mr. Pope to Mr. Digbj/. 

October 10. 
I WAS upon the point of taking a much 
greater journey than to Bermudas, even 
to that undiscovered country, from whose 
bourn no traveller returns ! 

A fever carried me on the high gallop 
towards it for six or seven days — but here 
you have me now, and that is all I shall 
say of it : since which time an imperti- 
nent lameness kept me at home twice as 
long ; as if fate should say (after the 
other dangerous illness), " You shall 
neither go into the other world, nor any- 
where you like in this ; " else who knows 
but I had been at Hom-lacy ? 

I conspire in your sentiments, emulate 
your pleasures, wish for your company. 
You are all of one heart and one soul, 
as was said of the primitive Christians ; 
it is like the kingdom of the just upon 
earth ; not a wicked wretch to interrupt 
you , but a set of tried, experienced friends 
and fellow- comforters, who have seen 
evil men and evil days ; and have by a 
superior rectitude of heart set yourselves 
above them, and reap your reward. Why 
will you ever, of your own accord, end 
such a millenary year in London ? trans- 
migrate (if 1 may so call it) it into other 
creatures, in that scene of folly militant, 
when you may reign for ever at Hom- 
lacy in sense and reason triumphant ? I 
appeal to a third lady in your family. 



whom I take to be the most innocent, 
and the least warped by idle fashion and 
custom of you all ; I appeal to her, if 
you are not every soul of you better peo- 
ple, better companions, and happier 
Avhere you are ? I desire her opinion un- 
der her hand in your next letter — I mean 
Miss Scudamore's'^. I am confident, if 
she would or durst speak her sense, and 
employ that reason which God has given 
her, to infuse more thoughtfulness into 
you all, those arguments could not fail 
to put you to the blush, and keep you 
out of town, like people sensible of your 
own felicities. I am not without hopes, 
if she can detain a parliament-man and 
a lady of quality from the world one 
winter, that I may come upon you with 
such irresistible arguments another year, 
as may carry you all with me to Bermu- 
das t, the seat of all earthly happiness, 
and the New Jerusalem of the righteous. 

Do not talk of the decay of the year, 
the season is good where the people are 
so : it is the best time of the year for a 
painter ; there is more variety of colours 
in the leaves, the prospects begin to open 
through the thinner woods, over the 
valleys ; and through the high canopies 
of trees to the higher arch of heaven : 
the dews of the morning impearl every 
thorn, and scatter diamonds on the ver- 
dant mantle of the earth ; the frosts are 
fresh and wholesome : — what would you 
have ? The moon shines too, though not 
for lovers these cold nights, but for as- 
tronomers. 

Have ye not reflecting telescopes J, 
whereby ye may innocently magnify her 
spots and blemishes ? Content yourselves 
with them, and do not come to a place 
where your own eyes become reflecting 
telescopes, and where those of all others 
are equally such upon their neighbours. 
Stay you at least (for what I have said 
before relates only to the ladies ; do not 
imagine I will write about any eyes but 
theirs) ; stay, I say, from that idle, busy- 
looking sanhedrim, where wisdom or 
no wisdom is the eternal debate, not (as 



* Afterwards duchess of Beaufort ; at this 
time very young. 

f About this time the rev. dean Berkley 
conceived his project of erecting a settlement 
in Bermudas, for the propagation of the Chris- 
tian faith and introduction of sciences into 
America. 

X Theseinstruments were just then brought 
to perfection. 



Sect. I, 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



2-77 



it lately was in Ireland) an accidental 
one. 

If, after all, you will despise good ad- 
vice, and resolve to come to London, 
here you will find me, doing* just the 
things I should not, living where I should 
not, and as worldly, as idle ; in a word, 
as much an anti-Bermudanist as any 
body. Dear sir, make the ladies know 
I am their servant ; you know I am 
yours, &c. 

LETTER CXII. 

Fro7n the same to the same. 

Aug. 12. 
I HAVE been above a month strolling 
about in Buckinghamshire and Oxford- 
shire, from garden to garden, but still 
returning to lord Cobham's with fresh 
satisfaction. I should be sorry to see my 
lady Scudamore's till it has had the full 
advantage of lord B — 's improvements ; 
and then I will expect something like 
the waters of Riskins and the woods of 
Oakley together, which (without flat- 
tery) would be at least as good as any 
thing in our world ; for as to the hang- 
ing gardens of Babylon, the paradise of 
Cyrus, and the Sharawaggis of China, I 
have little or no ideas of them ; but, I 
dare say, lord B — has, because they 
were certainly both very great and very 
wild. I hope Mrs. Mary Digby is quite 
tired of his lordship's extravagante ber- 
gerie : and that she is just now sitting, or 
rather inclining on a bank, fatigued with 
over-much dancing and singing at his un- 
wearied request and instigation. I know 
your love of ease so well, that you might 
be in danger of being too quiet to enjoy 
quiet, and too philosophical to be a phi- 
losopher, were it not for the ferment 
lord B — will put you into. One of his 
lordship's maxims is, that a total absti- 
nence from intemperance or business, is 
no more philosophy than a total conso- 
piation of the senses is repose : one must 
feel enough of its contrary to have a re- 
lish of either. But, after all, let your 
temper work, and be as sedate and con- 
templative as you will, I will engage you 
shall be fit for any of us when you come 
to town in the winter. Folly will laugh 
you into all the customs of the company 
here ; nothing will be able to prevent 
your conversation to her but indisposition, 
which I hope will be far from you. 1 



am telling the worst that can come of 
you ; for as to vice, you are safe ; but 
folly is many an honest man's, nay every 
good-humoured man's lot ; nay it is the 
seasoning of life ; and fools (in one 
sense) are the salt of the earth ; a little 
is excellent, though indeed a whole 
mouthful is justly called the devil. 

So much for your diversions next 
winter, and for mine. I envy you much 
more at present than I shall then ; for 
if there be on earth an image of Paradise, 
it is in such perfect union and society as 
you all possess. I would have my inno- 
cent envies and wishes of your state 
known to you aU ; which is far better 
than making you compliments, for it is 
inward approbation and esteem. My 
lord Digby has in me a sincere servant, 
or would have, were there any occasion 
for me to manifest it. 



LETTER CXIII. 

From the same to the same. 

Bee. 28, ] 721. 
It is now the season to wish you a good 
end of one year, and a happy beginning 
of another ; but both these you know 
how to make yourself, by only continuing 
such a life as you have been long accus- 
tomed to lead. As for good works, they 
are things I dare not name, either to 
those that do them, or to those that do 
them not ; the first are too modest, and 
the latter too selfish to bear the mention 
of what are become either too old- 
fashioned or too private to constitute 
any part of the vanity or reputation of 
the present age. However, it were to 
be wished people would now and then 
look upon good works as they do upon 
old wardrobes, merely in case any of 
them should by chance come into fashion 
again ; as ancient fardingales revive in 
modern hooped petticoats (which may 
be properly compared to charities, as 
they cover a multitude of sins). 

They tell me, that at Coleshill certain 
antiquated charities and obsolete devo- 
tions are yet subsisting; that a thing 
called Christian cheerfulness (not incom- 
patible with Christmas pies and plum- 
broth), whereof frequent is the mention 
in old sermons and almanacks, is really 
kept alive and in practice ; that feeding 
the hungry and giving alms to the poor, 
do yet make a part of good house-keep- 



278 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book III. 



ing, in a latitude not more remote from 
London than fourscore miles ; and, 
lastly, that prayers and roast beef ac- 
tually make some people as happy as a 
whore and a bottle. But here in town, 
I assure you, men, women, and children 
have done with these things. Charity 
not only begins but ends at home. In- 
stead of the four cardinal virtues, now 
reign four courtly ones, who have cun- 
ning for prudence, rapine for justice, 
time-serving for fortitude, and luxury 
for temperance. Whatever you may 
fancy where you live in a state of igno- 
rance, and see nothing but quiet, re- 
ligion, and good-humour, the case is just 
as I tell you where people understand 
the world, and know how to live with 
credit and glory. 

I wish that Heaven would open the 
eyes of men, and make them sensible 
which of these is right ; whether, upon 
a due conviction, we are to quit faction, 
and gaming, and high feeding, and all 
manner of luxury, and to take to your 
country way? or you to leave prayers, 
and almsgiving, and reading, and exer- 
cise, and come into our measures ? I wish 
(I say) that this matter were as clear to 
all men as it is to your affectionate, &c. 

LETTER CXIV. 

Mr. Pope to Mr. Dighi/. 

April 21, 1726. 
Dear sir, 
I HAVE a great inclination to write to 
you, though I cannot by writing, any 
more than I could by words, express 
what part I bear in your sufferings. 
Nature and esteem in you are joined to 
aggravate your affliction ; the latter I 
have in a degree equal even to yours, and 
a tie of friendship approaches near to 
the tenderness of nature ; yet, God 
knows, no man living is less fit to com- 
fort you, as no man is more deeply sen- 
sible than myself of the greatness of the 
loss. That very virtue which secures 
his present state from all the sorrows in- 
cident to ours, does but aggrandize our 
sensation of its being removed from our 
sight, from our affection, and from our 
imitation ; for the friendship and so- 
ciety of good men does not only make 
us happier, but it makes us better. Their 
death does but complete their felicity 
before our own, who probably arc not 



yet arrived to that degree of perfection 
which may merit an immediate reward. 
That your dear brother and my dear 
friend was so, I take his very removal to 
be a proof : Providence would certainly 
lend virtuous men to a world that so 
much wants them, as long as in its 
justice to them it could spare them to 
us. May my soul be with those who 
have meant well, and have acted well to 
that meaning ; and, I doubt not, if this 
prayer be granted, I shall be with him. 
Let us preserve his memory in the way 
he would best like, by recollecting what 
his behaviour would have been, in every 
incident of our lives to come, and doing 
in each just as we think he would have 
done ; so we shall have him always be- 
fore our eyes, and in our minds, and 
(what is more) in our lives and m.anners. 
I hope, when we shall meet him next, 
we shall be more of a piece with him, 
and consequently not to be evermore se- 
parated from him. I will add but one 
word that relates to what remains of 
yourself and me, since so valued a part 
of us is gone : it is to beg you to accept 
as yours by inheritance of the vacancy 
he has left in a heart which (while he 
could fill it with such hopes, wishes, and 
affections for him as suited a mortal 
creature) was truly and warmly his ; and 
shall (I assure you in the sincerity of 
sorrow for my own loss) be faithfully at 
your service while I continue to love his 
memory, that is, while I continue to be 
myself. 

LETTER CXV. 

The Bishop of Rochester {Dr. Alterhiiry) 
to Mr, Pope. 

Dec. 1716. 
I REiuRN your preface*, which I have 
read twice with pleasure. The modesty 
and good sense there is in it, must please 
every one that reads it ; and since there 
is nothing that can offend, I see not 
why you should balance a moment about 
printing it, always provided that there 
is nothing said there which you may 
have occasion to unsay hereafter ; of 
which you yourself are the best and the 
only judge. This is my sincere opinion, 

* The general preface to Mr. Pope's poems, 
first printed in 1717, the year after the date 
of this letter. 



Sect. 1. 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



279 



wliicli I give because you ask it ; and 
which I ^yould not give, thoiig-h asked, 
but to a man I value as much as I do 
you ; being sensible how improper it is, 
on many accounts, for me to interpose 
in things of this nature ; which I never 
understood well, and now understand 
somewhat less than ever I did. But I 
can deny you nothing ; especially since 
you have had the goodness often and 
patiently to hear what I have said against 
rhyme, and in behalf of blank verse ; 
with little discretion perhaps, but, I am 
sure, without the least prejudice ; being 
myself equally incapable of writing well 
in either of those ways, and leaning, 
tlierefore, to neither side of the question, 
but as the appearance of reason inclines 
me. Forgive me this error, if it be one ; 
an error of above thirty years standing, 
and which, therefore, I shall be very 
loth to part with. In other matters 
which relate to polite w^riting, I shall 
seldom differ from you ; or, if I do, shall 
I hope have the prudence to conceal my 
opinion. I am as much as I ought to 
be, that is, as much as any man can be, 
your, Sec. 



LETTER GXVL 

Mr. Pope to the Bishop of Rochester. 

Sept. 23, 1720, 

I HOPE you have some time ago received 
the sulphur, and the two volumes of Mr. 
Gay, as instances (how small ones soever) 
that I wish you both health and diver- 
sion. TiTiat I now send for your perusal, 
I shall say nothing of ; not to forestall 
by a single word what you promised to 
say upon that subject. Your lordship 
may criticise from Mrgil to tlies© Tales ; 
as Solomon wrote of every thing from 
the cedar to the hyssop. I have some 
cause, since I last waited on you at 
Bromley, to look upon you as a prophet 
in that retreat, from whom oracles are 
to be had, were mankind wise enough 
to go thitlier to consult you : the fate of 
the South -Sea scheme has, much sooner 
than I expected, verified what you told 
me. Most people thought the time 
would come, but no man prepared for 
it ; no man considered it would come 
like a thief in the night, exactly as it 
ha})pcns in the case of our death! Me- 



thinks God has punished the avaricious, 
as he often punishes sinners, in their own 
way, in the very sin itself ; the thirst of 
gain was their crime, that thirst con- 
tinued, became their punishment and 
ruin. As for the few who have the good 
fortune to remain with half of what they 
imagined they had (among whom is your 
humble servant), I would have them sen- 
sible of their felicity, and convinced of 
the truth of old Hesiod's maxim, who, 
after half his estate was swallowed by the 
directors of those days, resolved that 
half to be more than the whole. 

Does not the fate of these people put 
you in mind of two passages, one in Job, 
the other from the Psalmist ? 

Men shall groan out of the city, and 
hiss them out of their place. 

They have dreamed out their dream, 
and awakening have found nothing in their 
hands. 

Indeed the universal poverty, which 
is the consequence of universal avarice, 
and which will fall hardest upon the 
guiltless and industrious part of man- 
kind, is truly lamentable. The univer- 
sal deluge of the South Sea, contrary to 
the old deluge, has drowned all except a 
few unrighteous men ; but it is some 
comfor'^ to me that I am not one of 
them, even though I were to survive 
and rule the world by it. I am much 
pleased with the thought of Dr. Arbuth- 
not's ; he says, the government and 
South Sea company have only locked up 
the money of the people, upon convic- 
tion of their lunacy (as is usual in the 
case of lunatics), and intend to restore 
them as much as may be fit for such 
people, as fast as they shall see them 
return to their senses. 

The latter part of your letter does 
me so much honour, and shews me so 
much kindness, that I must both be 
proud and pleased in a great degree ; 
but I assure you, raj lord, much more 
the last than the first. For I certainly 
know, and feel, from my own heart, 
which truly respects you, that there 
may be a ground for your partiality one 
way ; but I find not the least symptoms 
in my head of any foundation for the 
other. In a word, the best reason I know 
for my being pleased is, that you con- 
tinue your favour towards me ; the best 
I know for being proud, Avould be, that 
you might cure me of it ; for 1 liave 
found you to be such a physician as 



^80 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



BcroK 111 



does not only repair but improve. I 
am, with the sincerest esteem and most 
grateful acknowledgment, your, &c. 



LETTER CXVIL 

The Bishop of Rochester to Mr, Pope. 

The Arabian Tales, and Mr. Gay's 
books, I received not till Monday night, 
together with your letter ; for which I 
thank you. I have had a fit of the gout 
upon me ever since I returned hither 
from Westminster on Saturday night 
last ; it has found its way into my hands 
as well as legs, so that 1 have been 
utterly incapable of writing. This is the 
first letter that 1 have ventured upon ; 
which will be written, 1 fear, vacillanti- 
bus Uteris, as Tully says Tyro's letters 
were after his recovery from an illness. 
What I said to you in mine about the 
Monument, was intended only to quicken, 
not alarm you. It is not worth your 
while to know what I meant by it : but 
when I see you, you shall. I hope you 
may be at the Deanery towards the end 
of October; by which time I think of 
settling there for the winter. What do 
you think of sofne such short inscription as 
this in Latin, which may, in a few words, 
say all that is to be said of Dryden, and 
yet nothing more than he deserves ? 

JOHANNI DRYDENO, 

CVI POESIS ANGLICANA 

VIM SVABI AC VENERES DEBET ; 

ET SIQVA IN POSTERVM AVGEBITVR 

LAVDE, 

EST ADHVC DEBITVRA : 

HONORIS ERGO P. &C. 

To shew you that I am as much in 
earnest in the affair as yourself, some- 
thing I will send you too of this kind in 
English. If your design holds, of fixing 
Dry den's name only below, and his busto 
above — may not lines like these be graved 
just under the name ? 

This Sheffield rais'd, to Dryden's ashes just, 
Here fix'd his name, and there his laurel'd 

bust. 
What else the Muse in marble might express, 
Is known already j praise would make him less. 

Or iShus — 

More needs not ; where acknowledg'd merits 

reign. 
Praise is impertinent, and censure vain. 



This you will take as a proof of my 
zeal at least, though it be none of my 
talent in poetry. When you have read 
it over, I will forgive you if you should 
not once in your life-time again think 
of it. 

And now, sir, for your Arabian Talesv 
111 as I have been almost ever since 
they came to hand, I have read as much 
of them as ever I shall read while I live. 
Indeed they do not please my taste ; 
they are writ with so romantic an air, 
and, allowing for the difference of East- 
ern manners, are yet, upon any supposi- 
tion that can be made, of so wild and 
absurd a contrivance (at least to my 
Northern understanding), that I have not 
only no pleasure, but no patience in 
perusing them. They are to me like 
the odd paintings on Indian screens, 
which at first glance may surprise and 
please a little ; but when you fix your 
eye intently upon them, they appear so 
extravagant, disproportioned, and mon- 
strous, that they give a judicious eye 
pain, and make him seek for relief from 
some other object. 

They may furnish the mind with some 
new images ; but I think the purchase 
is made at too great an expense : for to 
read those two volumes through, liking 
them little as I do, would be a terrible 
penance ; and to read them with pleasure 
would be dangerous on the other side, 
because of the infection. I will never 
believe that you have any keen relish of 
them, till I find you write worse than 
you do ; which, I dare say, I never shaU. 
Who that Petit de la Croise is, the pre- 
tended author of them, I cannot tell : 
but observing how full they are in the 
descriptions of dress, furniture, &c., I 
cannot lielp thinking them the product 
of some woman's imagination : and be- 
lieve iij\e, I would do any thing but break 
with you, rather than be bound to read 
them over with attention. 

I am sorry that I was so true a prophet 
in respect to the South Sea ; sorry, I 
mean, as far as your loss is concerned ; 
for in the general I ever was and still 
am of opinion, that had that project 
taken root and flourished, it Avould by 
degrees have overturned our constitu- 
tion. Three or four hundred millions 
was such a weight, that whichsoever 
way it had leaned, must have borne 
down all before it. But of the dead we 
must speak gently ; and therefore, as 



Sbct. I. 



MODERN, OF LATfi DATE. 



281 



Mr. Dry den says somewhere, Peace be 
to its manes ! 

Let me add one reflection, to make 
you easy in your ill luck. Had you got 
all that you have lost beyond what you 
ventured, consider that your superfluous 
gains would have sprung from the ruin 
of several families that now want neces- 
saries : a thought, under which a good 
and good-natured man, that grew rich by 
such means, could not, I persuade my- 
self, be perfectly easy. Adieu, and be- 
lieve me ever your, &c. 



LETTER CXVIIL 

FroTH the same to the same. 

March 26, 1721. 
You are not yourself gladder you are 
well than I am ; especially since I can 
please myself with the thought, that when 
you had lost your health elsewhere, you 
recovered it here. May these lodgings 
never treat you worse, nor you at any 
time have less reason to be fond of 
them ! 

I thank you for the sight of your 
verses* ; and with the freedom of an 
honest, though perhaps injudicious 
friend, must tell you, that though I 
could like some of them, if they were 
any body's else but yours, yet as they 
are yours, and to be owned as such, I 
can scarce like any of them. Not but 
that the four first lines are good, espe- 
cially the second couplet ; and might, if 
followed by four others as good, give re- 
putation to a writer of a less established 
fame ; but from you I expect something 
of a more perfect kind, and which the 
oftener it is read, the more it will be ad- 
mired. When you barely exceed other 
writers, you fall m\ich beneath yourself : 
it is your misfortune now to write with- 
out a rival, and to be tempted by that 
means to be more careless than you 
would otherwise be in your composures. 

Thus much I could not forbear saying, 
though I have a motion of consequence 
in the House of Lords to-day, and must 
prepare for it. I am even with you for 
your ill paper ; for I write upon worse, 
having no other at hand. I wish you 
the continuance of your health most 
heartily ; and am ever your, &c. 

* Epitaph on Mr. Harcourt. 



I have sent Dr. Arbuthnot the Latin 
MS.f which I could not find when you 
left me ; and I am so angry at the writer 
for his design, and his manner of execu- 
ting it, that I could hardly forbear send- 
ing him a line of Virgil along with it. 
The chief reasoner of that philosophic 
farce is a Gallo Ligur, as he is called — 
what that means in English or French, 
I cannot say ; but all he says is in so 
loose, and slippery, and ticklish a way of 
reasoning, that 1 could not forbear ap- 
plying the passage of Virgil to him, 

fane LiguT,frustraque animis elate superbis ! 
Nequicquam patrias tentasti luhricus artes — 

To be serious, I hate to see a book gravely 
written, and in all the forms of argumen- 
tation, which proves nothing, and which 
says nothing ; and endeavours only to 
put us into a way of distrusting our own 
faculties, and doubting whether the 
marks of truth and falsehood can in any 
case be distinguished from each other. 
Could that blessed point be made out 
(as it is a contradiction in terms to say 
it can) we should then be in the most 
uncomfortable and wretched state in the 
world ; and I would in that case be glad 
to exchange my reason with a dog for 
his instinct to-morrow. 



LETTER CXIX. 

Lord Chancellor Harcourt to Mr. Pope. 

December 6, 1722. 
I CANNOT but suspect myself of being 
very unreasonable in begging you once 
more to review the inclosed. Your 
friendship draws this trouble on you. I 
may freely own to you, that my tender- 
ness makes me exceeding hard to be sa- 
tisfied with any thing which can be said 
on such an unhappy subject. I caused 
the Latin epitaph to be as often altered 
before I could approve of it. 

When once your epitaph is set up, 
there can be no alteration of it, it will 

f Written by Huetius bishop of Avranches. 
He was a mean reasoner j as may be seen by a 
vast collection of fanciful and extravagant con- 
jectures, which he called a demonstration j 
mixed up with much reading, which his friends 
called learning, and delivered (by the allowance 
of all) in good Latin. This not being received 
for what he would give it, he composed a trea- 
tise on the weakness of the human understand- 
ing: a poor system of scepticism : indeed little 
other than an abstract from Sextus Empiricus. 

WaU BURTON. 



282 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book Hi. 



remain a perpetual monument of your 
friendship : and, I assure myself, you will 
so settle it, that it shall be worthy of you. 
I doubt whether the word deny'd, in the 
third line, will justly admit of that con- 
struction, which it ought to bear; viz. 
renounced, deserted, &c. Dmyd is capa- 
ble, in my opinion, of having an ill sense 
put upon it, as too great uneasiness, or 
more good-nature than a wise man ought 
to have. I very well remember you told 
me, you could scarce mend those two 
lines, and therefore I can scarce expect 
your forgiveness for my desiring you to 
reconsider them. 

Harconrt stands dumb, and Pope is forc'd to 
speak. 

I cannot perfectly, at least without fur- 
ther discoursing you, reconcile myself 
to the first part of that line ; and the 
word forc'd (which was my own, and, I 
persuade myself, for that reason only 
submitted to by you) seems to carry too 
doubtful a construction for an epitaph, 
which, as I apprehend, ought as easily 
to be understood as read. I shall ac- 
knowledge it as a very particular favour, 
if at your best leisure you will peruse the 
inclosed, and vary it, if you think it ca- 
pable of being amended, and let me see 
you any morning next week. I am, &c. 



LETTER CXX. 

The Bishop of Rochester to Mr. Pope. 

Sept. 27, 1721. 
I AM now confined to my bed-chamber, 
and to the matted room, wherein I am 
writing, seldom venturing to be carried 
down even into the parlour to dinner, 
unless when company, to whom I can- 
not excuse myself, comes, which I am 
not ill pleased to find is now very 
seldom. This is my case in the sunny 
part of the year : — what must I expect 
when 

In'cenum cuntristat Aquarius aniium ? 

*' If these things be done in the green 
tree, what shall be done in the dry ?" Ex- 
cuse me for employing a sentence of 
Scripture on this occasion ; I apply it 
very seriously. One thing relieves me a 
little, under the ill prospect I have of 
spending my time at the Deanery this 
winter 5 that I shall have the opportunity 



of seeing you oftener; though, I am 
afraid, you will have little pleasure in 
seeing me there. So much for my ill 
state of health, v/hich I had not touched 
on, had not your friendly letter been so 
full of it. One civil thing, that you say 
in it, made me think you had been read- 
ing Mr. Waller ; and possessed of that 
image at the end of his copy, a la malade, 
had you not bestowed it on one who has 
no right to the least part of the character. 
If you have not read the verses lately, 
I am sure you remember them, because 
you forget nothing. 

With such a grace you entertain, 

And look with such cantenipt on pain, &c. 

I mention them not on the account 
of that couplet, but one that follows ; 
which ends with the very same rhymes 
and words {appear and clear) that the 
couplet but one after that does ; — and 
therefore in my Waller there is a various 
reading of the first of these couplets ; 
for there it runs thus : 

So lightnings in a stormy air 

Scorch more than when the sky is fair. 

You will say that I am not very much in 
pain, nor very busy, when I can relish 
these amusements ; and you will say 
true : for at present I am in both these 
respects very easy. 

I had not strength enough to attend 
Mr. Prior to his grave, else I would have 
done it, to have shewed his friends that 
I had forgot and forgiven what he wrote 
on me. He is buried, as he desired, at 
the feet of Spenser ; and I will take care 
to make good in every respect what I 
said to him when living ; particularly as 
to the triplet he wrote for his own epi- 
taph ; which, while we were in good 
terms, I promised him should never ap- 
pear on his tomb while I was dean of 
Westminster. 

I am pleased to find you have so much 
pleasure, and (which is the foundation 
of it) so much health at lord Bathurst's : 
may both continue till I see you ! May 
my lord have as mvich satisfaction in 
building the house in the wood, and 
using it when built, as you have in de- 
signing it ! I cannot send a wish after 
him that means him more happiness ; 
and yet, I am sure, I wish him as much 
as he wishes himself. 1 am, &c. 



Sect. I. 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



283 



LETTER CXXL 

From the same to the same. 

Bromley, Oct. 13, 172:. 

Notwithstanding I write this on Sun- 
day even, to acknowledge the receipt of 
yours this morning*; yet, I foresee, it 
will not reach you till Wednesday morn- 
ing ; and hefore set of sun that day I 
hope to reach my winter quarters at the 
Deanery. I hope, did I say? I recal 
that word, for it implies desire ; and, 
God knows, that is far from being the 
case : for I never part with this place but 
with regret, though I generally keep here 
what Mr. Cowley calls the worst of com- 
pany in the world, — my own; and see 
either none beside, or what is worse than 
none, some of the Arrii or Sehosi of my 
neighbourhood : characters which TuUy 
paints so well in one of his epistles, and 
complains of the too civil, but imperti- 
nent, interruption they gave him in his 
retirement. Since I have named those 
gentlemen, and the book is not far from 
me, I will turn to the place, and, by 
pointing it out to you, give you the plea- 
sure of perusing the epistle, which is a 
very agreeable one, if my memory does 
not fail me. 

I am surprised to find that my lord 
Bathurst and you are parted so soon : he 
has been sick, I know, of some late trans- 
actions ; but should that sickness con- 
tinue still in some measure, I prophesy 
it will be quite off by the beginning of 
November ; a letter or two from his 
London friends, and a surfeit of solitude, 
will soon make him chang"e his resolu- 
tion and his quarters. I vow to you, I 
could live here with pleasure all the 
v/inter, and be contented with hearing 
no more news than the London Journal, 
or some such trifling paper affords me, 
did not the duty of my place require, 
absolutely require, my attendance at 
Westminster ; where, I hope the Prophet 
will now and then remember he has a 
bed and a candlestick. In short, I long 
to see you, and hope you will come, if 
not a day, yet at least an hour sooner 
to town than you intended, in order to 
afford me that satisfaction. I am now, 
I thank God, as well as ever I was in 
my life, except that I can walk scarce at 
all without crutches : and I would wil- 
lingly compound the matter with the 
gout, to be no better, could 1 Jiopc to 



be no worse ; but that is a vain thought. 
I expect a new attack long before Christ- 
mas. Let me see you, therefore, while 
I am in a condition to relish you, before 
the days (and the nights) come, when I 
shall (and must) say, 1 have no pleasure 
in them. 

I will bring your small volume of Pas- 
torals along with me, that you may not 
be discouraged from lending me books, 
when you find me so punctual in return- 
ing them. Shakspeare shall bear it 
company, and be put into your hands as 
clear and as fair as it came out of them, 
though you, I think, have been dabbling 
here and there with the text ; I have had 
more reverence for the writer and the 
printer, and left every thing standing 
just as I found it. However, I thank 
you for the pleasure you have given me 
in putting me upon reading him once 
more before I die. 

1 believe I shall scarce repeat that 
pleasure any more, having other work 
to do, and other things to think of, but 
none that will interfere with the offices 
of friendship ; in the exchange of which 
with you, sir, I hope to live and die 
your, &c. 

P. S. Addison's Works came to my 
hands yesterday. I cannot but think it 
a very odd set of incidents, that the 
book should be dedicated by a dead 
man * to a dead man f ; and even that 
the new patron J, to whom Tickell chose 
to inscribe his verses, should be dead 
also before they were published. Had I 
been in the editor's place, I should have 
been a little apprehensive for myself, 
under a thought that every one who had 
any hand in that work was to die before 
the publication of it. You see, when I 
am conversing with you, I know not how 
to give over, till the very bottom of the 
paper admonishes me once more to bid 
you adieu ! 

LETTER CXXn. 

Blr. Pope to the Bishop of Rochester, 

Feb. 8, 1721-2. 
My lord, 
It is so long since I had the pleasure 
of an hour with your lordship, that I 



^- Mr. Addison. 
t Lord Warwick, 



t Mr. Crag! 



284 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IIL 



should begin to think myself no longer 
Amicus omnium horarum, but for finding" 
myself so in my constant thoughts of you. 
In those I was with you many hours this 
very day, and had you (where I wish 
and hope one day to see you really) in my 
garden at Twit'nam. When I went last 
to town and was on wing for the Deanery, 
I heard your lordship was gone the day 
before to Bromley ; and there you con- 
tinued till after my return hither. I sin- 
cerely wish you whatever you wish your- 
self, and all you wish your friends or fa- 
mily. All I mean by this word or two, 
is just to tell you so, till in person I find 
you as I desire, that is, find you well : 
easy, resigned, and happy, you will make 
yourself, and (I believe) every body that 
converses with you ; if I may judge of 
your power over other men's minds and 
affections, by that which you will ever 
have over those of your, &c. 

LETTER CXXin. 

The Bishop of Rochester to Mr. Pope. 
Feb. 20, 1721-2. 
Permit me, dear sir, to break into your 
retirement, and to desire of you a com- 
plete copy of those verses on Mr. Addi- 
son* ; send me also your last resolution, 
which shall punctually be observed in re- 
lation to my giving out any copy of it ; 
for I am again solicited by another lord, 
to whom I have given the same answer 
as formerly. No small piece of your 
writing has been ever sought after so 
much : it has pleased every man without 
exception, to whom it has been read. 
Since you now therefore know where 
your real strength lies, I hope you will 
not suffer that talent to lie unemployed. 
For my part I should be so glad to see 
you finish something of that kind, that I 
could be content to be a little sneered at 
in a line or so, for the sake of the plea- 
sure I should have in reading the rest. 
I have talked ray sense of this matter to 
you once or twice, and now I put it un- 
der my hand, that you may see it is my 
deliberate opinion. What weight that 
may have with you I cannot say ; but it 
pleases me to have an opportunity of 
shewing you how well I wish you, and 
how true a friend 1 am to your fame, 
which I desire may grow every day, and 

* An imperfect copy was got out, very much 
to the author's surprise, who never would give 
any. 



in every kind of writing to which you 
shall please to turn your pen. Not but 
that I have some little interest in the pro- 
posal, as I shall be known to have been 
acquainted with a man that was capa- 
ble of excelling in such different man- 
ners, and did such honour to his country 
and language ; and yet was not dis- 
pleased sometimes to read what was 
written by his humble servant. 

LETTER CXXIV. 

Mr. Pope to the Bishop of Rochester. 
March 14, 1721-2. 
I WAS disappointed (much more than 
those who commonly use that phrase on 
such occasions) in missing you at the 
Deanery, where I lay solitary two nights. 
Indeed 1 truly partake in any degree of 
concern that affects you, and 1 wish every 
thing may succeed as you desire in your 
own family, and in that which, I think, 
you no less account your own, and is no 
less your family, the whole world : for I 
take you to be one of the true friends of 
it, and to your power its protector. 
Though the noise and daily bustle for the 
public be now over, I dare say, a good 
man is still tendering its welfare ; as the 
sun in the winter, when seeming to re- 
tire from the world, is preparing bene- 
dictions and warmth for a better season. 
No man wishes your lordship more quiet, 
more tranquillity, than I, who know 
you should understand the value of it ; 
but I do not wish you a jot less con- 
cerned or less active than you are, in all 
sincere, and therefore warm, desires of 
public good. 

I beg the kindness (and it is for that 
chiefly I trouble you with this letter) to 
favour me with notice as soon as you re- 
turn to London, that I may come and 
make you a proper visit of a day or two : 
for hitherto I have not been your visitor, 
but your lodger ; and I accuse myself of 
it. I have now no earthly thing to oblige 
my being in town (a point of no small 
satisfaction to me), but the best reason, 
the seeing a friend. As long, my lord, 
as you will let me call you so (and I dare 
say you wiU, till I forfeit what, I think, 
I never shall, my^veracity and integrity), 
I shall esteem myself fortunate, in spite 
of the South Sea, poetry, popery, and 
poverty. 

I cannot tell you how sorry I am you 
should be troubled anew by any sort of 



Sect. I. 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



people. I heartily wish, Suod suj erest 
ut tibi vivas — that you may teach me 
how to do the same ; who, without any 
real impediment to acting and living 
rightly, do act and live as foolishly as if 
I were a great man. I am, &c. 

LETTER CXXV. 

The Bishop of Rochester to Mr. Pope. 
March 16, 1721-2, 
As a visitant, a lodger, a friend (or 
under what other denomination soever), 
you are always welcome to me ; and will 
be more so, I hope, every day that we 
live ; for, to tell you the truth, I like 
you as I like myself, best when we have 
both of us least business. It has been 
my fate to be engaged in it much and 
often, by the stations in which I was 
placed ; but God, that knows my heart, 
knows I never loved it ; and am still less 
in love with it than ever, as I find less 
temptation to act with any hope of suc- 
cess. If I am good for any thing, it 
is in angulo cum libello ; and yet a good 
part of my time has been spent, and per- 
haps must be spent, far otherwise. For 
I will never, while I have health, be 
wanting to my duty in my post, or in 
any respect, how little soever I may like 
my employment, and how hopeless soever 
I may be in the discharge of it. 

In the mean time, the judicious world 
is pleased to think that I delight in work 
which 1 am obliged to undergo, and aim 
at things which I from my heart despise ; 
let them think as they will, so I might 
be at liberty to act as I will, and spend 
my time in such a manner as is most 
agreeable to me. I cannot say I do so 
now, for I am here without any books, 
and if I had them could not use them to 
my satisfaction, while my mind is taken 
up in a more melancholy manner* ; and 
how long, or how little a while, it may 
be so taken up, God only knows ; and 
to his will I implicitly resign myself in 
every thing. I am, &c. 

LETTER CXXVI. 

Mr. Pope to the Bishop of Rochester. 

March 19, 1721-2. 

My lord, 

I AM extremely sensible of the repeated 

favour of your kind letters, and your 

thoughts of me in absence, even among 

* In his lady's last illness. 



thoughts of much nearer concern to 
yourself on the one hand, and of much 
more importance to the world on the 
other, which cannot but engage you at 
this juncture. I am very certain of your 
good-will, and of the warmth which is in 
you inseparable from it. 

Your remembrance of Twickenham is 
a fresh instance of that partiality. I 
hope the advance of the fine season will 
set you upon youi* legs, enough to enable 
you to get into my garden, where I will 
carry you up a mount, in a point of view 
to shew you the glory of my little king- 
dom. If you approve it, I shall be in 
danger to boast, like Nebuchadnezzar, of 
the things I have made, and to be turned 
to converse, not with the beasts of the 
field, but with the birds of the grove, 
which I shall take to be no great punish- 
ment : for indeed I heartily despise the 
ways of the world, and most of the great 
ones of it. 
Oh, keep me innocent, make others great ! 

And you may judge how comfortably I 
am strengthened in this opinion when 
such as your lordship bear testimony to 
its vanity and emptiness. Tinnit, inane 
est, with a picture of one ringing on the 
globe with his finger, is the best thing I 
have the luck to remember in that great 
poet Quarles (not that I forget the devil 
at bowls ; which I know to be your lord- 
ship's favourite cut, as well as favourite 
diversion). 

The situation here is pleasant, and the 
view rural enough to humour the most 
retired, and agree with the most con- 
templative. Good air, solitary groves, 
and sparing diet, sufficient to make you 
fancy yourself (what you are in temper- 
ance, though elevated into a greater 
figure by your station), one of the fathers 
of the desert. Here you may think (to 
use an author's words, whom you so 
justly prefer to all his followers, that you 
will receive them kindly, though taken 
from his worst work f) 

That in Elijah's banquet you partake. 
Or sit a guest with Daniel, at his pulse. 

I am sincerely free with you, as you 
desire I should; and approve of your 
not having your coach here ; for if you 
would see lord C — , or any body else, I 
have another chariot, besides that little 
one you laughed at when you compared 

f The Paradise Regained. 



^286 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IIL 



me to Homer in a nutshell. But if you 
would he entirely private, nobody shall 
know any thing of the matter. Believe 
me, my lord, no man is with more per- 
fect acquiescence, nay, with more willing 
acquiescence (not even any of your own 
sons of the church), your obedient, &c. 

LETTER CXXVn. 

The Bishop of Rochester to BIr. Pope. 

April 6, 1722. 
Under all the leisure in the world, I 
have no leisure, no stomach to write 
to you : the gradual approaches of death 
are before my eyes. I am convinced 
that it must be so ; and yet make a shift 
to flatter myself sometimes with the 
thought, that it may possibly be other- 
wise : and that very thought, though it 
is directly contrary to my reason, does 
for a few moments make me easy : how- 
ever, not easy enough in good earnest to 
think of any thing but the melancholy 
object that employs them. Therefore 
wonder not that I do not answer your 
kind letter : I shall answer it too soon, I 
fear, by accepting your friendly invita- 
tion. When I do so, no conveniences will 
be wanting ; for I will see nobody but 
you and your mother, and the servants. 
Visits to statesmen always were to me 
(and are now more than ever) insipid 
things : let the men that expect, that 
wish to thrive by them, pay them that 
homage ; I am free. When I want 
them, they shall hear of me at their 
doors ; when they want me, I shall be 
sure to hear of them at mine. But pro- 
bably they will despise me so much, and 
I shall court tliem so little, that we shall 
both of us keep our distance. 

When I come to you, it is in order to 
be with you only. A president of the 
council, or a star and garter, will make 
no more impression upon my mind, at 
such a time, than the hearing of a bag- 
pipe, or the sight of a puppet-show. I 
have said to greatness some time ago, 
Tuas tihi res haheto, egomet curuho meas. 
The time is not far off when we shall all 
be upon the level ; and I am resolved, 
for my part, to anticipate that time, and 
be upon the level v/ith them now ; for 
he is so that neither seeks nor wants 
them. Let them have more virtue 
and less pride ; and then I will court 
ihem as much as any body ; but till they 



resolve to distinguish themselves some 
way else than by their outward trappings, 
I am determined (and, I think, I have a 
right) to be as proud as they are : though, 
I trust in God, my pride is neither of so 
odious a nature as theirs, nor of so mis- 
chievous a consequence. 

I know not how I have fallen into this 
train of thinking : when I sat down to 
write, I intended only to excuse myself 
for not writing, and to tell you that the 
t'me drew nearer and nearer when I 
must dislodge : I am preparing for it ; 
for I am at this moment building a vault 
in the Abbey for me and mine. It was 
to be in the Abbey, because of my rela- 
tion to the place ; but it is at the west 
door of it ; as far from kings and Caesars 
as the space would admit of. 

I know not but I may step to town 
tomorrow to see how the work goes for- 
ward ; but if I do I shall return hither in 
the evening. I would not have given 
you the trouble of this letter, but that 
they tell me it will cost you nothing; 
and that our privilege of franking (one 
of the most valuable we have left) is 
again allowed us. Your, &c. 

LETTER CXXVIII. 

From the same to the same. 

Bromley, May 25, 1722. 
I HAD much ado to get hither last night, 
the water being so rough that the ferry- 
men were unwilling to venture. The 
first thing I saw this morning, after my 
eyes were open, was your letter, for the 
freedom and kindness of which I thank 
you.^ Let all compliments be laid aside 
between us for the future ; and depend 
upon me as your faithful friend in all 
things within my power, as one that 
truly values you, and wishes you all 
manner of happiness. I thank you and 
Mrs. Pope for my kind reception ; which 
has left a pleasing impression upon me, 
that will not soon be effaced. 

Lord has pressed me terribly to 

see him at ; and told me, in a man- 
ner betwixt kindness and resentment, 
that it is but a few miles beyond Twit- 
enham. 

I have but a little' 'time left, and a 
great deal to do in it ; and must expect 
that ill health will render a good share 
of it useless ; and therefore what is like- 
ly to be left at the foot of the account, 



Sect. I. 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



287 



ought by me to be cherished, and not 
thrown away in compliments. You 
know the motto of my sun-dial, Vivite, 
ait, fugio. I will, as far as I am able, 
follow its advice, and cut off all unneces- 
sary avocations and amusements. There 
are those that intend to employ me this 
winter in a way I do not like ; if they 
persist in their intentions, I must apply 
myself to the work they cut out for me, 
as well as I can. But withal, that shall 
not hinder me from employing- myself 
also in a way which they do not like. 
The givers of trouble one day shall have 
their share of it another ; that at last 
they may be induced to let me be quiet, 
and live to myself, with the few (the very 
few) friends I like : for that is the point, 
the single point, I now aim at ; though 
I know the generality of the world, who 
are unacquainted with my intentions 
and views, think the very reverse of this 
character belongs to me. I do not know 
how I have rambled into this account of 
myself: when I sat down to write, I had 
no thought of making that any part of 
my letter. 

You might have been siu-e, without 
my telling you, that my right hand is at 
ease, else I should not have overflowed 
at this rate : and yet I have not done ; 
for there is a kind intimation in the 
end of yours, which I understood, be- 
cause it seems to tend towards employ- 
ing me in something that is agreeable to 
you. Pray explain yom-self, and believe 
that you have not an acquaintance in the 
world that would be more in earnest on 
such an occasion than I ; for 1 love you, 
as well as esteem you. 

All the while I have been writing, 
pain, and a fine thrush, have been seve- 
rally endeavouring to call off my atten- 
tion, but both in vain ; nor should I yet 
part with you, but that the turning over 
a new leaf flights me a little, and makes 
me resolve to break through a new 
temptation before it has taken too fast 
hold on me. I am, &c. 

LETTER CXXIX. 

Fro77i the sanie to the same. 

Jane 15, 1722. 

You have generally written first, after 
our parting ; I will now be beforehand 
with you in ray inquiries, How you got 
home, and how vou do, and whether you 



met with lord , and delivered my 

civil reproach to him, in the manner I 
desired ? I suppose you did not, because 
I have heard nothing either from you or 
from him, on that head; as, I suppose, I 
might have done, if you had found him. 

i am sick of these men of quality ; and 
the more so, the oftener I have any busi- 
ness to transact with them. Tliey look 
upon it as one of their distinguishing 
privileges, not to be punctual in any 
business, of how great importance so- 
ever ; nor to set other people at ease, with 
the loss of the least part of their own. 
Tliis conduct of his vexes me ; but to 
what purpose ? or how can I alter it ? 

I long to see the original IMS of Mil- 
ton ; but do not know how to come at 
it without youi' repeated assistance. 

I hope you will not utterly forget what 
passed in the coach about Samson Ago- 
nistes. I shall not press you as to time ; 
but some time or other I wish you would 
review and polish that piece. If upon 
a new perusal of it (which I desire you 
to make) you think as I do, that it is 
written in the very spirit of the ancients, 
it deserves your care, and is capable of 
being improved, with little trouble, into 
a perfect model and standard of tragic 
poeti-y — always allowing for its being a 
story taken out of the Bible, which is an 
objection, that, at this time of day, T 
know, is not to be got over. I am, &c. 

LETTER CXXX, 

From the same to the same. 

The Tov.er, April 10, 1723. 
Dear sir, 
I THANK you for all the instances of 
your friendship, both before and since 
my misfortunes. A little time will com- 
plete them, and separate you and me 
for ever. But in what part of tlie world 
soever I am, I will live mindful of your 
sincere kindness to me ; and Tvill please 
myself with the thought, that I still live 
in your esteem and affection as much as 
ever I did ; and that no accident of life, 
no distance of time or place, will alter 
you in that respect. It never can me ; 
who have loved and valued you ever 
since I knew you, and shall not fail to 
do it when I am not allowed to tell you 
so ; as the case will soon be. Give my 
faithful services to Dr. Arbuthnot, and 
thanks for \^'hat he sent me, which was 



288 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book ML 



much to the purpose, if any thing can 
be Baid to be to the purpose, in a case 
that is ah*eady determined. Let him 
know my defence will be such, that nei- 
ther my friends need blush for me, nor 
will my enemies have great occasion of 
tariumph, though sure of the victory. I 
shall want his advice before I go abroad, 
in many things ; but I question whether 
I shall be permitted to see him, or any 
body, but such as are absolutely neces- 
sary towards the dispatch of my private 
affairs. If so, God bless you both ; and 
may no part of the ill fortune that at- 
tends me, ever pursue either of you ! I 
know not but I may call upon you at 
my hearing, to say somewhat about my 
way of spending my time at the Deanery, 
which did not seem calculated towards 
managing plots and conspiracies. But 
of that I shall consider. You and I have 
spent many hours together upon much 
pleasanter subjects : and that I may pre- 
serve the old custom, I shall not part 
with you now till I have closed this let- 
ter with three lines of Milton, which you 
will, I know, readily, and not without 
some degree of concern, apply to your 
ever affectionate, &c. 

Some nat'ral tears he dropt, but wip'd them 

soon; 
The world was all before him, where to choose 
His place of rest, and Providence his guide. 



LETTER CXXXL 

Mr. Pope to the bishop of Rochester. 

April 20, 1723. 
It is not possible to express what I 
think, and what I feel ; only this, that 
I have thought and felt for nothing but 
you, for some time past ; and shall think 
of nothing so long for the time to come. 
The greatest comfort I had was an inten- 
tion (which I would have made practi- 
cable) to have attended you in your 
journey, to which I had brought that 
per-son to consent, who only could have 
hindered me, by a tie which, though it 
may be more tender, I do not think more 
strong, than that of friendship. But I 
fear there will be no way left me to tell 
you this great truth. That 1 remember 
you, that I love you, that I am grateful 
to you, that I entirely esteem and value 
you ; no way but that one, which needs 
no open warrant to authorize it, or se- 
cret conveyance to secure it; which no 



bills can preclude, and no kings prevent ; 
a way that can reach to any part of the 
world, where you may be, where the 
very whisper, or even the wish, of a 
friend must not be heard, or even sus- 
pected ; by this way I dare tell my es- 
teem and affection of you to your ene- 
mies in the gates ; and you, and they, 
and their sons, may hear of it. 

You prove yourself, my lord, to know 
me for the friend I am, in judging that 
the manner of your defence, and your 
reputation by it, is a point of the high- 
est concern to me ; and assuring me it 
shall be such, that none of your friends 
shall blush for you. Let me further 
prompt you to do yourself the best and 
most lasting justice : the instruments of 
your fame to posterity will be in your 
own hands. May it not be, that Provi- 
dence has appointed you to some great 
and useful work, and calls you to it this 
severe way ? You may more eminently 
and more effectually serve the public, 
even now, than in the stations you have 
so honourably filled. Think of Tully, 
Bacon, and Clarendon"* ; is it not the 
latter, the disgraced part of their lives, 
which you most envy, and which you 
would choose to have lived ? 

I am tenderly sensible of the wish you 
express, that no part of your misforttme 
may pursue me. But, God knows, I am 
every day less and less fond of my native 
country (so torn as it is by party-rage), 
and begin to consider a friend in exile 
as a friend m death ; one gone before, 
where I am not unwilling nor unpre- 
pared to follow after ; and where (how- 
ever various or uncertain the roads and 
voyages of another world may be) I 
cannot but entertain a pleasing hope 
that we may meet again. 

I faithfully assure you, that in the 
mean time there is no one, living or 
dead, of whom I shall think oftener or 
better than of you. I shall look upon 
you as in a state between both, in which 
you will have from me all the passions 
and warm wishes that can attend the 
living, and all the respect and tender 
sense of loss that we feel for the dead : 
and I shall ever depend upon your con- 
stant friendship, kind memory, and good 
offices, though I were never to see or 

* Clarendon indeed wrote his best works in 
his banishment; but the best of Bacon's were 
written before his disgrace ; and the best of 
Tully's after his return from exile. 



Sect. I. 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



hear the effects of them; like the trust 
we have in benevolent spirits, who, 
though we never see or hear them, we 
think are constantly serving us, and 
praying for us. 

Whenever I am wishing to write to 
you, I shall conclude you are intention- 
ally doing so to me ; and every time that 
I think of you, I will believe you are 
thinking of me. I never shall suffer to 
be forgotten (nay, to be but faintly re- 
membered), the honour, the pleasure, 
the pride I must ever have, in reflecting 
how frequently you have delighted me, 
how kindly you have distinguished me, 
how cordially you have advised me ! In 
conversation, in study, I shall always 
want you, and wish for you ; in my most 
lively, and in my most thoughtful hours, 
I shall equally bear about me the im- 
pressions of you ; and perhaps it will not 
be in this life only that I shall have 
cause to remember and acknowledge the 
friendship of the bishop of Rochester. 
I am, &c. 



LETTER CXXXIL 

From the same to the same. 

May, 1723. 

Once more T write to you, as I pro- 
mised ; and this once 1 fear will be 
the last ; the curtain will soon be drawn 
between my friend and me, and nothing 
left but to Avish you a long good-night. 
May you enjoy a state of repose in this 
life, not unlike that sleep of the soul 
which some have believed is to succeed 
it, where we lie utterly forgetful of that 
world from which we are gone, and 
ripening for that to which we are to go ! 
If you retain any memory of the past, let 
it only image to you what has pleased 
you best ; sometimes present a dream of 
an absent friend, or bring you back an 
agreeable conversation. But upon the 
whole, I hope you will think less of the 
time past than of the future ; as the 
former has been less kind to you than the 
latter infallibly will be. Do not envy the 
world your studies ; they will tend to the 
benefit of men, against whom you can 
have no complaint, — I mean of all poste- 
rity ; and perhaps, at your time of life, 
nothing else is worth your care. What 
is every year of a wise man's life but 
a censure or critic on the past } Those 



whose date is the shortest live long 
enough to laugh at one half of it ; the 
boy despises the infant, the man the boy, 
the philosopher both, and the Christian 
all. You may now begin to think your 
manhood was too much a puerility ; and 
you will never suffer your age to be but 
a second infancy. The toys and baubles 
of your childhood are hardly now more 
below you than those toys of our riper 
and of our declining years, the drums and 
rattles of Ambition, and the dirt and bub- 
bles of Avarice. At this time, when you 
are cut off from a little society, and made 
a citizen of the world at large, you 
should bend your talents not to serve a 
party, or a few, but all mankind. Your 
genius should mount above that mist in 
which its participation and neighbour- 
hood with earth long involved it ; to 
shine abroad and to heaven ought to be 
the business and the glory of your pre- 
sent situation. Remember, it was at 
such a time that the greatest lights of 
antiquity dazzled and blazed the most, in 
their retreat, in their exile, or in their 
death ; but why do I talk of dazzling or 
blazing? it was then that they did good, 
that they gave light, and that they be- 
came guides to mankind. 

Those aims alone are worthy of spirits 
truly great ; and such I therefore hope 
will be yours. Resentment indeed may 
remain, perhaps cannot be quite extin- 
guished in the noblest minds ; but re- 
venge never will harbour there ; higher 
principles than those of the first, and bet- 
ter principles than those of the latter, will 
infallibly influence men whose thoughts 
and whose hearts are enlarged, and cause 
them to prefer the whole to any part of 
mankind, especially to so small a part as 
one's single self. 

Believe me, my lord, I look upon you 
as a spirit entered into another life*, 
as one just upon the edge of immortality ; 
where the passions and affections ipustbe 
much more exalted, and where you ought 
to despise all little views and all mean 
retrospects. Nothing is worth your look- 
ing back ; and therefore look forward, 
and make (as you can) the world look 
after you ; but take care that it be not 
Avith pity, but with esteem and admira- 
tion. I am, with the greatest sincerity, 

* The bishop of Rochester went into exile 
the month following, and continued in it till 
his death, which happened at Paris on the fif- 
teenth day of Febrnarv. in the year 173?. 

u 



290 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book III. 



and passion for your fame, as well 
happiness, your, &c. 



as 



LETTER CXXXin. 

The Bishop of Rochester to Mr. Pope. 
Paris, Nov. 23, 1731. 

You will wonder to see me in print; 
but how could I avoid it? The dead and 
the living, my friends and my foes, at 
home and abroad, called upon me to 
say something ; and the reputation of an 
History*, which I and all the world va- 
lue, must have suflFered, had I continued 
silent. I have printed it here, in hopes 
that somebody may venture to reprint it 
in England, notwithstanding those two 
frightening words at the close of it f. 
Whether that happens or not, it is fit 
you should have a sight of it, who, I 
know, will read it with some degree of 
satisfaction, as it is mine, though it 
should have (as it really has) nothing else 
to recommend it. Such as it is, extre- 
mum hoc munus morientis haheto ; for that 
may well be the case, considering that 
within a few months I am entering into 
my seventieth year ; after which, even 
the healthy and the happy cannot much 
depend upon life, and will not, if they 
are wise, much desire it. Whenever I 
go, you will lose a friend who loves and 
values you extremely, if in my circum- 
stances I can be said to be lost to any one 
when dead, more than I am already 
whilst living. I expected to have heard 
from you by Mr. Morrice, and wondered 
a little that I did not ; but he owns 
himself in a fault for not giving you due 
notice of his motions. It was not amiss 
that you forbore writing on a head 
wherein I promised more than I was able 
to perform. Disgraced men fancy some- 
times that they pres^ve an influence, 
where, when they endeavour to exert it, 
they soon see their mistake. I did so, 
my good friend, and acknowledge it un- 
der my hand. You sounded the coast, 
and found out my error, it seems, before 
I was aware of it ; but enough on this 
subject. 

* Earl of Clarendon's. 

•j- The bishop's name, set to his vindication 
of bishop Smalridgc, Dr. Aldridge, and him- 
self, from the -scandalous reflections of Old- 
mixon, relating to the publication of lord 
Clarendon's History, Paris, 1721, 4to, since 
reprinted in England. 



What are they doing in England to the 
honour of letters ? and particularly what 
are you doing ? Ipse quid audes ? Huce 
circumvolitas agilis thyma ? Do you pur- 
sue the moral plan you marked out, and 
seemed sixteen months ago so intent 
upon? Am I to see it perfected ere I 
die ; and are you to enjoy the reputation 
of it while you live ? Or do you rather 
choose to leave the marks of your friend- 
ship, like the legacies of a will, to be 
read and enjoyed only by those who sur- 
vive you ? Were I as near you as I have 
been, I should hope to peep into the 
manuscript before it was finished ; but 
alas ! there is, and will ever proba- 
bly be, a great deal of land and sea be- 
tween us. How many books have come 
out of late in your parts, which you think 
I should be glad to peruse ? Name them ; 
the catalogue, I believe, will not cost 
you much trouble. They must be good 
ones indeed to challenge any part of my 
time, now I have so little of it left. I, 
who squandered whole days heretofore, 
now husband hours when the glass be- 
gins to run low, and care not to misspend 
them on trifles. At the end of the lot- 
tery of life, our last minutes, like tickets 
left in the wheel, rise in their valuation ; 
they are not of so much worth perhaps 
in themselves as those which preceded, 
but we are apt to prize them more, and 
with reason. I do so, my dear friend, and 
yet think the most precious minutes of 
my life are well employed in reading 
what you write ; but this is a satisfaction 
I cannot much hope for, and therefore 
must take myself to others less enter- 
taining. Adieu ! dear sir, and forgive 
me engaging with one whom you, I 
think, have reckoned among the heroes 
of the Dunciad. It was necessary for 
me either to accept his dirty challenge, 
or to have suffered in the esteem of the 
world by declining it. 

My respects to your mother. I send 
one of these papers for dean Swift, if 
you have an opportunity, and think it 
worth while to convey it. My country 
at this distance seems to me a strange 
sight : I know not how it appears to you, 
who are in the midst of the scene, and 
yourself a part of it ; I wish you would 
tell me. You may write safely to Mr. 
Morrice, by the honest hand that con- 
veys this, and will return into these parts 
before Christmas; sketch out a rough 
draught of it, that I may be able to judge 



Sect. I. 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



291 



whether a return to it be really eligible, 
or whether 1 should not, like the chemist 
in the bottle, upon hearing Don Queve- 
do's account of Spain, desire to be 
corked up again. 

After all, I do and must love my coun- 
try, with all its faults and blemishes ; 
even that part of the constitution which 
wounded me unjustly, and itself through 
my side, shall ever be dear to me. My 
last wish shall be, like that of father Paul, 
Esto perpetua ! and when I die at a dis- 
tance from it, it will be in the same 
manner as Virgil describes the expiring 
Peloponnesian, 

Sternilur, 

et dulces moriens remimscitur Argos. 

Do I still live in the memory of my 
friends, as they certainly do in mine ? I 
have read a good many of your paper- 
squabbles about me, and I am glad to 
see such free concessions on that head, 
though made with no view of doing me 
a pleasure, but merely of loading ano- 
ther, I am, &c. 



LETTER CXXXIV^. 

From the same to the same. 

Nov. 20, 1729. 
Yes, dear sir, I have had all you de- 
signed for me ; and have read all (as I 
read whatever you write) with esteem 
and pleasure ; but your last letter, full 
of friendship and goodness, gave me 
such impressions of concern and tender- 
ness, as neither I can express, nor you, 
perhaps, with all the force of your ima- 
gination, fully conceive. 

I am not yet master enough of myself, 
after the late wound I have received, to 
open my very heart to you ; and am not 
content Avith less than that, whenever I 
converse with you. My thoughts are at 
present vainly, but pleasingly, employed 
on what I have lost, and can never reco- 
ver. I knov/ well I ought, for that rea- 
son, to call them off to other subjects ; 
but hitherto I have not been able to do 
it. By giving them the rein a little, and 
suffering them to spend their force, I 
hope in some time to check and subdue 
them. Blultis fortiin(Z vulneribus percul- 

* An imperfect copy of this Letter is printed 
in Pope's Works, vol. viii, p. 138. The varia- 
tions are worth observinj?. 



sus, huic uni me imparem sensi, et pene 
succubui. This is weakness, not wisdom, 
I own ; and on that account fitter to be 
trusted to the bosom of a friend, where 
I may safely lodge all my infirmities. As 
soon as my mind is in some measure cor- 
rected and calmed, I will endeavour to 
follow your advice, and turn it towards 
something of use and moment, if I have 
still life enough left to do any thing that 
is worth reading and preserving. In the 
mean time I shall be pleased to hear that 
you proceed in what you intend, without 
any such melancholy interruptions as I 
have met with. You outdo others on all 
occasions ; my hope, and my opinion is, 
that on moral subjects, and in drawing 
characters , you will outdo yourself. Your 
mind is as yet unbroken by age and ill 
accidents ; your knowledge and judg- 
ment are at the height ; use them in 
writing somewhat that may teach the 
present and future times ; and, if not 
gain equally the applause of both, may 
yet raise the envy of the one, and secure 
the admiration of the other. Remember 
Virgil died at 52, and Horace at 58 ; 
and as bad as both their constitutions 
were, yours is yet more delicate and ten- 
der. Employ not your precious mo- 
ments and great talents on little men and 
little things, but choose a subject every 
way worthy of you ; and handle it, as 
you can, in a manner which nobody else 
can equal or imitate. As for me, my 
abilities, if I ever had any, are not what 
they were ; and yet I will endeavour to 
recollect and employ them. 

— gelid'is tardante senecta 
Sanguis hebet, frigentque effcsto in corpore vires. 

However, I should be ungrateful to this 
place, if I did not own that I have gained 
upon the gout in the south of France 
much more than I did at Paris, though 
even there I sensibly improved. What 
happened to me here last summer was 
merely the effect of my folly, in trusting 
too much to a physician, who kept me 
six weeks on a milk diet, without purg- 
ing me, contrary to all the rules of the 
faculty. The milk threw me at last into 
a fever ; and thiit fever soon produced 
the gout ; which finding my stomach 
weakened by a long disuse of meat, at- 
tacked it, and had like at once to have 
dispatched me. The excessive heats of 
this place concurred to heighten the 
symptoms ; but in the midst of my dis- 
U2 



292 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book 1II< 



temper I took a sturdy resolution of re- 
tiring thirty miles into the mountains of 
the Cevennes ; and there I soon found 
relief 5 from the coolness of the air and the 
verdure of the climate, though not to 
such a degree as not still to feel some re- 
liques of those pains in my stomach, 
which till lately I had never felt. Had 
I staid, as I intended, there till the end 
of October, I believe my cure had been 
perfected ; but the earnest desire of meet- 
ing one I dearly loved called me abruptly 
to Montpelier ; where, after continuing 
two months under the cruel torture of a 
sad and fruitless expectation, I was forced 
at last to take a long journey to Toulouse ; 
and even there I had missed the person 
I sought, had she not, with great spirit 
and courage, ventured all night up the 
Garonne to see me, which she above all 
things desired to do before she died. By 
tiiat means she was brought where I was, 
between seven and eight in the morn- 
ing, and lived twenty hours afterwards ; 
which time was not lost on either side, 
but passed in such a manner as gave great 
satisfaction to both, and such as, on her 
part, every way became her circum- 
stances and character ; for she had her 
senses to the very last gasp, and exerted 
them to give me in those few hours 
greater marks of duty and love than she 
had done in all her life-time, though she 
had never been wanting in either. The 
last words she said to me were the 
kindest of all ; a reflection on the good- 
ness of God, which had allowed us in 
this manner to meet once more before 
we parted for ever. Not many minutes 
after that, she laid herself on her pillow, 
in a sleeping posture, 

ylacidaque ibi demum morte quievit. 

Judge you, sir, what I felt, and still 
feel, on this occasion ; and spare me the 
trouble of describing it. At my age, 
under my infirmities, among utter stran- 
gers, how shall I find out proper reliefs 
and supports? I can have none but 
those with which reason and religion 
furnish me *, and on those I lay hold, and 
make use of, as well as I can ; and hope 
that he who laid the burthen upon me 
(for wise and good purposes, no doubt) 
will enable me to bear it, in like manner 
as I have borne others, with some de- 
gree of fortitude and firmness. 

You see how ready I am to relapse 



into an argument which I had quitted 
once before in this letter. I shall pro- 
bably again commit the same fault, if I 
continue to write ; and therefore I stop 
short here ; and with all sincerity, affec- 
tion, and esteem, bid you adieu, till we 
meet, either in this world, if God pleases, 
or else in another. 

A friend 1 have with me will convey 
this safely to your hands ; though per- 
haps it may be some time before it 
reaches you : whenever it does, it will 
give you a true account of the posture 
of mind 1 was in when I wrote it, and 
which 1 hope may by that time be a lit- 
tle altered. 



LETTER CXXXV. 

Mr. Pope to Mr. Gay. 

Binfield, Nov. 13, 1712. 

You writ me a very kind letter some 
months ago, and told me you were then 
upon the point of taking a journey into 
Devonshire. That hindered my answer- 
ing you ; and I have since several times 
inquired of you, without any satisfaction : 
for so I call the knowledge of your wel- 
fare, or of any thing that concerns you. 
I passed two months in Sussex; and 
since my return have been again very 
ill. 1 went to Lintot, in hopes of hear- 
ing of you ; but had no answer to that 
point. Our friend Mr. Cromwell too 
has been silent all this year ; I believe he 
has been displeased at some or other of 
my freedoms, which I very innocently 
take, and most with those I think most 
my friends ; but this I know nothing of, 
perhaps he may have opened to you : 
and if I know you right, you are of a 
temper to cement friendships, and not 
to divide them. I really much love Mr. 
Cromwell, and have a true affection for 
yourself, which if I had any interest in 
the world, or power with those who 
have, 1 should not be long without ma- 
nifesting to you. I desire you will not, 
either out of modesty or a vicious dis- 
trust of another's value for you (those 
two eternal foes to merit), imagine that 
your letters and conversation are not 
always welcome to me. There is no 
man more entirely fond of good-nature 
or ingenuity than myself; and I have 
seen too much of those qualities in you 
to be any thing less than your, &c. 



Sect. I, 



MODERN, OP LATE DATE. 



293 



LETTER CXXXVL 

From the same to the same. 

AuET. 23, 1713. 

Just as I received yours, I was set down 
to write to you, with some shame that I 
had so long- deferred it ; but I can hardly 
repent my neglect, when it gives me the 
knowledge how little you insist upon ce- 
remony, and how much a greater share in 
your memory I have than I deserve. I have 
been near a week in London, where I am 
like to remain,till Ibecome,byiMr. Jervas's 
help, Elegansformarum spectator. I begin 
to discover beauties that were till now im- 
perceptible to me. Every corner of an eye, 
or turn of a nose or ear, the smallest 
degree of light or shade on a cheek, or 
in a dimple, have charms to distract me. 
I no longer look upon lord Plausible as 
ridiculous for admiring a lady's fine tip 
of an ear and pretty elbow (as the Plain 
Dealer has it), but am in some danger 
even from the ugly and disagreeable, 
since they may have their retired beau- 
ties in one trait or other about them. 
You may guess in how uneasy a state I 
am, when every day the performances of 
others appear more beautiful and excel- 
lent, and my own more despicable. I 
have thrown away three Dr. Swifts, each 
of which was once my vanity, two lady 
Bridgewaters, a dutchess of Montague, 
besides half a dozen earls, and one knight 
of the garter. I have crucified Christ 
over again in efiigy, and made a Madon- 
na as old as her mother St. Anne. Nay, 
what is yet more miraculous, I have ri- 
valled St. Luke himself in painting ; 
and as it is said an angel came and 
finished his piece, so you would swear 
a devil put the last hand to mime, it is 
so begi'imed and smutted. However, I 
comfort myself with a Christian reflec- 
tion, that I have not broken the com- 
mandment ; for my pictures are not the 
likeness of any thing in heaven above, 
or in earth below, or in the water un- 
der the earth. Neither will any body 
adore or worship them, except the In- 
dians should have a sight of them, who, 
they tell us, worship certain idols purely 
for their ugliness. 

I am very much recreated and re- 
freshed with the news of the advance- 
ment of the Fan*, which, I doubt not, 

* A poem of Mr. Gay's, so entitled. 



will delight the eye and sense of the fair 
as long as that agreeable machine shall 
play in the hands of posterity. I am glad 
your Fan is m-ounted so soon ; but I 
would have you varnish and glaze it at 
your leisure, and polish the sticks as 
much as you can. You may then cause 
it to be borne in the hands of both sexes, 
no less in Britain than it is in China ; 
where it is ordinary for a mandarine to 
fan himself cool after a debate, and a 
statesman to hide his face with it when 
he tells a grave lie. I am, &c. 

LETTER CXXXVIL 

Fro77i the same to the same. 

September '23, 1714. 
Dear Mr. Gay, 
Welco3ie to your native soilf ! wel- 
come to your friends I thrice welcome 
to me ! Whether returned in glory, blest 
with court-interest, the love and fami- 
liarity of the great, and filled with agree- 
able hopes ; or melancholy with dejection, 
contemplative of the changes of fortune, 
and doubtful for the future. ^Yhether 
returned a triumphant whig or a de- 
sponding tory. equally aU hail ! equally 
beloved and welcome to me ! If happy, 
I am to partake in your elevation ; if 
unhappy, you have still a warm corner 
in my heart, and a retreat at Binfield in 
the worst of times at your service. If 
you are a tory, or thought so by any 
man, I know it can proceed from nothing 
but your gratitude to a few people who 
endeavour to serve you, and whose poli- 
tics were never your concern. If you 
are a whig, as I rather hope, and, as 
1 think, your principles and mine (as 
brother poets) had ever a bias to the side 
of liberty, I know you will be an honest 
man and an inoffensive one. Upon the 
whole, I know you are incapable of being 
so much of either party as to be good 
for nothing-. Therefore, once more, 
whatever you are, or in whatever state 
you are, all hail ! 

One or two of your old friends com- 
plained they had heard nothing of you 
since the queen's death ; I told them no 

-f- In the beginninp: of this year Mr Gay went 
over to Hanover with the earl of Clarendon, 
who was sent thither b}'^ queen Anne. On her 
death they returned to Eng-land ; and it was 
on this occasion that Mr. Pope met him with 
this friendly welcome. 



294 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IIL 



man living loved Mr. Gay better than I, 
yet I had not once written to him in all 
his voyage. This I thought a convinc- 
ing proof how truly one may he a friend 
to another without telling him so every 
month. But they had reasons to them- 
selves to allege in your excuse ; as men 
who really value one another will never 
want such as make their friends and 
themselves easy. The late universal 
concern in public aifairs, threw us all 
into a hurry of spirits ; even I , who am 
more a philosopher than to expect any 
thing from any reign, was borne away 
with the current, and full of the expec- 
tation of the successor. During your 
journey I knew not whither to aim a 
letter after you ; that was a sort of shoot- 
ing flying : add to this, the demand 
Homer had upon me to write fifty verses 
a day, besides learned notes, all which 
are at a conclusion for this year. Re- 
joice with me, O my friend ! that my 
labour is over : come and make merry 
with me in much feasting : we will feed 
among the lilies (by the lilies I mean 
the ladies). Are not the Rosalindas of 
Britain as charming as the Blousalin- 
das of the Hague ? Or have the two 
great pastoral poets of our nation re- 
nounced love at the same time? for 
Philips, immortal Philips, hath deserted, 
yea, and in a rustic manner, kicked his 
Rosalinda. Dr. Parnelle and I have been 
inseparable ever since you went. We 
are now at the Bath, where (if you are 
not, as I heartily hope, better engaged) 
your coming would be the greatest plea- 
sure to us in the world. Talk not of ex- 
penses ; Homer shall support his chil- 
dren. I beg a line from you, directed 
to the post-house in Bath . Poor Parnelle 
is in an ill state of health. 

Pardon me if I add a word of advice 
in the poetical way. Write something 
on the king, or prince, or princess. On 
whatsoever footing you may be with the 
court, this can do no harm. I shall never 
know where to end ; and am confound- 
ed in the many things I have to say to 
you ; though they all amount but to this, 
that I am entirely as ever, your, &c. 

LETTER CXXXVin. 

Mr. Pope to Mr. Gay. 

London, Nov, 8, 1717. 
I AM extremely glad to find by a let- 
ter of yours to Mr. Fortescue, that you 



have received one from me ; and I beg 
you to keep, as the greatest of curiosi- 
ties, that letter of mine which you re- 
ceived, and I never writ. 

But the truth is, that we were made 
here to expect you in a short time, that 
I was upon the ramble most part of the 
summer, and have concluded the season 
in grief for the death of my poor father. 

I shall not enter into a detail of my 
concerns and troubles, for two reasons : 
because 1 am really afilicted and need no 
airs of grief, and because they are not 
the concerns and troubles of any but 
myself. But I think you (without too 
great a compliment) enough my friend 
to be pleased to know he died easily, 
without a groan, or the sickness of two 
minutes ; in a word, as silently and 
peacefully as he lived. 

Sic mibi contingat viverCy sicque rnori ! 

I am not in the humour to say gay 
things, nor in the affectation of avoiding 
them. I can't pretend to entertain either 
Mr. Pulteney or you, as you have done 
both my lord Burlington and me, by 
your letter to Mr. Lowndes*. I am 
only sorry you have no greater quarrel to 
Mr. Lowndes, and wished you paid some 
hundreds a year to the land-tax. That 
gentleman is lately become an inoffen- 
sive person to me too ; so that we may 
join heartily in our addresses to him, 
and (like true patriots) rejoice in all that 
good done to the nation and govern- 
ment, to which we contribute nothing 
ourselves. 

I should not forget to acknowledge 
your letter sent from Aix ; you told me 
then that writing was not good with the 
waters ; and I find since, you are of my 
opinion, that it is as bad without the 
waters. But, I fancy, it is not writing, 
but thinking, that is so bad with the 
waters ; and then you might write with- 
out any manner of prejudice, if you write 
like our brother-poets of these days. 

The Duchess, lord Warwick, lord Stan- 
hope, Mrs. Bellenden, Mrs. Lepell, and 
I cannot tell who else, had your letters. 
Dr. Arbuthnot and I expect to be treat- 
ed like friends. I would send my ser- 
vices to Mr. Pulteiiey, but that he is out 
of favour at court ; and make some com- 

* A Poem entitled, To my ingenious and xior- 
thy friend, W. Lowndes, Esq. Author of that 
celebrated treatise in Folio, called the Land-Tax 
Bill. 



Sect. 1, 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



295 



pliment to Mrs. Pulteney, if she were not 
a whig. My lord Burlington tells me 
she has as much outshined all the French 
ladies, as she did the English before ; I 
am sorry for it, because it will be detri- 
mental to our holy religion, if heretical 
women should eclipse those nuns and 
orthodox beauties, in whose eyes alone 
lie all the hopes we can have, of gaining 
such fine gentlemen as you to our church. 
Yours, &c. 

I wish you joy of the birth of the 
young prince, because he is the only 
prince we have from whom you have had 
no expectations and no disappointments. 

LETTER CXXXIX. 

Blr. Gay to Mr, F . 

Stanton Harcourt, Aug. 9, 1718. 
The only news that you can expect to 
have from me here, is news from heaven, 
for I am quite out of the world ; and 
there is scarce any thing can reach me, 
except the noise of thunder, which un- 
doubtedly you have heard too. We have 
read in old authors of high towers 
levelled by it to the ground, while the 
humbler valleys have escaped : the only 
thing that is proof against it is the laurel, 
which, however, I take to be no great 
security to the brains of modern authors. 
But to let you see that the contrary to 
this often happens, I must acquaint you, 
that the highest and most extravagant 
heap of towers in the universe, which is 
in this neighbourhood, stand still unde- 
faced, while a cock of barley in our next 
field has been fconsum^d to ashes . Would 
to God that this heap of barley had been 
all that had perished ! for, unhappily, 
beneath this little shelter sat two much 
more constant lovers than ever were 
found in romance under the shade of a 
beech-tree. John Hewet was a well-set 
man, of about five-and-twenty ; Sarah 
Drew might be rather called comely than 
beautiful, and was about the same age. 
They had passed through the various 
labours of the year together, with the 
greatest satisfaction ; if she milked, it 
was his morning and evening care to 
bring the cows to her hand ; it was but 
last fair that he bought her a present of 
green silk for her straw hat ; and the 
posie on her silver ring was of his choos- 
ing. Their love was the talk of the 
whole neighbourhood ; for scandal never 



affirmed that they had any other views 
than the lawful possession of each other 
in marriage. It was that very morning 
that he had obtained the consent of her 
parents ; and it was but till the next 
week that they were to wait to be hap- 
py. Perhaps in the intervals of their 
work they were now talking of the 
wedding-clothes ; and John was suiting 
several sorts of poppies and field flowers 
to her complexion, to choose her a knot for 
the wedding-day. While they were thus 
busied (it was on the last of July, be- 
tween two and three in the afternoon) 
the clouds grew black, and such a storm 
of thunder and lightning ensued, that 
all the labourers made the best of their 
way to what shelter the trees and hedges 
afforded. Sarah was frightened, and fell 
down in a swoon on a heap of barley. 
John, who never separated from her, sat 
do^vn by her side, having raked together 
two or three heaps, the better to secure 
her from the storm. Immediately there 
was heard so loud a crack, as if heaven 
had split asunder : every one was now 
solicitous for the safety of his neighbour, 
and called to one another throughout 
the field : no answer being returned to 
those who called to our lovers, they 
stept to the place where they lay ; they 
perceived the barley all in a smoke, and 
then spied this faithful pair ; John with 
one arm about Sarah's neck, and the 
other held over her, as to skreen her 
from the lightning. They were struck 
dead, and stiffened in this tender posture. 
Sarah's left eye-brow was singed, and 
there appeared a black spot on her breast : 
her lover was all over black, but not the 
least signs of life were found in either. 
Attended by their melancholy compa- 
nions, they were conveyed to the town, 
and the next day were interred in Stanton- 
Harcourt churchyard. My lord Har- 
court, at Mr. Pope's and my request, 
has caused a stone to be placed over them, 
upon condition that we furnished the 
epitaph, which is as follows : — 

When Eastern lovers feed the fua'ral fire, 
On the same pile the faithful pair expire; 
Here pitying Heav'n that virtue mutual found. 
And Wasted both, that it might neither wound. 
Hearts so sincere th' Almighty saw well pleas'd. 
Sent his own lightning, and the victims seiz'd. 

But my lord is apprehensive the country 
people will not understand this ; and Mr. 
Pope says he'll make one Avith something 
of Scripture in it, and with as little of 



296 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book III. 



poetry as Hopkins and Sternhold*. 
Your, &c. 

LETTER CXL. 

Mr. Pope to Mr. Gay 

July 13, 1722. 

1 WAS very much pleased, not to say 
oblig^ed, by your kind letter, Avhich 
sufficiently warmed my heart to have 
answered it sooner, had I not been de- 
ceived ("a way one often is deceived) by 
hearkenkig to women ; who told me that 
both lady Burlington and yourself were 
immediately to return from Tunbridge ; 
and that my lord was gone to bring you 
back. The world furnishes us with too 
many examples of what you complain of 
in yours ; and, I assure you, none of them 
touch and grieve me so much as what 
relates to you. I think your sentiments 
upon it are the very same I should enter- 
tain : I wish those we call great men had 
the same notions, but they are really the 
most little creatures in the world ; and 
the most interested, in all but one point ; 
which is, that they want judgment to 
know their greatest interest, to encou- 
rage and choose honest men for their 
friends. 

I have not once seen the person you 
complain of, whom I have late thought 
to be, as the apostle admonisheth, one 
flesh with his wife. 

Pray make my sincere compliments to 
lord Burlington, whom 1 have long 
known to have a stronger bent of mind 
to be all that is good and honourable, 
than almost any one of liis rank. 

I have not forgot yours to lord Boling- 
broke, though I hope to have speedily 
a fuller opportunity, he returning for 
Flanders and France next month. 
^ The epitaph was this: 

Near this place lie the bodies of 

John Hewet and Sarah Drew, 

an industrious young man 

and virtuous maiden of this parish ; 

who, being at harvest-work, 

(with several others) 

were in one instant killed by lightning, 

the last day of July, 1718. 

Think not by rig'rous judgment seiz'd, 

A pair so faithful could expire ; 
Victims so pure Heav'n saw well pleas'd. 

And snatch'd them in celestial fire. 
Live well, and fear no sudden fate j 

When God calls virtue to the grave, 
Alike 'tis justice soon or late, 
Mercy alike to kill or save. 
"Virtue unmov'd can hear the call, 
And face the flash that melts the ball. 



Mrs. Howard has writ you something- 
or other in a letter, which, she says, she 
repents. She has as much good -nature 
as if she had never seen any ill-nature, 
and had been bred among lambs and 
turtle doves, instead of princes and court 
ladies. 

By the end of this week Mr. Fortescue 
will pass a few days with me : we shall 
remember you in our potations, and 
wish you a fisher with us, on my grass 
plat. In the mean time we wish you 
success as a fisher of women at the 
Wells, a rejoicer of the comfortless and 
widow, and a playfellow of the maiden. 
I am your, &c. 

LETTER CXLI. 

Vrom the same to the same. 

I FAITHFULLY assurc you, in the midst 
of that melancholy with which I have 
been so long encompassed, in an hourly 
expectation almost of my mother's death, 
there was no circumstance that rendered 
it more insupportable to me, than that 1 
could not leave her to see you. Your own 
present escape from so imminent dan- 
ger, 1 pray God may prove less preca- 
rious than my poor mother's can be; 
whose life at best can be but a short re- 
prieve, or a longer dying. But I fear, 
even that is more than God will please 
to grant me ; for these two days past, 
her most dangerous symptoms are re- 
turned upon her ; and, unless there be a 
sudden change, I must in a few days, if 
not in a few hours, be deprived of her. 
In the afflicting prospect before me, I 
know nothing that can so much alleviate 
it as the view now given me (Heaven 
grant it may increase!) of your reco- 
very. In the sincerity of my heart, I am 
excessively concerned not to be able to 
pay you, dear Gay, any part of the debt, 
I very gratefully remember, I owe you 
on a like sad occasion, when you were 
here comforting me in her last great ill- 
ness. May your health augment as fast 
as I fear hers must decline ! I believe 
that would be very fast. May the life 
that is added to you be past in good for- 
tune and tranquillity, rather of your own 
giving to yourself than from any expect- 
ation or trust in others ! May you and 
I live together, without wishing more 
felicity or acquisitions than friendship 
can give and receive without obligations 



Sect. 1. 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



297 



to greatness. God keep you, and three 
or four more of those I have known as 
long, that I may have something worth 
the surviving my mother. Adieu, dear 
Gay, and believe me (while you live, and 
while I;live) your, &c. 

As I told you in my last letter, I re- 
peat it in this — do not think of writing 
to me. The Doctor, Mrs. Howard, and 
Mrs. Blount, give me daily accounts of 
you. 

LETTER CXLIL 

From the saiue to the same. 

I AM glad to hear of the progress of 
your^recovery, and the oftener I hear 
it the better, when it becomes easy to 
you to give it me. I so well remember 
the consolation you were to me in my 
mother's former illness, that it doubles 
my concern at this time ^not to be able 
to be with you, or you able to be with 
me. Had I lost her, I would have been 
nowhere else but with you during your 
confinement. I have now past five 
weeks without once going from home, 
and without any company but for three 
or four of the days. Friends rarely 
stretch their kindness so far as ten miles. 
My lord Bolingbroke and Mr. Bethel 
have not forgotten to visit me : the rest 
(except Mrs. Blount once) were content- 
ed to send messages. I never passed so 
melancholy a time ; and now Mr. Con- 
greve's death touches me nearly. It was 
twenty years and more that I have known 
him : every year carries away something 
dear with it, till we outlive all tender- 
nesses, and become wretched individuals 
again as we began. Adieu ! This is my 
birthday ; and this is my reflection upon 
it: — 

With added days, if life give nothing new, 
But, Jike a sieve, let ev'ry pleasure through j 
Some joy still lost, as each vain year runs o'er, 
And all we gain, some sad reflection more ! 
Is this a birthday ? — 'Tis, alas ! too clear, 
'Tis but the fun'ral of the former year ! 



LETTER CXLIIL 

From the sa7ne to the same. 

Oct. 6, 1727. 

Dear sir, 

I HAVE many years ago magnified, in 

my own mind, and repeated to you, a 

ninth beatitude, added to the eight in 



the Scripture : ' ' Blessed is he who ex- 
pects nothing, for he shall never be 
disappointed." I could find in my 
heart to congratulate you on this happy 
dismission from all court dependence : I 
dare say I shall find you the better and 
the honester man for it, many years 
hence : very probably the healthfuller 
and the cheerfuller into the bargain. 
You are happily rid of many cursed ce- 
remonies, as well as of many iU and vi- 
cious habits, of which few or no men 
escape the infection, who are hackneyed 
and trammelled in the ways of a court. 
Princes, indeed, and peers (the lackeys 
of princes), and ladies (the fools of peers), 
will smile on you the less ; but men of 
worth and real friends will look on you 
the better. There is a thing, the only 
thing which kings and queens cannot 
give you (for they have it not to give) — 
liberty, and which is worth all they have ; 
which, as yet, I thank God, Englishmen 
need not ask from their hands. You 
will enjoy that and your own integrity, 
and the satisfactory consciousness of hav- 
ing not merited such graces from courts 
as are bestowed only on the mean, ser- 
vile, flattering, interested, and unde- 
serving. The only steps to the favour 
of the great are such complacencies, 
such compliances, such distant deco- 
rums, as delude them in their vanities, 
to engage them in their passions. He 
is the greatest favourite who is the 
falsest ; and when a man, by such vile 
gradations, arrives at the height of 
grandeur and power, he is then at best 
but in a circumstance to be hated, and 
in a condition to be hanged, for serving 
their ends : so many a minister has 
found it ! 

I believe you did not want advice, in 
the letter you sent by my lord Grantham : 
I presume you writ it not without : and 
you could not have better, if I guess 
right at the person who agreed to your 
doing it, in respect to any decency you 
ought to observe ; for I take that person 
to be a perfect judge of decencies and 
forms. I am not without fears even on 
that person's account : I think it a bad 
omen : but what have I to do with court 
omens ? Dear Gay, adieu. 1 can only 
add a plain, uncourtly speech : while you 
are nobody's servant, you may be any 
one's friend, and as such I embrace 
you, in all conditions of life. While I 
have a shilling you shall have sixpence ; 



298 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book III. 



nay, eight pence, if I can contrive 
to live upon a groat. I am, faithfully, 
your, &c. 

LETTER CXLIV. 

Mr. Pope to Mrs. B. 

Cirencester. 
It is a true saying, " That misfortunes 
alone prove one's friendships ;" they 
shew us not only that of other people for 
us, but our own for them. We hardly 
know ourselves any otherwise. I feel my 
being forced to this Bath journey as a 
misfortune ; and to follow my own wel- 
fare preferably to those I love, is indeed 
a new thing to me : my health has not 
usually got the better of my tendernesses 
and affections. I set out with a a heavy 
heart, wishing I had done this thing the 
last season ; for every day I defer it, the 
more I am in danger of that accident 
which I dread the most, my mother's 
death (especially should it happen while 
I am away). And another reflection 
pains me, that I have never, since I knew 
you, been so long separated from you 
as I now must be. Methinks we live to 
be more and more strangers ; and every 
year teaches you to live without nie : 
this absence may, I fear, make my return 
less welcome and less wanted to you 
than once it seemed, even after but a 
fortnight. Time ought not in reason to 
diminish friendship, when it confirms 
the truth of it by experience. 

The journey has a good deal disordered 
me, notwithstanding my resting place at 
lord Bathurst's. My lord is too much 
for me ; he walks, and is in spirits all 
day long. I rejoice to see him so. It is 
a right distinction, that I am happier in 
seeing my friends so many degrees above 
me, be it in fortune, health, or pleasures, 
than I can be in sharing either with 
them ; for in these sort of enjoyments I 
cannot keep pace with them, any more 
than I can walk with a stronger man. I 
wonder to find I am a companion for 
none but old men, and forget that I am 
not a young fellow myself. The worst is, 
that reading and writing, which I have 
still the greatest relish for, are growing 
painful to my eyes. But if I can pre- 
serve the good opinion of one or two 
friends to such a degree as to have their 
indulgence to my weaknesses, I will not 
complain of life ; and if I could live to 



see you consult your ease and quiet, by 
becoming independent on those who will 
never help you to either, I doubt not of 
finding the latter part of my life plea- 
santer than the former, or present. My 
uneasinesses of body I can bear ; my 
chief uneasiness of mind is in your re- 
gard. You have a temper that would 
make you easy and beloved (which is all 
the happiness one needs to wish in this 
world), and content with moderate 
things. All your point is not to lose 
tliat temper by sacrificing yourself to 
others, out of a mistaken tenderness, 
which hurts you, and profits not them. 
And this you must do soon, or it will be 
too late : habit will make it as hard for 

you to live independent, as for L to 

live out of a court. 

You must excuse me for observing 
what I think any defect in you : ytni 
grow too indolent, and give things up 
too easily ; which would be otherwise, 
when you found and felt yourself your 
own : spirits would come in, as ill usage 
went out. While you live under a kind 
of perpetual dejection and oppression, 
nothing at all belongs to you, not your 
own humour, nor your own sense. 

You cannot conceive how much you 
would find resolution rise, and cheerful- 
ness grow upon you, if you would once 
try to live independent for two or three 
months. I never think tenderly of you 
but this comes across me : and therefore 
excuse my repeating it ; for whenever I 
do not, I dissemble half that I think of 
you. Adieu. Pray write, and be parti- 
cular about your health. 

LETTER CXLV. 

Mr. Pope to Hugh Bethel, Esq, 

July 12, 1725. 
I ASSURE you unfeignedly, any memo- 
rial of your good-nature and friend- 
liness is most welcome to me, who know 
those tenders of affection from you are 
not like the common traffic of compli- 
ments and professions which most peo- 
ple only give that they may receive ; and 
is at best a commerce of vanity, if not 
of falsehood. I am happy in not imme- 
diately wanting the sort of good offices 
you offer : but if I did want them, I 
should not think myself unhappy in re- 
ceiving them at your hands : this really 
is some compliment, for I would rather 



Sect. I. 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



299 



most men did me a small injury than a 
kindness. I know your humanity ; and 
aUow me to say, I love and value you for 
it : it is a much better ground of love 
and value than all the qualities I see the 
world so fond of : they generally admire 
in the wrong place, and generally most 
admire the things they do not compre- 
hend, or the things they can never be the 
better for. Very few can receive pleasure 
or advantage from wit which they sel- 
dom taste, or learning which they sel- 
dom understand; much less from the 
quality, high birth, or shining circum- 
stances of those to whom they profess 
esteem, and who will always remember 
how much they are their inferiors. But 
humanity and sociable virtues are what 
every creature wants every day, and still 
wants more the longer he lives, and 
most the very moment he dies. It is ill 
travelling either in a ditch or on a ter- 
race : we should walk in the common 
way, where others are continually pass- 
ing on the same level, to make the 
journey of life supportable by bearing 
one another company in the same cir- 
cumstances. Let me know how I may 
convey over the Odysseys for your 
amusement in your journey, that you 
may compare your own travels with 
those of Ulysses ; I am sure yours are 
undertaken upon a more disinterested, 
and therefore a more heroic motive. 
Far be the omen from you, of return- 
ing, as he did, alone, without saving a 
friend. 

There is lately printed a book* where- 
in aU human virtue is reduced to one 
test, that of truth, and branched out in 
every instance of our duty to God and 
man. If you have not seen it, you must, 
and I will send it together with the 
Odyssey. The very women read it, and 
pretend to be charmed with that beauty 
which they generally think the least of. 
They make as much ado about truth 
since this book appeared, as they did 
about health when Dr. Cheney's came 
out ; and will doubtless be as constant 
in the pursuit of one as of the other. 
Adieu. 

* Mr. Wollaston's excellent book of the Re- 
ligion of Nature delineated. The queen was 
foad of it; and that made the reading, and 
the talking of it, fashionable. 



LETTER CXLVI. 

From the same to the same. 

Aug. 9, 1726. 

I NEVER am unmindful of those I think 
so well of as yourself ; their number is 
not so great as to confound one's memory. 
Nor ought you to decline writing to me, 
upon an imagination that I am much em- 
ployed by other people. For though my 
house is like the house of a patriarch of 
old, standing by the highway side and 
receiving all travellers, nevertheless, I 
seldom go to bed without the reflection, 
that one's chief business is to be really 
at home : and I agree with you in your 
opinion of company, amusements, and 
all the silly things which mankind would 
fain make pleasures of, when in truth 
they are labour and sorrow. 

I condole with you on the death of 
your relation, the E. of C, as on the 
fate of a mortal man : esteem I never 
had for him, but concern and humanity I 
had : the latter was due to the infirmity 
of his last period, though the former was 
not due to the triumphant and vain part 
of his course. He certainly knew him- 
self best at last, and knew best the little 
value of others, whose neglect of him, 
whom they so grossly followed and flat- 
tered in the former scene of his life, 
shewed him as worthless as they could 
imagine him to be, were he all that his 
worst enemies believed of him : for my 
own part, I am sorry for his death, and 
wish he had lived long enough to see so 
much of the faithlessness of the world, 
as to have been above the mad ambition 
of governing such wretches as he must 
have found it to be composed of. 

Though you could have no great value 
for this great man, yet acquaintance it- 
self, the custom of seeing the face, or 
entering under the roof, of one that 
walks along with us in the common way 
of the world, is enough to create a wish 
at least for his being above ground, and 
a degree of uneasiness at his removal. 
It is the loss of an object familiar to us : 
I should hardly care to have an old post 
pulled up that I remembered ever since 
I was a child. And add to this the re- 
flection (in the case of such as were not 
the best of their species), what their 
condition in another life may be, it is yet 
a more important motive for our concern 
and compassion. To say the truth, either 



300 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book III. 



in the case of death or life, almost^every 
body and every thing is a cause or object 
for humanity ; even prosperity itself, and 
health itself ; so many weak, pitiful inci- 
dentals attend oa.them. 

I am sorry any relation|of yours is ill, 
whoever it be, for you do not name the 
person. But I conclude it is one of those 
to whose houses you tell me you are 
going, for I know no invitation with 
you is so strong as when any one is in 
distress, or in want of your assistance : 
the strongest proof in the world of this 
was your attendance on the late earl. 

I have been very melancholy for the 
loss of Mr. Blount. Whoever has any 
portion of good-nature will suflfer on 
these occasions ; but a good mind re- 
wards its own sufferings. I hope to 
trouble you as little as possible, if it be 
my fate to go before you. I am of old 
Ennius's mind. Nemo me decoret lachry- 
mis, I am but a lodger here : this is not 
an abiding city ; I am only to stay out 
my lease : for what has perpetuity and 
mortal man to do with each other ? but I 
could be glad you would take up with an 
inn at Twitenham, as long as I am host 
of it : if not, I would take Up freely with 
any inn of yours. Adieu, dear sir : let 
us while away this life ; and (if we can) 
meet in another. 

LETTER CXLVII. 

Mr. Pope to Hugh Bethel, Esq, 

June 17, 1728. 
After the publishing of my boyish let- 
ters to Mr. Cromwell, you will not won- 
der if I should forswear writing a letter 
again while I live ; since I do not cor- 
respond with a friend upon the terms of 
any other free subject of this kingdom. 
But to you I can never be silent, nor re- 
served ; and, I am sure, my opinion of 
your heart is such, that I could open 
mine to you in no manner which I could 
fear the whole world should know. I 
could publish my own heart too, I will 
venture to say, for any mischief or malice 
there is in it : but a little too much folly 
or weakness might (I fear) appear to 
make such a spectacle either instructive 
or agreeable to others. 

I am reduced to beg of all my ac- 
quaintance to secure me from the like 
usage for the future, by returning me 
any letters of mine which they may have 



preserved ; that I may not be hurt, after 
my death, by that which was the happi- 
ness of my life, their partiality and 
affection to me. 

I have nothing of myself to tell you, 
only that I have had but indifferent 
health. I have not made a visit to Lon- 
don : curiosity and the love of dissipa- 
tion die apace in me. I am not glad nor 
sorry for it : but am very sorry for those 
who have nothing else to live on. 

I have read much, but writ no more. 
I have small hopes of doing good, no va- 
nity in writing, and little ambition to 
please a world not very candid or de- 
serving. If I can preserve the good 
opinion of a few friends, it is all I can 
expect, considering how little good I can 
do even to them to merit it. Few peo- 
ple have your candour, or are so willing 
to think well of another from whom 
they receive no benefit, and gratify no 
vanity. But of all the soft sensations^ 
the greatest pleasure is to give and re- 
ceive mutual trust. It is my belief and 
firm hope, that men are made happy in 
this life, as well as in the other. My 
confidence in your good opinion, and 
dependence upon that of one or two 
more, is the chief cordial drop I taste, 
amidst the insipid, the disagreeable, the 
cloying, or the dead-sweet, which are 
the common draughts of life. Some 
pleasures are too pert, as well as others 
too flat, to be relished long : and vivacity 
in some cases is worse than dulness. 
Therefore, indeed for many years, I have 
not chosen my compitiii'jns for any of 
the qualities in fashion, but almost en- 
tirely for that which is the most out of 
fashion — sincerity. Before I am aware 
of it, I am making your panegyric, and 
perhaps my own too ; for next to pos- 
sessing the best qualities, is the esteem- 
ing and distinguishing those who possess 
them. I truly love and value you ; and 
so I stop short. 

LETTER CXLVIII. 

The Earl of Peterborow to Mr. Pope, 

Whenever you apply as a good Papist 
to your female mediatrix, you are sure 
of success ; but there is not a full as- 
surance of your entire submission to 
mother-church, and that abates a little 
of your authority. However, if you will 
accept of country letters, she will corre- 



Sect. I. 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



301 



spond from the hay-cock, and I will 
write to you upon the side of my wheel- 
barrow : surely such letters might escape 
examination. 

Your idea of the golden age is, that 
every shepherd might pipe where he 
pleased. As I have lived longer I am 
more moderate in my wishes, and would 
be content with the liberty of not piping 
where I am not pleased. 

Oh how I wish, to myself and my 
friends, a freedom, which fate seldom 
allows, and which we often refuse our- 
selves ! Why is our shepherdess * in vo- 
luntary slavery? Why must our dean 
submit to the colour of his coat, and live 
absent from us ? And why are you con- 
fined to what you cannot relieve ? 

I seldom venture to give accounts of 
my journeys beforehand, because I take 
resolutions of going to London, and keep 
them no better than quarrelling lovers 
do theirs. But the devil will drive me 
thither about the middle of next month, 
and I will call upon you, to be sprinkled 
with holy water before I enter the place 
of corruption. Your, &c. 

LETTER CXLIX. 

Dr. Swift to the Earl of Peterhoroiv. 

My lord, 
I NEVER knew or heard of any person, 
so volatile, and so fixed as your lordship : 
you, while your imagination is carrying 
you through every corner of the world 
where you have or have not been, can 
at the same time remember to do offices 
of favour and kindness to the meanest of 
your friends ; and in all the scenes you 
have passed, have not been able to at- 
tain that one quality peculiar to a great 
man, of forgetting every thing but in- 
juries. Of this I am a living witness 
against you ; for being the most insig- 
nificant of all your old humble servants, 
you were so cruel as never to give me 
time to ask a favour, but prevented me, 
in doing whatever you thought I desired, 
or could be for my credit or advantage. 

I have often admired at the capri- 
ciousness of fortune in regard to your 
lordship. She hath forced courts to act 
against their oldest and most constant 
maxims ; to make you a general because 
you had courage and conduct ; an ^m- 

* Mrs. H. 



bassador, because you had wisdom and 
knowledge in the interests of Europe, 
and an admiral, on account of your skill 
in maritime affairs ; whereas, according 
to the usual method of court-proceed- 
ings, I should have been at the head of 
the army, and you of the church, or ra- 
ther a curate under the dean of St. 
Patrick. 

The archbishop of Dublin laments that 
he did not see your lordship till he was 
just upon the point of leaving the Bath ; 
I pray God you may have found success 
in that journey, else I shall continue to 
think there is a fatality in all your lord- 
ship's undertakings, which only termi- 
nate in your own honour and the good 
of the public, without the least advan- 
tage to your health or fortune. 

I remember lord Oxford's ministry 
used to tell me, that not knowing where 
to write to you, they were forced to write 
at you. It is so with me, for you are in 
one thing an evangelical man, that you 
know not where to lay your head ; and, 
I think, you have no house. Pray, my 
lord, write to me, that I may have the 
pleasure, in this scoundrel country, of 
going about, and shewing my depending 
parsons a letter from the earl of Peter- 
borow. I am, &c. 

LETTER CL. 

Mr. Pope to Mr. C . 



Sept. 2, 1732. 
I ASSURE you I am glad of your letter ; 
and have long wanted nothing but the 
permission you now give me, to be plain 
and unreserved upon this head. I wrote 
to you concerning it long since : but a 
friend of yours and mine was of opinion, 
it was taking too much upon me, and 
more than I could be entitled to by the 
mere merit of a long acquaintance, and 
gocd-will. I have not a thing in my 
heart relating to any friend, which I 
would not, in my own nature, declare 
to all mankind. The truth is what you 
guess ; I could not esteem your conduct 
to an object of misery so near you as 

Mrs. ; and have often hinted it to 

yourself: the truth is, I cannot yet es- 
teem it for any reason I am able to see. 
But this I promise, I acquit you as far as 
your own mind acquits you. I have now 
no further cause of complaint, for the 



302 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book III. 



unhappy lady gives me now no further 
pain : she is no longer an ohject either 
of yours or my compassion ; the hard- 
ships done her are lodged in the hands of 
God ; nor has any man more to do in 
them, except the persons concerned in 
occasioning them. 

As for the interruption of our corre- 
spondence, I am sorry you seem to put 
the test of my friendship upon that, he- 
cause it is what 1 am disqualified from 
toward my other acquaintance, with 
whom I cannot hold any frequent com- 
merce. I will name you the obstacles 
which I cannot surmount : want of 
health, want of time, want of good eyes ; 
and one yet stronger than them all, I 
write not upon the terms of other men. 
For however glad I might he of express- 
ing my respect, opening my mind, or 
venting my concerns, to my private 
friends, I hardly dare while there are 
Curls in the world. If you please to 
reflect either on the impertinence of 
weak admirers, the malice of low ene- 
mies, the avarice of mercenary hook- 
sellers, or the silly curiosity of people in 
general, you will confess I have small 
reason to indulge correspondences ; in 
which too I want materials, as I live 
altogether out of town, and have ab- 
stracted my mind (I hope) to better 
things than common news. I wish my 
friends would send me back those for- 
feitures of my discretion ; commit to my 
justice what I trusted only to their in- 
dulgence, and return me at the year's 
end those trifling letters, which can be 
to them but a day's amusement, but to 
me may prove a discredit as lasting and 
extensive as the aforesaid weak admirers, 
mean enemies, mercenary scribblers, or 
curious simpletons, can make it. 

I come now to a particular you com- 
plain of, my not answering your ques- 
tion about some party-papers, and their 
authors. This indeed I could not tell 
you, because I never was nor will be privy 
to such papers : and if by accident, 
through my acquaintance with any of the 
writers, I had known a thing they con- 
cealed, I should certainly never be the 
reporter of it. 

For my waiting on you at your coun- 
try-house, I have often wished it ; it was 
my compliance to a superior duty that 
hindered me, and one which you are too 
good a Christian to wish I should have 
broken, having never ventured to leave 



my mother (at her great age) for more 
than a week, which is too little for such 
a journey. 

Upon the whole, I must acquit myself 
of any act or thought in prejudice of the 
regard I owe you, as so long and obli^ng 
an acquaintance and correspondent. I 
am sure I have all the good wishes for 
yourself and your family that become a 
friend : there is no accident that can 
happen to your advantage, and no action 
that can redound to your credit, which I 
should not be ready to extol, or to rejoice 
in. And therefore I beg you to be as- 
sured I am in disposition and will, though 
not so much as I would be in testimonies 
or Avriting, your, &c. 

LETTER CLI. 

Mr. Pope to Mr, Richardson. 

Twickenham, June 10, 1733. 
As I know you and I mutually desire to 
see one another, I hoped that this day our 
wishes would have met, and brought you 
hither. And this for the very reason 
which possibly might hinder your coming, 
that my poor mother is dead *. I thank 
God, her death was as easy as her life 
was innocent : and as it cost her not a 
groan, nor even a sigh, there is yet upon 
her countenance such an expression of 
tranquillity, nay, almost of pleasure, that 
it is even amiable to behold it. It would 
afford the finest image of a saint expired 
that ever painting drew ; and it would 
be the greatest obligation which even 
that obliging art could ever bestow on a 
friend, if you would come and sketch it 
for me. I am sure, if there be no very 
prevalent obstacle, you will leave any 
common business to do this ; and I hope 
to see you this evening as late as you 
will, or to-morrow morning as early, 
before this winter-flower is faded. I will 
defer her interment tiU to-morrow night. 
I know you love me, or I could not have 
written this — I could not (at this time) 
have written at all. — Adieu ! May you 
die as happily ! Your, &c. 

LETTER CLII. 

Mr. Pope to Mr. Bethel. 

Aug. 9, 1-733. 
You might well think me negligent or 
forgetful of you, if true friendship and 

* Mrs. Pope died the 7th of June, 1733, 
asred 93. 



Sect. I. 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



303 



sincere esteem were to be measured by 
common forms and compliments. The 
truth is, I could not TVTite then, without 
saying something of my own condition, 
and of my loss of so old and so deserving 
a parent, which really would have trou- 
bled you ; or I must have kept a silence 
upon that head, which would not have 
suited that freedom and sincere opening 
of the heart which is due to you from me. 
I am now pretty well ; but my home is 
uneasy to me still, and I am therefore 
wandering about all this summer. I was 
but four days at Twickenham since the 
occasion that made it so melancholy. I 
have been a fortnight in Essex, and am 
now at Dawley (whose master is your 
servant), and going to Cirencester to 
lord Bathurst. I shall also see South- 
ampton with lord Peterborrow. The 
court and Tmt'nam I shall forsake toge- 
ther. I wish I did not leave our friend*, 
who deserves more quiet, and more health 
and happiness, than can be found in such 
a family. The rest of my Acquaintance 
are tolerably happy in their various ways 
of life, whether court, country, or town ; 
and Mr. Cleland is as well in the park 
as if he were in Paradise. I heartily 
hope Yorkshire is the same to you ; and 
that no evil, moral or physical, may come 
near you. 

1 have now but too much melancholy 
leisure, and no other care but to finish 
my Essay on Man : there will be in it 
one line that may offend you (I fear) ; 
and yet I will not alter or omit it, unless 
you come to town and prevent me before 
I print it, which will be in a fortnight 
in all probability. In plain truth, I will 
not deny myself the greatest pleasure I 
am capable of receiving, because another 
may have the modesty not to share it. 
It is all a poor poet can do, to bear tes- 
timony to the virtue he cannot reach : 
besides that, in this age, I see too few 
good examples not to lay hold on any I 
can find. You see what an interested 
man I am. Adieu. 



LETTER CLIII. 

Mr. Pope to Dr. Arbuthnot. 

July 26, 173-4. 

I THANK you for your letter, which hias 

all those genuine marks of a good min d 

by which I have ever distinguished yours , 

* Mrs. B. 



and for which I have so long loved you. 
Our friendship has been constant, be* 
cause it was grounded on good principles, 
and therefore not only uninterrupted by 
any distrust, but by any vanity, much 
less any interest. 

What you recommend to me with the 
solemnity of a last request, shall have 
its due weight with me. That disdain 
and indignation against vice, is (I thank 
God) the only disdain and indignation I 
have : it is sincere, and it will be a lasting 
one. But sure it is as impossible to have 
a just abhorrence of vice, without hating 
the vicious, as to bear a true love for vir- 
tue, without loving the good. To reform 
and not to chastise, I am afraid, is im- 
possible ; and that the best precepts, 
as well as the best laws, would prove of 
small use, if there were no examples to 
enforce them. To attack vices in the 
abstract, without touching persons, may 
be safe fighting indeed, but it is fighting 
with shadows. General propositions are 
obscure, misty, and uncertain, compared 
with plain, ftill, and home examples : 
precepts only apply to our reason, which 
in most men is but weak : examples are 
pictures, and strike the senses, nay raise 
the passions, and call in those (the strong- 
est and most general of all motives) to 
the aid of reformation. Every vicious 
man makes the case his own; and that is 
the only way by which such men can be 
afi'ected, much less deterred ; so that to 
chastise is to reform. The only sign by 
which I found my writings ever did any 
good, or had any weight, has been that 
they raised the anger of bad men. And 
my greatest comfort, an encouragement 
to proceed, has been to see that those 
who have no shame, and no fear of any 
thing else, have appeared touched by my 
satires. 

As to your kind concern for my safety, 
I can guess what occasions it at this time. 
l?.orae characters! I have drawn are such, 
^.hat if there be any who deserve them, 
it is evidently a service to mankind to 
point those men out ; yet such as, if all 
the world gave them, none, I think, will 
own they take to themselves. But if 
they should, those of whom all the world 
think in such a manner, must be men I 
cannot fear. Such in particular as have 
the meanness to do mischief in the dark, 
have seldom the courage to justify them 

f The character of Sporus in the Epistle to 
Dr. Arbuthnot. 



304 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book 111. 



in the face of day ; the talents that make 
a cheat or a whisperer, are not the same 
that qualify a man for an insulter ; and 
as to private villany, it is not so safe to 
join in an assassination as in a libel. I 
will consult my safety so far as 1 think 
becomes a prudent man ; but not so far 
as to omit any thing which I think be- 
comes an honest one. As to personal 
attacks beyond the law, every man is 
liable to them : as for danger within the 
law, I am not gnilty enough to fear any. 
For the good opinion of all tha world, I 
know it is not to be had : for that of 
worthy men, 1 hope, I shall not forfeit 
it : for that of the great, or those in 
power, I may wish I had it; but if 
through misrepresentations (too common 
about persons in that station) I have it 
not, I shall be sorry, but not miserable 
in the want of it. 

It is certain, much freer satirists than 
I, have enjoyed the encouragement and 
protection of the princes under whom 
they lived. Augustus and Maecenas 
made Horace their companion, though 
he had been in arms on the side of Bru- 
tus ; and allow me to remark, it was out 
of the suffering party too that they fa- 
voured and distinguished Virgil. You 
will not suspect me of comparing myself 
with Virgil and Horace, nor even with 
another court favourite, Boileau. I have 
always been too modest to imagine my 
panegyrics were worthy of a court ; and 
that, I hope, will be thought the true 
reason why I have never offered any. I 
would only have observed, that it was 
under the greatest princes and best mi- 
nisters, that moral satirists were most 
encouraged ; and that then poets exer- 
cised the same jurisdiction over the fol- 
lies, as historians did over the vices of 
men. It may also be worth considering, 
whether Augustus himself makes the 
greater figure in the writings of the 
former, or of the latter? and whether 
Nero and Domitian do not appear as ri- 
diculous for their false taste and affecta- 
tion in Persius and Juvenal, as odious 
for their bad government in Tacitus and 
Suetonius ? In the first of these reigns 
it was that Horace was protected and 
caressed ; and in the latter that Lucan 
was put to death, and Juvenal banished. 

1 would not have said so much, but to 
shew you my whole heart on this subject ; 
and to convince you I am deliberately 
bent to perform that request which you 



make your last to me, and to perform it 
with temper, justice, and resolution. As 
your approbation (being the testimony 
of a sound head and honest heart) does 
greatly confirm me herein, I wish you 
may live to see the effect it may hereafter 
have upon me, in something more deserv- 
ing of that approbation. But if it be 
the will of God (which, I know, will also 
be yours) that we must separate, I hope 
it will be better for you than it can be 
for me. You are fitter to live, or to die, 
than any man I know. Adieu, my dear 
friend ! and may God preserve your life 
easy, or make your death happy *. 



LETTER CLIV. 

Mr. Pope to Br, Swift. 

June 18, 1714. 
Whatever apologies it might become 
me to make at any other time for Avriting 
to you, I shall use none now, to a man 
who has owned himself as splenetic as a 
cat in the country. In that circumstance 
I know by experience a letter is a very 
useful as well as an amusing thing ; if 
you are too busied in state affairs to read 
it, yet you may find entertainment in 
folding it into divers figures, either 
doubling it into a pyramidical, or twisting 
it into a serpentine form : or if your dis- 
position should not be so mathematical, 
in taking it with you to that place where 
men of studious minds are apt to sit 
longer than ordinary; where, after an 
abrupt division of the paper, it may not 
be unpleasant to try to fit and rejoin the 
broken lines together. All these amuse- 
ments I am no stranger to in the country, 
and doubt not (by this time) you begin to 
relish them, in your present contempla- 
tive situation. 

I remember a man, who was thought 
to have some knowledge in the world, 
used to affirm, that no people in town 
ever complained they were forgotten by 
their friends in the country : but my in- 
creasing experience convinces me he was 
mistaken ; for I find a great many here 
giievously complaining of you upon this 
score. I am told further, that you treat 
the few you correspond with in a very 
arrogant style, and tell them you admire 
at their insolence in disturbing your 

* This exctUent person died Feb. 27, 1734-5. | 



Sect. I, 



U O D E R N, f) F LATE DA T E. 



305 



meditations, or even inquiring- of your 
retreat* : but this I will not positively 
assert, because I never received any sucli 
insulting epistle from you. My lord 
Oxford says you have not written to him 
once since you went : but this perhaps 
may be only policy in him or you ; and 
I, who am half a whig, must not entirely 
credit any thing he aifirms. At Button s 
it is reported you are gone to Hanover, 
and that Gay goes only on an embassy 
to you. Others apprehend some danger- 
ous state treatise from your retirement : 
and a wit, who affects to imitate Baisac, 
says, that the ministry now are like those 
heathens of old, who received their 
oracles from the woods. The gentlemen 
of the Roman Catholic persuasion are 
not unwilling to credit me, when I 
whisper, that you are gone to meet some 
Jesuits commissioned from the court of 
Rome, in order to settle the most con- 
venient methods to be taken for the 
coming of the Pretender. Dr. Arbuth- 
not is singular in his opinion, and ima- 
gines your only design is to attend at 
full leisure to the life and adventures of 
Scribleru-s. This indeed must be grant- 
ed of greater importance than all the 
rest ; and I wish I could promise so well 
of you. The top of my own ambition 
is to contribute to that great work ; and 
I shall translate Homer by the bye. Mr. 
Gay has acquainted you what progress 
I have made in it. 1 cannot name Mr. 
Gay, without all the acknowledgments 
which I shall ever owe you, on his ac- 
count. If I writ this in verse, 1 would 
tell you, you are like the sun; and 
while men imagine you to be retired or 
absent, are hourly exerting your indul- 
gence, and bringing things to maturity 
for their advantage. Of all the world, 
you are the man (without flattery) who 
serve your friends with the least ostenta- 
tion ; it is almost ingratitude to thank 
you, considering your temper ; and this 
is the period of all my letter which, I 
fear, you will think the most imperti- 
nent. I am, with the truest affection, 
yours, &c. 

* Some time before the deatii of queen Anne, 
when her ministers were quarrelling, and the 
Dean could not reconcile them, he retired to a 
friend's house in Berkshire, and never saw r hem 
after. 



LETTER CLV. 
Anthony Henlej/, Esq. to Dr. Swift. 

Nov. 2, ] 703. 

Dear Doctor, 
Though you will not send me your 
broomstickf, I will send you as good a 
reflection upon death as even Adrian's 
himself, though the fellow was but an 
old farmer of mine that made it. He had 
been ill a good while ; and when his 
friends saw him a-going, they all came 
croaking about him as usual ; and one 
of them asking him how he did ? he re- 
plied, " In great pain. If I could but 
get this same breath out of my body, I 
would take care, by G — d, how I let it 
come in again." This, if it were put 
into fine Latin, I fancy would make as 
good a sound as any I have met with. 
I am, &c. 



LETTER CLVL 

Lord Bolingbroke to Dr. Swift. 

I AM not so lazy as Pope, and therefore 
you must not expect from me the same 
indulgence to laziness ; in defending his 
own cause he pleads yours, and becomes 
your advocate while he appeals to you 
as his judge : you will do the same on 
your part ; and I , and the rest of your 
common friends, shall have great justice 
to expect from two such righteous tribu- 
nals. You resemble perfectly the two 
alehouse-keepers in Holland, who were 
at the same time burgomasters of the 
town, and taxed one another's bills alter- 
nately. I declare beforehand I will not 
stand to the award ; my title to your 
friendship is good, and wants neither 
deeds nor writings to confirm it ; but 
annual acknowledgments at least are ne- 
cessary to preserve it : and I begin to 
suspect, by your defrauding me of them, 
that you hope in time to dispute it, and 
to urge prescription against me. I would 
not say one word to you about myself 
(since it is a subject on which you ap- 
pear to have no curiosity), was it not to 
try how far the contrast between Pope's 
fortune and manner of life and mine may 
be carried. 



f Meditations on a Broomstick, written by 
Dr. Swift about tliis time 

X 



306 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book III. 



I have been, then, infinitely more uni- 
form and less dissipated than when you 
knew me, and cared for me. That love 
which I used to scatter with such profu- 
sion among the female kind, has been 
these many years devoted to one object, 
A great many misfortunes (for so they 
are called, though sometimes very im- 
properly), and a retirement from the 
world, have made that just and nice dis- 
crimination between my acquaintance 
and my friends, which we have seldom 
sagacity enough to make for ourselves : 
those insects of various hues, which used 
to hum and buz about me, while I stood 
in the sunshine, have disappeared since 
I lived in the shade. No man comes to 
a hermitage but for the sake of the her- 
mit ; a few philosophical friends come 
often to mine, and they are such as you 
would be glad to live with, if a dull cli- 
mate and duller company have not al- 
tered you extremely from what you were 
nine years ago. 

The hoarse voice of party was never 
heard in this quiet place ; gazettes and 
pamphlets are banished from it ; and if 
the lucubrations of Isaac Bickerstaff be 
admitted, this distinction is owing to 
some strokes by which it is judged that 
this illustrious philosopher had (like the 
Indian Fohu, the Grecian Pythagoras, 
the Persian Zoroaster, and others his 
precursors among the Zabrians, Ma- 
gians, and the Egyptian seers) both his 
outward and his inward doctrine, and 
that he was of no side at the bottom. 
When I am there, I forget I was ever of 
any party myself; nay, 1 am often so 
happily absorbed by the abstracted rea- 
son of things, that I am ready to imagine 
there never was any such monster as 
Party. Alas ! I am soon awakened from 
that pleasing dream by the Greek and 
Homan historians, by Guicciardine, by 
Machiavel, and Thuanus ; for I have 
vowed to read no history of our own 
country till that body of it which you 
promise to finish appears. 

I am under no apprehension that a 
glut of study and retirement should cast 
me back into the hurry of the world ; on 
the contrary, the single regret which I 
€ver feel, is that I fell so late into this 
course of life ; my philosophy grows con- 
firmed by habit ; and if you and I meet 
again, I will extort this approbation 
from you : Jcmi non consilio bonus, sed 
more eo pcrdjictus, ut non tantum rede 



facere passim, sed nisi rccte facere non 
possim. The little incivilities 1 have met 
with from opposite sets of people, have 
been so far from rendering me violent or 
sour to any, that I think myself obliged 
to them all : some have cured me of my 
fears by shewing me how impotent the 
malice of the world is ; others have cured 
me of my hopes, by shcAving how preca- 
rious popular friendships are ; all have 
cured me of surprise. In driving me 
out of party, they have driven me out 
of cursed company ; and in stripping 
me of titles, and rank, and estate, and 
such trinkets, which every man that will 
may spare, they have given me that which 
no man can be happy without. 

Reflection and habit have rendered 
the world so indifferent to me, that I 
am neither afflicted nor rejoiced, angry 
nor pleased, at what happens in it, any 
further than personal friendships interest 
me in the affairs of it ; and this princi- 
ple extends my cares but a little way. 
Perfect tranquillity is the general tenour 
of my life ; good digestions, serene 
weather, and some other mechanic 
springs, wind me above it now and 
then, but I never fall below it ; I am 
sometimes gay, but I am never sad. I 
have gained new friends, and have lost 
some old ones ; my acquisitions of this 
kind give me a good deal of pleasure, 
because they have not been made lightly. 
I know no vows so solemn as those of 
friendship, and therefore a pretty long- 
noviciate of acquaintance should me- 
thinks precede them ; my losses of this 
kind give me but little trouble ; I con- 
tributed not to them ; and a friend 
who breaks with me unjustly, is not 
worth preserving. As soon as I leave 
this town (which will be in a few days) 
I shall fall back into that course of life 
which keeps knaves and fools at a great 
distance from me : I have an aversion to 
them both ; but in the ordinary course 
of life 1 think I can bear the sensible 
knave better than the fool. One must 
indeed with the former be in some or 
other of the attitudes of those wooden 
men whom I have seen before a sword- 
cutler's shop in Germany ; but even in 
these constrained postures the w^tty 
rascal will divert me ; and he that di- 
verts me does me a great deal of good, 
and lays me under an obligation to him, 
which I am not obliged to pay him in 
another coin: the fool obliges me to 



Sect. I. 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



307 



be almost as much upon my guard as 
the knave, and he makes me no amends ; 
lie numbs me like the torpor, or he teases 
me like the fly. This is the picture of 
an old friend, and more like him than 
that will be which you once asked, and 
which he will send jou, if you continue 
still to desire it. — Adieu, dear Swift; 
with all thy faults I love thee entirely ; 
make an effort, and love me on with all 
mine. 

LETTER CLVn. 

Dr. Swift to Mr. Pope. 

Dublin, Sept. 20, 1723. 

Returning from a summer expedition 
of four months, on account of my health, 
I found a letter from you, with an ap- 
pendix longer than yours from lord 
Eoling-broke. I believe there is not a 
more miserable malady than an unv»'ill- 
ingness to write letters to our best 
friends ; and a man might be philoso- 
pher enough in finding out reasons for 
it. One thing is clear, that it shev/s a 
mighty difference betwixt friendship and 
love ; for a lover (as I have heard) is 
always scribbling to his mistress. If I 
could permit myself to believe what 
your civility makes you say, that I am 
still remembered by my friends in Eng- 
land, I am in the right to keep myself 
here. — Non sum quails eram. I left you 
in a period of life when one year does 
more execution than three at yours ; to 
which, if you add the dulness of the air 
and of the people, it will make a terrible 
sum. I have no very strong faith in you 
pretenders to retirement ; you are not 
of an age for it, nor have gone through 
either good or bad fortune enough to go 
into a corner, and form conclusions de 
contemptu mundi et fuga sceculi, unless a 
poet grows w^eary of too much applause, 
as ministers do of too much weight of 
business. 

Your happiness is greater than your 
merit, in choosing your favourites so in- 
differently among either party : this you 
owe partly to your education, and partly 
to your genius employing you in an art 
in which faction has nothing to do ; for 
I suppose Virgil and Horace are equally 
read by w^higs and tories. You have no 
more to do with the constitution of 
church and state than a Christian at 
Constantinople ; and you are so much 



the wiser and the happier, because both 
parties will approve your poetry as long 
as you are known to be of neither. 

Your notions of friendship are new to 
me : I believe every man is born with his 
quantum; and he cannot give to one 
without robbing another. I very well 
know to whom I would give the first 
places in my friendship, but they are not 
in the way ; I am condemned to another 
scene, and therefore I distribute it in 
pennyworths to those about me, and who 
displease me least ; and should do the 
same to my fellow-prisoners if I were 
condemned to jail. I can likewise tole- 
rate knaves much better than fools, be- 
cause their knavery does me no hurt in 
the commerce I have with them, which 
however 1 own is more dangerous, 
though not so troublesome as that of 
fools. I have often endeavoured to es- 
tablish a friendship among all men of 
genius, and would fain have it done ; 
they are seldom above three or four con- 
temporaries ; and if they could be united, 
would drive the world before them. I 
think it was so among the poets in the 
time of Augustus ; but envy, and party, 
and pride, have hindered it among us. 
I do not include the subalterns, of which 
you are seldom without a large tribe. 
Under the name of poets and scribblers, 
I suppose you mean the fools you are 
content to see sometimes, when they 
happen to be modest ; which was not 
frequent among them while I was in the 
Avorld. 

I would describe to you my way of 
living, if any method could be called so 
in this country. I choose companions 
out of those of least consequence and 
most compliance : I read the most tri- 
fling books I can find ; and whenever I 
write, it is upon the most trifling sub- 
jects ; but riding, walking, and sleeping-, 
take up eighteen of the tv/enty-four 
hours. I procrastinate more than I did 
twenty years ago ; and have several 
things to finish, which I put off to 
twenty years hence ; Hcec est vita solu- 
torum, 8fc. I send you the compliments 
of a friend of yours, who hath passed 
four months this summer with two grave 
acquaintance at his country-house, with- 
out ever once going to Dublin, which is 
but eight miles distant ; yet, when he 
returns to London, I will engage you 
will find him as deep in the Court of 
Requests, the Park, the Operas, and the 
X2 



308 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book III. 



coffee Louse, as any man there. I am 
now with him for a fev/ days. 

You must remember me with great 
affection to Dr. Arbuthnot, Mr. Con- 
greve, and Gay. I think there are no 
more eodem tertios between you and me, 
except Mr. Jervas, to whose house I ad- 
dress this, for want of knowing where 
you live : for it was not clear from your 
last y/hether you lodge Avith lord Peter- 
borow, or he v/ith you. I am ever, &c. 

LETfER CLVIIJ. 

Mr. Gay to Dr. Swift. 

Nuv. 17, 17'26. 

About ten days ago a book was pub- 
lished here of the Travels of one Gul- 
liver, which hath been the conversation 
of the whole town ever since : the whole 
impression sold in a week ; and nothing 
is more diverting than to hear the dif- 
ferent opinions people give of it, though 
ail agree in liking it extremely. It is 
generally said that you are the author ; 
but I am told the bookseller declares he 
knows not from what hand it came. 
From the highest to the lowest it is uni- 
v-ersally read ; from the cabinet council 
to the nursery. The politicians to a man 
agree, that it is free from particular re- 
flections, but that the satire on general 
societies of men is too severe. Not but 
we now and then meet with people of 
greater perspicuity, who are in search 
of particular applications in every leaf ; 
and it is highly probable we shall have 
keys published to give light into Gul- 
liver's design. Lord is the person 

who least approves it, blaming it as a 
design of evil consequence to depreciate 
human nature, at which it cannot be 
wondered that he takes most offence, 
being himself the most accomplished of 
his species, and so losing more than any 
other of that praise which is due both to 
the dignity and virtue of a man. Your 
friend, my lord Harcourt, commends it 
very much, though he thinks in some 
places the matter too far carried. The 
duchess dowager of Marlborough is in 
raptures at it ; she says she can dream 
of nothing else since she read it ; she 
declares tliat she has now found out, that 
her whole life hath been lost in caressing 
the worst part of mankind, and treating 
tlie best as her foes ; and that if she 



knew Gulliver, though he had been the 
worst enemy she ever had, she would 
give up her present acquaintance for his 
friendship. You may see by this, that 
you are not much injured by being sup- 
posed the author of this piece. If you 
are, you have disobliged us, and two or 
three of your best friends, in not giving 
us the least hint of it while you were 
with us ; and in particular Dr. Arbuth- 
not, who says it is ten thousand pities 
he had not known it, he could have 
added such abundance of things upon 
every subject. Among lady-critics, some 
have found out that Mr. Gulliver had 
a particular malice to maids of honour. 
Those of them who frequent the church, 
say, his design is impious : and that it is 
depreciating the works of the Creator. 
Notwithstanding, I am told the princess 
hath read it with great pleasure. As to 
other critics, they think the flying island 
is the least entertaining ; and so great 
an opinion the town have of the impos- 
sibility of Gulliver's writing at all below 
himself, it is agreed that part was not 
writ by the same hand : though this hath 
its defenders too. It hath passed lords 
and commons nemine contradicente ; and 
the whole town, men, women, and chil- 
dren, are quite full of it. 

Perhaps I may all this time be talking 
to you of a book you have never seen, 
and which hath not yet reached Ireland ; 
if it hath not, I believe what we have 
said will be sufficient to recommend it to 
your reading, and that you will order me 
to send it to you. 

But it will be much better to come 
over yourself, and read it here, where 
you will have the pleasure of variety of 
commentators, to explain the difficult 
passages to you. 

We all rejoice that you have fixed the 
precise time of your coming to be cum 
Idrundine prima; which we modern na- 
turalists pronounce, ought to fee reck- 
oned, contrary to Pliny, in this northern 
latitude of fifty-two degrees, from the 
end of February, Styl. Greg, at farthest. 
But to us your friends, the coming of 
such a black swallow as you, will make a 
summer in the worst of seasons. We 
are no less glad at your mention of 
Twickenham and Dawley ; and in town 
you know you have a lodging at court. 

The princess is clothed in Irish silk ; 
pray give our service to the weavers. 
We are strangely surprised to hear that 



Sect. 1. 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



301? 



the bells in Ireland ring without your 
money. I hope you do not write the 
thing that is not. We are afraid that 
B — hath been guilty of that crime, that 
you (like Houynhum) have treated Lim 
as a Yahoo, and discarded him your 
service. I fear you do not understand 
these modish terms, which every crea- 
ture now understands but yourself. 

You tell us your wine is bad, and that 
the clergy do not frequent your house ; 
which we look ujDon to be tautology. 
The best advice we can give you is, to 
make them a present of your wine, and 
come away to better. 

You fancy we envy you ; but you are 
mistaken : we envy those you are with ; 
for we cannot envy the man we love. 
Adieu. 

LETTER CLIX. 

Mr. Pope to Dr. Swift. 

Oct. 2, n27. 
It is a perfect trouble to me to v/rite to 
you ; and your kind letter left for me 
at Mr. Gay's aflFected me so much, that 
it made me like a girl. I cannot tell 
what to say to you ; I only feel that I 
wish you well in every circumstance of 
life ; that it is almost as good to be hated 
as to be loved, considering the pain it is 
to minds of any tender turn, to find 
themselves so utterly impotent to do any 
good, or give any ease to those who de- 
serve most from us. I would very fain 
know as soon as you recover your com- 
plaints, or any part of them. Would to 
God I could ease any of them, or had 
been able even to have alleviated any ! 
I found I was not, and truly it grieved 
me. 1 was sorry to find you could 
think yourself easier in any house than 
mine, though at the same time I can 
allow for a tenderness in your v/ay of 
thinking, even when it seemed to v.^ant 
that tenderness. I cannot explain my 
meaning, perhaps you know it : but the 
best way of convincing you of my in- 
dulgence will be, if I live, to visit you 
in Ireland, and act there as much in my 
own way as you did here in yours. I 
will not leave your roof, if I am ill. 
To your bad health 1 fear there was 
added some disagreeable news from Ire- 
land, which might occasion your sudden 
departure : for the last time I saw you, 
vou assured me vou \^ ould not leave us 



the whole winter, unless your health 
grew better ; and I do not find it did. 
I never complied so unwillingly in my 
life with any friend as with you in stay- 
ing so entirely from you ; nor could 1 
have had the constancy to do it, if you 
had not promised that, before you went, 
we should meet, and you would send to 
us all to come. I have given your re- 
membrances to those you mention in 
yours : we are quite sorry for you, I 
mean for ourselves. I hope, as you 
do, that we shall meet in a more dura- 
ble and more satisfactory state ; but 
the less sure I am of that, the more I 
would indulge it in this. We are to 
believe we shall have something better 
than even a friend there ; but certainly 
here we have nothing so good. x\dieu, 
for this time ; may you find every friend 
you go to as pleased and happy as every 
friend you went from is sorry and trou- 
bled. Yours, &c. 



LETTER CLX. 

Dr. Sivift to Mr. Pope. 

Dublin, Oct. 12, 1727 

I HAVE been long reasoning with myself 
upon the condition I am in ; and in 
conclusion have thought it best to return 
to what fortune hath made my home : 1 
have there a large house, and servants 
and conveniences about me. I may be 
worse tlian I am ; and I have nowhere 
to retire to, therefore thought it best to 
return to Ireland, rather than go to any 
distant place in England. Here is my 
maintenance, and here my convenience. 
If it pleases God to restore me to my 
health, I shall readily make a third 
journey ; if not, we must part as all 
human creatures have parted. You are 
the best and kindest friend in the world ; 
and I know nobody alive or dead to 
whom I am so much obliged ; and if 
ever you made me angry, it was for your 
too much care about nie. I have often 
wished tbat God Almighty would be so 
easy to the weakness of mankind, as to 
let old friends be acquainted in another 
state : and if I were to write an Utopia 
for heaven, that Avould be one of my 
schemes. This wildness you must al- 
low for, because I am giddy and deaf. 

I find it more convenient to be sick 
here, without the vexation of making 



310 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book III. 



my friends uneasy : yet my giddiness 
alone would not have done, if that un- 
sociable comfortless deafness had not 
quite tired me. And I believe I should 
have returned from the inn, if I had not 
leared it was only a short intermission, 
and the year was late, and my licence 
expiring. Surely, besides all other faults, 
I should be a very ill judge, to doubt 
your friendship and kindness. But it 
hath pleased God that you are not in a 
state of health to be mortified with the 
care and sickness of a friend. Two sick 
friends never did well together ; such an 
office is fitter for servants and humble 
companions, to whom it is wholly indif- 
ferent whether we give them trouble or 
no. The case would be quite otherwise 
if you were with me : you could not 
refuse to see any body ; and here is a 
large house, where we need not hear 
each other if we were both sick. I have 
a race of orderly elderly people of both 
sexes at command, who are of no con- 
sequence, and have gifts proper for 
attending us ; who can bawl when I am 
deaf, and tread softly when I am only 
giddy and would sleep. 

I had another reason for my haste 
hither, which was changing my agent, 
the old one having terribly involved my 
little affairs : to which however I am 
grown so indifferent, that I believe I 
shall lose two or three hundred pounds 
rather than plague myself with ac- 
counts ; so that I am very well qualified 
to be a lord, and put into Peter Walter's 
hands. 

Pray God continue and increase Mr. 
Congreve's amendment, though he does 
not deserve it like you, having been too 
lavish of that bealth which nature gave 
him. 

I hope my Whitehall landlord is 
nearer to a place than when I left him ; 
as the preacher said, " the day of judg- 
ment was nearer than ever it had been 
before." 

Pray God send, you health, det salu- 
tem, det opes; animum (zquum tibi ipse 
parahls. You see Horace wished for 
money, as well as health ; and I would 
hold a crown he kept a coach ; and I 
shall never be a friend to the court till 
you do GO too. Yours, &c. 



LETTER CLXL 

Mr. Pope to Dr. Swift. 

March 23, 1727-8. 
I SEND you a very odd thing, a paper 
printed in Boston in New-England ; 
wherein you will find a real person, a 
member of tlieir parliament, of the name 
of Jonathan Gulliver. If the fame of 
that traveller has travelled thither, it has 
travelled very quick, to have folks christ- 
ened already by the name of the sup- 
posed author. But if you object, that no 
child so lately christened could be arrived 
at years of maturity to be elected into 
parliament, I reply (to solve the riddle) 
that the person is an Anabaptut, and 
not christened till full age ; which sets 
all right. However it be, the accident 
is very singular, that these two names 
should be united. 

Mr. Gay's Opera has been acted near 
forty days running, and will certainly 
continue the whole season. So he has 
more than a fence about his thousand 
pound : he will soon be thinking of a 
fence about his two thousand. Shall no 
one of us live as we would wish each 
other to live ? Shall he have no annuity, 
you no settlement on this side, and I no 
prospect of getting to you on the other? 
This Avorld is made for Csesar, as Cato 
said : for ambitious, false, or flattering 
people to domineer in : nay, they would 
not, by their good will, leave us our very 
books, thoughts, or words, in quiet. 
I despise the world yet, I assure you, 
more than either Gay or you ; and the 
court more than all the rest of the world. 
As for those scribblers for whom you 
apprehend I would suppress my Dulness 
(which by the way, for the future, you 
are to call by a more pompous name. 
The Dunciad), how much that nest of 
hornets are my regard , will easily appear 
to you when you read the Treatise of 
the Bathos. 

At all adventures, yours and my name 
shall stand linked as friends to posterity, 
both in verse and prose, and (as Tully 
calls it) in consuetudinc studloruni. Would 
to God our persons could but as well, 
and as surely be inseparable ! I find my 
other ties dropping from me ; some Avorn 
off, some torn off, others relaxing daily : 
my greatest, both by duty, gratitude, 
and humanity, time is shaking every mo- 
ment ; and it no\v Jiangb but by a thread \ 



Sect. 1. 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE 



31 



I am many years the older, for living* so 
much with one so old ; much the more 
helpless, for having been so long helped 
and tended by her ; much the more con- 
siderate and tender, for a daily commerce 
with one who required me justly to be 
both to her ; and consequently tlie more 
melancholy and thoughtful, and the less 
fit for others, who want only in a com- 
panion or a friend to be amused or en- 
tertained. My constitution too has had 
its share of decay as well as my spirits ; 
and I am as much in the decline at forty 
as you ac sixty. I believe we shall be 
fit to live together, could I get a little 
more health, which might make me not 
quite insupportable : your deafness would 
agree ^ntli my dulness ; you would not 
want me to speak when you could not 
hear. But God forbid you should be as 
destitute of the social comforts of life as 
I must when I lose my mother ; or that 
ever you should lose your more useful ac- 
quaintance so utterly as to turn your 
thoughts to such a broken reed as I am, 
who could so ill supply your wants. I 
am extremely troubled at the returns of 
your deafness ; you cannot be too parti- 
culai- in the accounts of your health to 
me ; every thing you do or say in this 
kind obliges me, nay delights me, to see 
the justice you do me in thinking me 
concerned in all your concerns ; so that 
though the pleasantest thing you can 
telJ me be that you are better or 
easier ; next to that, it pleases me that 
you make me the person you would 
complain to. 

As the obtaining the love of valuable 
men is the happiest end I know of this 
life, so the next felicity is to get rid of 
fools and scoundrels ; which I cannot but 
own to you was one part of my design in 
falling upon these authors, whose inca- 
pacity is not greater than their insin- 
cerity, and of whom I have always found 
(if I may quote myself), 

That each bad author is as bad a fritnd. 

This poem will rid me of those insects. 

Cedile, Romanl scrip/oics, cedile, Gra'ii ; 
Xescio quid mc/jus na^citur Iliade. 

I mean that jhjj Iliad; and I call it Nes- 
cio quid, which is a degree of modesty ; 
but however, if it silence these fellows*. 



* It did, in a little time, effectually silence 
them. 



it must be something greater than any 
Iliad in Christendom. Adieu. 



LETTER CLXIL 

Dr. Sivift to Mr. Pope. 

Dublin, May iO, 1723. 
I HAVE with great pleasure shown the 
New England newspaper, with the two 
names Jonathan Gulliver, and I remem- 
ber Mr. Fortescue sent you an account 
from the assizes of one Lemuel Gulliver 
who had a cause there, and lost it on 
his ill reputation of being a liar. These 
are not the only observations I have 
made upon odd strange accidents in 
trifles, which in things of great import- 
ance would have been matter for histo- 
rians. jMr. Gay's Opera hath been acted 
here twenty times ; and my lord lieu- 
tenant tells me it is very well performed ; 
he hath seen it often, and approves it 
much. 

You give a most melancholy account 
of yourself, and which I do not approve. 
I reckon that a man, subject like us to 
bodily infirmities, should only occasion- 
ally converse with great people, notwith- 
standing all their good qualities, easi- 
nesses, and kindnesses. There is an- 
other race which I prefer before them, 
as beef and mutton for constant diet be- 
fore partridges : I mean a middle kind 
both for understanding and fortune, who 
are perfectly easy, never impertinent, 
complying in every thing, ready to do a 
hundred little ofiices that you and I may 
often want,, who dine and sit with me 
five times for once that 1 go to them, and 
whom I can tell without offence that I 
am otherwise engaged at present. This 
you cannot expect from any of those that 
either you or I, or both, are acquainted 
with on your side, who are only fit for 
our healthy seasons, and have much busi- 
ness of their own. God forbid I should 
condemn you to Ireland {^Sluanquaju O) ; 
and for England, I despair ; and indeed 
a change of affairs would come too late 
at my season of life, and might probably 
produce nothing on my behalf. You 
have kept JMrs. Pope longer, and have 
had her care beyond what from nature 
you could expect ; not but her loss will 
be very sensible, whenever it shall hap- 
pen. I say one thing, that both summers 
and winters are milder here than with 



312 



ELEGANT E IM S T L E S. 



Book 111. 



you ; all things for life in general better 
for a middling fortune : you will have 
an absolute command of your company, 
with whatever obsequiousness or free- 
dom you may expect or allow. I have 
an elderly housekeeper, who hath been 
my W-lp-le above thirty years, whenever 
I lived in this kingdom. I have the 
command of one or two villas near this 
town : you have a warm apartment in 
this house, and two gardens for amuse- 
ment. I have said enough, yet not half. 
Except absence from friends, I confess 
freely that I have no discontent at living 
here ; besides what arises from a silly 
spirit of liberty, which, as it neither 
sours my drink, nor hurts my meat, nor 
spoils my stomach farther than in ima- 
gination, so I resolve to throw it off. 

You talk of this Dunciad : but I am 
impatient to have it volare per ora — there 
is now a vacancy for fame ; the Beggar's 
Opera hath done its task, discedit uti 
conviva satur. Adieu. 

LETTER CLXIIL 

Dr. Swift to Mr. Pope. 

Dub!in, Feb. 13, 1728. 
I LIVED very easily in the country : sir 
A. is a man of sense, and a scholar, has 
a good voice, and my lady a better ; she 
is perfectly well-bred, and desirous to 
improve her understanding, which is 
very good, but cultivated too much like 
a fine lady. She was my pupil there, and 
severely chid when she read wrong; with 
that, and Avalking, and making twenty 
little amusing improvements, and writ- 
ing family verses of mirth by way of 
libels on my lady, my time past very well 
and in very great order ; infinitely Ijetter 
than here, where I see no creature but 
my servants and my old Presbyterian 
housekeeper, denying myself to every 
body, till I shall recover my ears. 

The account of another lord lieute- 
nant was only in a common newspaper, 
when I was in the country ; and if it 
should have happened to be true, 1 would 
have desired to have had access to him, 
as the situation I am in requires. But 
this renev/s the grief for the death of our 
friend Mr. Congreve, whom I loved from 
my youth, and who surely, besides his 
other talents, was a very agreeable com- 
panion. He had the misfortune to 
squander away a very good constitution 



in his younger days ; and 1 think a man 
of sense aud merit like him, is bound in 
conscience to preserve his health for the 
sake of his friends, as well as of himself. 
Upon his own account I could not much 
desire the continuance of his life, under 
so much pain, and so many infirmities. 
Years have not yet hardened me ; and I 
have an addition of weight on m.y spirits 
since we lost him ; though 1 saw him so 
seldom, and possibly, if he had lived on, 
should never have seen him more. I do 
not only wish, as you ask me, that I was 
unacquainted with any deserving person, 
but almost that 1 never had a friend. 
Here is an ingenious, good-humoured 
physician, a fine gentleman, an excellent 
scholar, easy in his fortunes, kind to 
every body, hath abundance of friends, 
entertains them often and liberally, they 
pass the evening with him at cards, with 
plenty of good meat and v/ine, eight or a 
dozen together ; he loves them all, and 
they him. He has twenty of these at 
command ; if one of them dies, it is no 
more than. Poor Tom ! he gets another, 
or takes up with the rest, and is no more 
moved than at the loss of his cat ; he of- 
fends nobody, is easy with every body. 
Is not this the true happy man ? I was 
describing him to my lady x\— , who 
knows him too ; but she hates him mor- 
tally by my character, and v/ill not drink 
his health : I would give half my fortune 
for the same temper, and yet 1 cannot say 

I love it, for I do not love my lord 

who is much of the doctor's nature. 1 
hear Mr. Gay's second Opera, which you 
mention , is forbid ; and then he will be 
once more fit to be advised, and reject 
your advice. Adieu. 

LETTER CLXIV. 

Mr. Pope to Dr. Swift. 

Oct. 9, 172t>. 
It pleases me that you received my 
books at last ; but you have never once 
told me if you approve the whole, or dis- 
approve not of some parts of the Com- 
mentary, &c. It was my principal aim 
in the entire work to perpetuate the 
friendship between us, and to shew that 
the friends or the enemies of therone 
were the friends or enemies of the other. 
If in any particular any thing be stated 
or mentioned in a different manner from 
what you like, pray tell me freely, that 



Sect. I. 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



313 



the new editions now coming out here 
may have it rectified. You will find the 
octavo rather more correct than the 
quarto, with some addition to the Notes 
and Epigrams cast in, which I wish had 
heen incrsased by your acquaintance in 
Ireland. I rejoice in hearing that Dra- 
per's Hill is to emulate Parnassus ; 1 fear 
the country about it is as much impove- 
rished. I truly share in all that troubles 
you, and wish you removed from a scene 
of distress, which I know works your 
compassionate temper too strongly ; but 
if we are not to see you here, I believe 
I shall once iii my life see you there. 
You think more for me, and about me, 
than any friend I have ; and you think 
better for me. Perhaps you vdll not be 
contented, though I am, that the addi- 
tional 100/. a year is only for my life. 
My mother is yet living, and I thank 
God for it ; she will never be trouble- 
some to me, if she be not so to herself; 
but a melancholy object it is, to observe 
the gradual decays both of body and 
mind, in a person to whom one is tied 
by the links of both. I cannot tell 
whether her death itself would be so af- 
flicting. 

You are too careful of my worldly af- 
fairs ; I am rich enough, and I can afford 
to give away 100/. a-year. Do not be 
angry : I will not live to be very old ; I 
have revelations to the contrary.* 1 would 
not crawl upon the earth without doing 
a little good when I have a mind to do 
it : I will enjoy the pleasure of what I 
give, by giving it alive, and seeing an- 
other enjoy it. ~\Vhen I die, I should be 
ashamed to leave enough to build me a 
monument, if there vv'ere a wanting 
friend above ground. 

Mr. Gay assures me his 3000/. is kept 
entire and sacred ; he seems to languish 
after a line from you, and complains 
tenderly. Lord Bolingbroke has told me 
ten times over he was going- to write to 
you. Has he, or not? The Doctor is 
unalterable, both in friendship and qua- 
drille ; his wife has been very near death 
last week : his two brothers buried their 
wives within these six weeks. Gay is 
sixty miles off, and has been so all this 
summer, with the duke and duchess of 
Queensbury. He is the same man : so 
is every one here that you know : man- 
kind is unamendable. Opthnus ille qui 

minimus urcretur. Poor ^Irs. is like 

the rest, she cries at tlie thorn in her 



foot, but will suffer nobody to puU it out. 
The court lady I have a good opinion of; 
yet I have treated her more negligently 
than you would do, because you like to 
see the inside of a court, which I do not. 
J have seen her but tvvice. You have a 
desperate hand at dashing out a charac- 
ter by great strokes, and at the same 
time a delicate one at fine touches. God 
forbid you should draw mine, if I were 
conscious of any guilt : but if I were con- 
scious only of folly, God send it ! for as 
nobody can detect a great fault so well 
as you, nobody would so well hide a 
small one : but after all, that lady means 
to do good, and does no harm ; which is 
a vast deal for a courtier. I can assure 
you that lord Peterborow always speaks 
kindly of you, and certainly has as great 
a mind to be your friend as any one. I 
must throw away my pen ; it cannot, it 
never will, tell you what I inwardly am 
to you. 2uod nequeo monstrare, et sentio 
tantum. 



LETTER CLXV. 

Dr. Sivift to Mr. Pope, 

Oct. 31, 1729. 
You were so careful of sending me the 
Dunciad, that 1 have received five of 
them, and have pleased four friends. I 
am one of every body who approve every 
part of it, text and comment : but am 
one abstracted from every body, in the 
happiness of being called your friend, 
while wit, and humour, and politeness, 
shall have any memorial among us. As 
for your octavo edition, we know no- 
thing of it ; for we have an octavo of 
our own, which has sold wonderfully, 
considering our poverty, and dulness 
the consequence of it. 

I writ this post to lord B., and tell 
him in my letter, that ^vith a great deal 
of loss for a frolic, I will fly as soon as 
build ; I have neither years, nor spirits, 
nor money, nor patience, for such amuse- 
ments. The frolic is gone off, and I am 
only 100/. the poorer ; but this king- 
dom is grown so excessively poor, that 
we wise men must think of nothing but 
getting a little ready money. Tt is thought 
there are | not two hundred thousand 
pounds in specie in the whole island ; for 
we return thrice as much to our absen- 
tees as we get by trade, and so are all 
inevitably undone ; which I have been 



314 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IIL 



telling them m print these ten years, to 
as little purpose as if it came from the 
pulpit ; and this is enough for Irish po- 
litics, which I only mention, because it 
so nearly touches myself. 1 must repeat 
what, I believe, I have said before, that 
1 pity you much more than Ptirs. Pope. 
Such a parent and friend, hourly declin- 
ing before your eyes, is an object very 
unfit for your health, and duty, and ten- 
der disposition ; and I pray God it may 
not affect you too much. I am as much 
satisfied that your additional 100/. ])er 
annum is for your life, as if it were for 
ever. You have enough to leave your 
friends : I would not have them glad to 
be rid of you ; and 1 shall take care that 
none but my enemies will be glad to get 
rid of me. You have embroiled me with 
lord B — , about the figure of living, and 
the pleasure of giving. 1 am under the 
necessity of some little paltry figure in 
the station I am ; but I make it as little 
as possible. As to the other part you are 
base, because I thought myself as great 
a giver as ever was of my ability ; and 
yet in proportion you exceed, and have 
kept it till now even a secret from me, 
when I wondered how you were able to 
live with your whole little revenue. 
Adieu. 



LETTER CLXVL 

Lord Bolinghroke to Dr. Swift. 

Nov. 19, 1729. 
I FIND that you have laid aside your 
project of building in Ireland, and that 
we shall see you in this island cum zep/ij/- 
ris et hirundine prima. I know not whe- 
ther the love of fame increases as we ad- 
vance in age ; sure I am that the force 
of friendship does. I loved you almost 
twenty years ago ; I thought of you as 
well as I do now ; better was beyond the 
power of conception ; or, to avoid an 
equivoque, beyond the extent of my 
ideas. Whether you are more obliged to 
me for loving you as well when 1 knew 
you less, or for loving you as v/ell after 
loving you so many years, I shall not 
determine. What I would say is this : 
whilst my mind grows daily more inde- 
})endent of the world, and feels less need 
of leaning on external objects, the ideas 
of friendship return oftener, they busy 
me, they warm me mor^ : is it that we 



grow more tender as the moment of our 
great separation approaches ? Or is it that 
they who are to live together in another 
state (for vera amicitia non nisi inter bo- 
nes) begin to feel more strongly that di- 
vine sympathy which is to be the great 
band of their future society ? There is no 
one thought that soothes my mind like 
this ; I encourage my imagination to 
pursue it, and am heartily alHicted when 
another faculty* of the intellect comes 
boisterously in, and wakes me from so 
pleasing a dream, if it be a dream. I 
will dwell no more on csconomics than 
I have done in my former letter. Thus 
much only I will say, that otiu?n cum dig- 
nitate is to be had with 500/. a-year. as 
well as with 5000/. ; the difference will 
be found in the value of the man, and 
not in that of the estate. I do assure 
you, that I have never quitted the design 
of collecting, revising, improving, and 
extending several materials which are 
still in my power ; and I hope that the 
time of setting myself about this last 
work of my life is not far off. Many pa- 
pers of much curiosity and importance 
are lost, and some of them in a manner 
which would surprise and anger you. 
However, I shall be able to convey se- 
veral great truths to posterity, so clearly, 
and so authentically, that the Burnets 
and the Oldmixons of another age may 
rail, but not be able to deceive. Adieu, 
my friend. I have taken up more of 
this paper than belongs to me, since 
Pope is to write to you ; no matter, for, 
upon recollection, the rules of porpor- 
tion are not broken ; he will say as 
much to you in one page as I have said 
in three. Bid him talk to you of the 
work he is about, I hope in good earnest ; 
it is a fine one, and will be, in his hands, 
an original t- His sole complaint is, 
that he finds it too easy in the execution. 
This flatters his laziness ; it flatters my 
judgment, who always thought that 
(universal as his talents are) this is emi- 
nently and peculiarly his, above all the 
writers I know living or dead : I do not 
except Horace. Adieu. 



* Viz. Reason. 



f Essay on Man. 



Sect. I. 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



315 



LErrER CLXVII. 

From the same to the same. 

March '19. 

1 HAVE delayed several posts answering' 
your letter of January last, in hopes of 
being able to speak to you about a pro- 
ject which concerns us both, but me the 
most, since the success of it Avould bring- 
us together. It has been a good while 
in my head, and at my heart ; if it can 
be set a-going, you shall hear more of it. 
I was ill in the beginning of winter for 
near a week, but in no danger either 
from the nature of my distemper, or 
from the iittendance of three physicians. 
Since that bilious intermitting fever, I 
have had, as I had before, better health 
than the regard I have paid to health de- 
serves. We are both in the decline of 
life, my dear dean, and have been some 
years going down the hill ; let us make 
the passage as smooth as we can. Let 
us fence against physical evil by care, 
and the use of those means which expe- 
rience must have pointed out to us : let 
us fence against moral evil by philoso- 
phy. I renounce the alternative you pro- 
pose. But we may, nay (if we will fol- 
low nature, and do not work up imagi- 
nation against her plainest dictates), we 
shall of course grow every year more in- 
different to life, and to the affairs and 
interests of a system out of which we are 
soon to go. This is much better than 
stupidity. The decay of passion strength- 
ens philosophy ; for passion may decay, 
and stupidity not succeed. Passions (says 
Pope, our divine, as you will see one 
time or other) are the gales of life : let 
us not complain that they do not blow 
a storm. What hurt does age do us, in 
subduing what we toil to subdue all our 
lives ? It is now six in the morning : I 
recall the time (and am glad it is over) 
when about this hour I used to be going 
to bed surfeited with pleasure, or jaded 
with business : my head often full of 
schemes, and my heart as often full of 
anxiety. Is it a misfortune, think you, 
that I rise at this hour, refreshed, serene, 
and calm ? that the past, and even the 
present affairs of life stand like objects at 
a distance from me, where I can keep off 
the disagreeable so as not to be strongly 
affected by them, and from whence I 
can draw the others nearer to me ? Pas- 
sions in their force >voiikl bring all these, 



nay, even future contingencies, about 
my ears at once, and reason would but 
ill defend me in the scuiiie. 

I leave Pope to speak for himself; but 
I must tell you how much my wife is 
obliged to you. She says, she would find 
strength enough to nurse you, if you 
were here, and yet, God knows, she is ex- 
tremely weak : the slow fever works un- 
der, and mines the constitution ; we 
keep it off sometimes, but still it returns, 
and makes new breaches before nature 
can repair the old ones. I am not 
ashamed to say to you, that 1 admire her 
more every hour of my life : Death is not 
to her the King of Terrors ; she beholds 
liim without the least. When she suffers 
much, slie wishes for him as a deliverer 
from pain ; when life is tolerable, she 
looks on him with dislike, because he is 
to separate her from those friends to 
whom she is more attached than to life 
itself. — You shall not stay for my next 
so long as you have for this letter ; and 
in everyone, Pope shall write something 
much better than the scraps of old phi- 
losophers, which were the presents {inu- 
nuscula) that stoical fop Seneca used to 
send in every epistle to his friend Luci- 
lius. 

P. S. My lord has spoken justly of 
his lady : why not I of my mother ? Yes- 
terday was her birthday, now entering 
on the ninety-first year of her age ; her 
memory much diminished, but her senses 
very little hurt, her sight and hearing 
good ; she sleeps not ill, eats moderately, 
drinks water, says her prayers : this is 
all she does. I have reason to thank 
God for her continuing so long a very 
good and tender parent, and for allow- 
ing me to exercise for some years those 
cares which are now as necessary to her 
as hers have been to me. An object of 
this sort daily before one's eyes very 
much softens the mind, but perhaps 
may hinder it from the willingness of 
contracting other ties of the like domes- 
tic nature, when one finds how painful 
it is even to enjoy the tender pleasures. 
I have formerly made some strong efforts 
to get and to deserve a friend : perhaps 
it were wiser never to attempt it, but 
live extempore, and look upon the world 
only as a place to pass through, just pay 
your hosts their due, disperse a little cha- 
rity, and hurry on. Yet I am just now 
writing (or rather planning) a book, to 



316 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IlL 



make mankind look upon this life with 
comfort and pleasure, and put morality 
in good humour. — And just now, too, I 
am going- to see one I love very tenderly ; 
and to-morrow to entertain several civil 
people, whom if we call friends, it is by 
the courtesy of England. — Sic, sicjuvat 
ire sub umbras. While we do live, we 
must make the best of life. 

Cantantes iicct usque {minus via Ice.lei) camus, 

as the shepherd said in Virgil, when the 
road was long and heavy. I am yours. 



LETTER CLXVIIL 

Dr. Swift to Mr. Gay. 

Dublin, Nov. 19, 1730. 
I WRIT to you a long letter about a 
fortnight past, concluding you were in 
London, from whence I understood one 
of your former was dated : nor did I 
imagine you were gone back to Aims- 
bury so late in the year, at which season 
I take the country to be only a scene 
for those who have been ill-used by a 
court on account of their virtues ; which 
is a state of happiness the more valuable, 
because it is not accompanied by envy, 
although nothing deserves it more. I 
would gladly sell a dukedom to lose fa- 
vour in the manner their graces have 
done. I believe my lord Carteret, since 
he is no longer lieutenant, may not wish 
me ill ; and I have told him often that 
I only hated him as lieutenant : I con- 
fess he had a genteeler manner of bind- 
ing the chains of this kingdom than 
most of his predecessors ; and I confess, 
at the same time, that he had (six times) 
a regard to my recommendation, by 
preferring so many of my friends in the 
church ; the two last acts of his favour 
were to add to the dignities of Dr. De- 
lany and Mr. Stopford, the last of whom 
was by you and Mr. Pope put into Mr. 
Pulteney's hands. I told you in my 
last that a continuance of giddiness 
(though not in a violent degree) prevent- 
ed my thoughts of England at present. 
For in my case a domestic life is neces- 
sary, where I can with the centurion say 
to my servant. Go, and he goeth ; and 
Do this, and he doth it. I now hate ail 
people whom I cannot command ; and 
consequently a duchess is at this time 
the hatefullest lady in the world to mc, 



one only excepted, and I beg her grace's 
pardon for that exception ; for, in the 
way I mean, her grace is ten thousand 
times more hateful. I confess I begin 
to apprehend you will squander my 
money, because I hope you never less 
wanted it ; and, if you go on Avith suc- 
cess for two years longer, Uear I shall 
not have a farching of it left. The doc- 
tor hath ill-informed me, who says that 
Mr. Pope is at present the chief poetical 
favourite ; yet Mr. Pope himself talks like 
a philosopher, and one wholly retired. 
But the vogue of our few honest folks 
here is, that Duck is absolutely to suc- 
ceed Eusdeninthe laurel, the contention 
being between Concannen or Theobald, 
or some other hero of the Dunciad. 1 
never charged you for not talking ; but 
the dubious state of your affairs in those 
days was too much the subject, and I 
wish the duchess had been the voucher 
of your amendment. Nothing so much 
contributed to my ease as the turn of 
affairs after the queen's death ; by 
which all my hopes being cut off, I could 
have no ambition left, unless 1 would 
have been a greater rascal than happened 
to suit with my temper. I, therefore, sat 
down quietly at my morsel, adding only 
thereto a principle of hatred to all suc- 
ceeding measures and ministers, by way 
of sauce to relish my meat : and I con- 
fess one point of conduct in my lady 
duchess's life hath added much poig- 
nancy to it. There is a good Irish prac- 
tical bull towards the end of your letter, 
where you spend a dozen lines in telling 
me you must leave off, that you may give 
my lady duchess room to write, and so 
you proceed to within two or three lines 
of the bottom ; though I would have re- 
mitted you my 200/. to have left place 
for as many more. 



To the Duc/tess. 

Madam, 
My beginning thus low is meant as a 
mark of respect, like receiving your 
grace at the bottom of the stairs. I am 
glad you know your duty ; for it hath 
been a known and established rule above 
twenty years in England, that the first 
advances hath been constantly made me 
by all ladies who aspired to my acquaint- 
ance ; and the greater their quality, the 
greater were their advances. Yet, I 



Sect. I, 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



317 



know not by wlmt weakness, I have con- 
descended graciously to dispense with 
you upon this important article. Though 
Mr. Gay will tell you that a nameless per- 
son sent me eleven messages before I 
would yield to a visit : I mean a person 
to whom he is infinitely obliged for being 
the occasion of the happiness he now en- 
joys under the protection and favour of 
my lord duke and your grace. At the 
same time, I cannot forbear telling you, 
madam, that you are a little imperious 
in your manner of making your advances. 
You say, perhaps you shall not like me ; 
I affirm you are mistaken, which I can 
plainly demonstrate ; for I have certain 
intelligence that another person dislikes 
me of late, with whose likings yours have 
not for some time past gone together. 
However, if I shall once have the honour 
to attend your grace, I will, out of fear 
and prudence, appear as vain as I can, 
that I may not know your thoughts of 
me. This is your own direction, but it 
was needless : for Diogenes himself would 
be vain to have received the honour of 
being one moment of his life in the 
thoughts of your grace. 

LETTER CLXIX. 

From the sa?ne to the same. 

Dublin, April 13, HSO-l. 
Your situation is an odd one ; the du- 
chess is your treasurer ; and Mr. Pope 
tells me you are the duke's. And I had 
gone a good way in some verses on that 
occasion prescribing lessons to direct 
your conduct, in a negative way, not to 
do so and so, &c. like other treasurers ; 
how to deal with servants, tenants, or 
neighbouring 'squires, which I take to 
be courtiers, parliaments, and princes in 
alliance ; and so the parallel goes on, but 
grows too long to please me : I prove 
that poets are the fittest persons to be 
treasurers and managers to great per- 
sons, from their virtue and contempt of 
money, &c. — Pray, why did you not get 
a new heel to your shoe, unless you would 
make your court at St. James's by affect- 
ing to imitate the Prince of Liliiput ? — 
But the rest of your letter being wholly 
taken up in a very bad character of the 
duchess, I shall say no more to you, but 
apply myself to her'grace. 

Madam, since Mr. Gay affirms that 



you love to have your own way, and 
since I have the same perfection, I will 
settle that matter immediately, to pre- 
vent those ill consequences he appre- 
hends. Your grace shall have your own 
way in all places, except your own house 
and the domains about it. There, and 
there only, I expect to have mine ; so 
that you have all the world to reign in, 
bating only two or three hundred acres, 
and two or three houses in town and 
country. 1 will likewise, out of my 
special grace, certain knowledge, and 
mere motion, allow you to be in the 
right against all human kind, except my- 
self, and to be never in the wrong but 
whan you differ from me. You shall 
have a greater privilege, in the third 
article, of speaking your own mind ; 
which I shall graciously allow you^now 
and then to do even to myself, and only 
rebuke you when it does not please me. 

Madam, I am now got as far as your 
grace's letter, which having not read 
this fortnight (having been out of town, 
and not daring to trust myself with the 
carriage of it), the presumptuous mamier 
in which you begin had slipt out of my 
memory. But I forgive you to the 
seventeenth line, where you begin to 
banish me for ever, by demanding me to 
answer all the good character some par- 
tial friends have given me. Madam, 1 
have lived sixteen years in Ireland, with 
only an intermission of two summers in 
England ; and consequently am fifty 
years older than I was at the queen's 
death, and fifty thousand times duller, 
and fifty millions times more peevish, 
per/arse, and morose ; so that, under 
these disadvantages, I can only pretend 
to excel all your other acquaintance 
about some twenty bars length. Pray, 
madam, have you a clear voice? and 
will you let me sit at your left hand, at 
least within three of you? for of two bad 
ears, my right is the best. My groom 
tells me that he likes your park ; but 
your house is too little. Can the parson 
of the parish play at backgammon and 
hold his tongue ? Is any one of your 
women a good nurse, if I should fancy 
myself sick for four-and-twenty hours ? 
How many days will you maintain me 
and my equipage ? When these pre- 
liminaries are settled, I must be very 
poor, very sick, or dead, or to the las 
degree unfortunate, if I do not attend 
you at Airasbury, For I protest that 



318 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book Illi 



you are the first lady that ever I desired 
to see since the first of August 1714, and 
I have forgot the date when that desire 
grew strong upon me, but I know I v/as 
not then in England, else I would have 
gone on foot for that happiness as far as 
to your house in Scotland. But I can 
soon recollect the time, by asking some 
ladies here the month, the day, and the 
hour, when I began to endure their com- 
pany : which, however, I think, was a 
sign of my ill judgment, for I do not 
perceive they mend in any thing but en- 
vying or admiring your grace. 1 dislike 
nothing in your letter but an affected 
apology for bad writing, bad spelling, 
and a bad pen, which you pretend Mr. 
Gay found fault with ; wherein you af- 
front Mr. Gay, you affront me, and you 
affront yourself. False spelling is only 
excusable in a chambermaid ; for I would 
not pardon it in any of your waiting-wo- 
men. — Pray God preserve your grace 
and family, and give me leave to expect 
that you will be so just to remember me 
among those who have the greatest re- 
gard for virtue, goodness, prudence, 
courage, and generosity ; after which you 
must conchide that T am, with the great- 
est respect and gratitude, madam, your 
grace's most obedient and most humble 
servant, &c. 

To Mr. Gay. 

I have just got yours of February 24, 
with a postscript by Mr. Pope. I am in 
great concern for him ; I find Mr. Pope 
dictated to you the first part, and with 
great difficulty some days after added the 
rest. I see his Vi^eakness by his hand- 
writing. How much does his philosophy 
exceed mine ! I could not bear to see 
him : I will write to him soon. 



LETTER CLXX. 

* Mr. Pope to Mr. Swift. 

Dec. 5, 1732. 
It is not a time to complain that you 
have not answered my two letters (in 
the last of which I was impatient under 
some fears) : it is not now indeed a time 
to think of myself, when one of the 

* " On my dear friend Mr. Gaj^'s death ; 
Received December 15th, but not read till the 
20tb, by an impulse, foreboding some misfor- 
tune." (This note is indorsed on the original 
letter in Dr. Swift's hand.) 



nearest and longest ties I have ever had, 
is broken all on a sudden, by the unex- 
pected death of poor Mr. Gay. An in- 
flammatory fever hurried him out of this 
life in three days. He died last night at 
nine o'clock, not deprived of his senses 
entirely at last, and possessing them per- 
fectly till within five hours. He asked of 
you a few hours before, when in acute 
torment by the inflammation in his bow- 
els and breast. His effects are in the 
duke of Queensbury's custody. His sis- 
ters, we suppose, will be his heirs, who 
are two widows ; as yet it is not known 
whether or no he left a will. — Good 
God ! how often are we to die before 
v.^e go quite off this stage? In every 
friend we lose a part of ourselves, and 
the best part. God keep those we have 
left ! few are worth praying for, and 
one's self the most of all. 

I shall never see you now, I believe ; 
one of your principal calls to England 
is at an end. Indeed he was the most 
amiable by far, his qualities were the 
gentlest ; but I love you as well and 
as firmly. Would to God the man we 
have lost had not been so amiable nor so 
good! but that's a wish for our own 
sakes, not for his. Sure, if innocence 
and integrity can deserve happiness, it 
must be his. Adieu. I can add nothing 
to what you will feel, and diminish no- 
thing from it. Yet write to me, and 
soon. Believe no man living loves you 
better, I believe no man ever did, than 

A. Pope. 

Dr. Arbuthnot, whose humanity you 
know, heartily commends himself to 
you. All possible diligence and affec- 
tion has been shewn, and continued at- 
tendance to this melancholy occasion. 
Once more adieu, and write to one who 
is truly disconsolate. 

Dear sir, 
I am sorry that the renewal of our cor- 
respondence should be upon such a me- 
lancholy occasion. Poor Mr. Gay died 
of an inflammation, and I believe, at last, 
a mortification of the bowels : it was the 
most precipitate case I ever knew, having 
cut him off in three days. He was at- 
tended by two physicians besides myself. 
I believed the distemper mortal from the 
beginning. — I have not had the pleasure 
of a line from you these two years : I 
wrote one about your health, to which I 



Sect. I. 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



SIQ 



had no answer. 1 wish you all health 
and happiness, being with great affection 
and respect, sir, your, &c. 

LETTER CLXXL 

Dr. Sivifi to Mr. Pope. 

Dublin, 1732-3. 
I RECEIVED yours with a few lines from 
the doctor, and the account of our 
losing- Mr. Gay ; upon which event I shall 
say nothing-. I am only concerned that 
long--living hath not hardened me ; for 
even in this king-dom, and in a few days 
past, two persons of great merit, whom 
I loved very well, have died in the prime 
of their years, hut a little above thirty. 
I would endeavour to comfort myself 
upon the loss of friends, as I do upon the 
loss of money ; by turning to my account- 
book, and seeing whether I have enough 
left for my support ; but in the former 
case I find I have not, any more than in 
the other ; and I know not any man who 
is in a greater likelihood than myself to 
die poor and friendless. You are a much 
greater loser than me by his death, as 
being a more intimate friend, and often 
his companion ; which latter I could 
never hope to be, except perhaps once 
more in my life for a piece of a summer. 
I hope he hath left you the care of any 
writings he may have left ; and I wish 
that, with those already extant, they 
could be all published in a fair edition 
under your inspection. Your poem on 
the Use of Riches hath been just printed 
here ; and we have no objection but the 
obscurity of several passages by our 
ignorance in facts and persons, which 
makes us lose abundance of the satire. 
Had the printer given me notice, I 
would have honestly printed the names 
at length, where I happened to know 
them ; and writ explanatory notes, which 
however would have been but few, for 
my long absence hath made me ignorant 
of what passes out of the scene v/here I 
am. I never had the least hint from 
you about this work, any more than of 
your former upon Taste. We are told 
here, that you are preparing other pieces 
of the same bulk to be inscribed to other 
friends ; one (for instance) to my lord 
Bolingbroke, another to lord Oxford, and^ 
so on. Doctor Delany presents you his 
most humble service : he behaves himself 
very commendably, converses only with 



his former friends, makes no parade, but 
entertains them constantly at an elegant 
plentiful table, walks the streets as usual 
by day-light, does many acts of charity 
and generosity, cultivates a country-house 
two miles distant, and is one of those 
very few v/ithin my knowledge, on whom 
a great access of fortune hath made no 
manner of change ; — and particularly he 
is often without money, as he was before. 
We have got my lord Orrery among us, 
being forced to continue here on the ill 
condition of his estate by the knavery of 
an agent ; he is a most worthy gentleman, 
whom, I hope, you will be acquainted 
with. I am very much obliged by your 
favour to Mr. P — , which, I desire, may 
continue no longer than he shall deserve 
by his modesty : a virtue I never knew 
him to want, but is hard for young men 
to keep without abundance of ballast. 
If you are acquainted with the duchess 
of Queensbury, I desire you will present 
her my most humble service ; I think she 
is a greater loser by the death of a friend 
than either of us. She seems a lady of 
excellent sense and spirit. I had often 
postscripts from her in our friend's letters 
to me, and her part was sometimes longer 
than his, and they made up great part of 
the little happiness I could have here. 
This was the more generous, because I 
never saw her since she was a girl of five 
years old ; nor did T envy poor Mr. Gay 
for any thing so much as being a domes- 
tic friend to such a lady. I desire you 
will never fail to send me a particular 
account of your health. I dare hardly 
inquire about Mrs. Pope, who, I am told, 
is but just among the living, and conse- 
quently a continual grief to you ; she is 
sensible of your tenderness, which robs 
her of the only happiness she is capable 
of enjoying. And yet I pity you more 
than her ; you cannot lengthen her days ; 
and I beg she may not shorten yours. 

LETTER CLXXn. 

Lndy B G to Dr. Swift. 

Feb. 23, 1730-1. 

Now were you in vast hopes you should 
hear no more from me, I being slow in 
my motions ; but do not flatter yourself ; 
you began the correspondence, set my 
pen a-going, and God knows when it 
will end ; for I had it by inheritance from 
my father, ever to please myself when I 



320 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IH. 



could ; and though I do not just take 
the turn my mother did, of fasting and 
praying, yet to be sure that was her 
pleasure too, or else she would not have 
been so greedy of it. I do not care to 
deliver your message this great while to 
lieutenant Head, he having been dead 
these two years; — and though he had, 
as you say, a head, I loved him very 
well ; but, however, from my dame 
Wadgar's * first impression, I have ever 
had a natural antipathy to spirits. 

I have not acquaintance enough with 
Mr. Pope, which 1 am sorry for, and ex- 
pect you should come to England, in or- 
der to improve it. If it was the queen, 
and not the duke of Grafton, that picked 
out such a laureatf, she deserves his 
poetry in her praise. 

Your friend Mrs. Barber has been here. 
I find she has some request, but neither 
you nor she has yet let it out to me what 
it is ; for certainly you cannot mean that 
by subscribing to her book ; if so, I shall 
be mighty unhappy to have you call that 
a favour. For sureJy there is nothing so 
easy as what one can do one's self, nor 
any thing so heavy as what one must ask 
other people for ; though I do not mean 
by this that I shall ever be unwilling 
when you require it ; yet shall be much 
happier when it is in my own power to 
shew how sincerely I am my old friend's 
most faithful humble servant. 

Mrs. Floyd is much yours ; but dumber 
than ever, having a violent cold. 

LETTER CLXXin. 

Lady B G to Dr. Swift. 

Nov. 4, 17 >1. 
I BELIEVE in my conscience, that though 
you had answered mine before, the se- 
cond was never the less welcome. So 
much for your topscript, not postscript : 
and in very sincere earnest I heartily 
thank you for remembering me so often. 
Since I came out of the country, my 
riding days are over ; for I never was 
for your Hyde-park courses, although 
my courage serves me very well at a 
hand-gallop in the country for six or 
seven miles, with one horseman and a 
ragged lad, a labourer's boy, that is to 
be clothed when he can run fast enough 
to keep up with my horse, who has yet 

* The deaf housekeeper at lord Berkeley's. 
f Col ley Cibber. 



only proved his dexterity by escaping 
from school. But my courage fails me 
for riding in town, where I should have 
the happiness to meet with plenty of 
your very pretty fellows, that manage 
their own horses to shew their art : or 
that think a postillion's cap, with a white 
frock, the most becoming dress. These 
and their grooms I am most bitterly 
afraid of; because, you must know, if 
my complaisant friend, your Presbyterian 
housekeeper I, can remember anything 
like such days with me, that is a very 
good reason for me to remember that 
time is past ; and your toupees would re- 
joice to see a horse throw an ancient 
gentlewoman. 

I am sorry to hear you are no wiser in 
Ireland than we English ; for our birth- 
day was as fine as hands could make us ; 
but I question much whether we all paid 
ready money. I mightily approve of my 
duchess being dressed in your manufec- 
ture § ; if your ladies will follow her ex 
ample in all things, they cannot do 
amiss. And I dare say you will soon 
find, that the more you know of them 
both, the better you will like them ; or 
else Ireland has strangely depraved your 
taste ; and that my own vanity will not 
let me believe, since you still flatter me. 

Why do you tantalize me ? Let me 
see you in England again, if you dare ; 
and choose your residence, summer or 
winter, St. James's Square, or Drayton. 
I defy you in all shapes ; be it dean of 
St. Patrick governing England or Ire- 
land, or politician Drapier. But my 
choice should be the parson in lady 
Betty's chamber. Make haste, then, if 
you have a mind to oblige your ever sin- 
cere and hearty old friend. 

LETTER CLXXIV. 

Fro)7i the same to the same. 

Jan. II, 17.31-2. 

It is well for Mr. Pope your letter came 
as it did, or else I had called for my 
coach, and was going to make a thorough 
search at his house ; for that I was most 
positively assured that you were there in 
private, the duke of Dorset can tell you. 



§ The duchess also appeared at the castle 
of Dublin, wholly clad in the manufactures of 
Ireland, on hismajesty'sbirth-day in 1753, when 
the duke was a second time lord-lieutenant. 



Sect. I 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



321 



Non credo is all the Latin I know, and 
the most useful i>hrase on all occasions 
to me. However, like most other people, 
I can give it up for what I wish ; so for 
once I believed, or at least went half way 
in what I hoped was true, and then, for 
the only time, your letter was unwel- 
come. You tell me you have a request, 
which is purely personal to me : non 
credo for that ; for I am sure you would 
not be so disagreeable as not to have 
made it, when you know it is a pleasure 
and satisfaction to me to do any thing 
you desire ; by which you may find you 
are not sans consequence to me. 

I met with your friend Mr. Pope the 
other day. He complains of not being 
well ; and indeed looked ill. I fear that 
neither his wit nor sense do arm him 
enough against being hurt by malice ; 
and that he is too sensible of what fools 
say : the run is much against him on the 
duke of Chandois's * account ; but T be- 
lieve their rage is not kindness to the 
duke ; but they are glad to give it vent 
with some tolerable pretence. I wish 
your presence would have such a miracu- 
lous effect as your design on Mrs. Biddy'sf 
speech. You know, formerly her tongue 
was not apt to run much by inclination ; 
but now every winter is kept still per- 
force, for she constantly gets a violent 
€old, that lasts her all winter ; but as to 
that quarrelsome friend of the duke of 
Dorset, I will let her loose at you, and 
see which can get the better. Miss 
Kelly was a very pretty girl when she 
went from hence ; and the beaux shew 
their good taste by liking her. I hear 
her father is now kind to her ; but if she 
is not mightily altered, she would give 
up some of her airs and equipage to live 
in England 

Since you are so good as to inquire 
after my health, I ought to inform you 
I never was better in my life than this 
winter. I have escaped both headachs 
and gout; and that yours may not be 
endangered by reading such a long let- 
ter, I will add no more, but bid adieu to 
my dear dean. 

* It was said that Mr. Pope intended the 
character of Timon, in his epistles on the Use 
of Riches in Works of Taste, addressed to the 
earl of Burlington, for the duke of Chandois. 

f Mrs. Biddy Floyd. 



LETTER CLXXV. 

From the same to the saine. 

Feb, 23, 1731.'2. 
I LIKE to know my power (if it is so), 
that I can make you uneasy at my not 
writing : though I shall not often care 
to exert it, lest you should grow weary 
of me and my correspondence ; but the 
slowness of my answers does not come 
from the emptiness of my heart, but the 
emptiness of my head ; and that you 
know is nature's fault, not mine. I was 
not learned enough to know non credo 
has been so long in fashion ; but every 
day convinces me more of the necessity 
of it, not but that I often wish against 
myself; as per example, I would fain be- 
lieve you are coming to England, because 
most of your acquaintance tell me so ; 
and yet turn and wind, and sift your 
letters to find any thing like it being 
true ; but instead of that, there I find a 
law-suit, which is a worse tie by the leg 
than your lameness. And pray what is 
" this hui-t above my heel? " Have you 
had a fellow-feeling with my lord-lieu- 
tenant \ of the g'out, and call it a sprain 
as he does ? who has lain so long and often 
to disguise it, that I verily think he has 
not a new story left. Does he do the 
same in Ireland ? for there I hoped he 
would have given a better example. 

I find you are grown a horrid flatterer, 
or else you could never have thought of 
any thing so much to my taste as this 
piece of marble you speak of for my sis- 
ter Penelope §, which I desire may be at 
my expense. 1 cannot be exact, neither 
as to the time nor year ; but she died 
soon after we came there, and we did 
not stay quite two years, and were in 
England some months before king Wil- 
liam died. I wish I had my dame Wad- 
gar's, or Mr. Ferrers's memorandum 
head, that I might know Avhether it was 
at the time of gooseberries ||. 

]: The duke of Dorset. 

§ Lady Penelope Berkeley died in Dublin, 
whilst her father was in the government, and 
was interred in St. Andrew's church, under the 
altar. No monument was erected to her me- 
mory till about this time, when Dr. Swift caused 
a plate of black marble to be fixed in the wall 
over the altar-piece with this inscription: — 
" Underneath lieth the body of the Lady Pe- 
nelope Berkeley, daughter of the Right 
Honourable Charles earl of Berkeley. She 
died September the 3d, 1G99." 

11 In the petition of Frances Harris to Ww 



322 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book III. 



Surely your Irish air is very bad for 
darts ; if Mrs. Kelly's are blunted al- 
ready, make her cross father let her come 
over, and we will not use her so in 
England. If my duchess* sees company 
in a morning, you need not grumble at 
the hour ; it must be purely from great 
complaisance, for that never was her 
taste here, though she is as early a riser 
as the generality of ladies are ; and, I 
believe, there are not many dressing- 
rooms in London, but mine, where the 
early idle come. 

Adieu abruptly ; for I will have no 
more formal humble servants, with your 
whole name at the bottom, as if I was 
asking you your Catechism. 

LETTER CLXXVI. 

Lady B G to Dr. Swiff.- 

Drayton, July 19, 1732. 
I BELIEVE you will not wonder at my 
long silence, when I tell you that Mrs. 
Floyd t came ill here ; but that she kept 
pretty much to herself ; and ever since 
she has been here, till within these two 
or three days, I have had no hopes of her 
life. You may easily guess what I must 
have suffered for a so long-tried, pru- 
dent, useful, agreeable companion and 
friend : and God knows, she is now ex- 
cessively weak, and mends but slowly : 
however, I have now great hopes, and I 
am very good at believing what I hear- 
tily wish. As, I dare say, you will be 
concerned for her, you may want to know 
her illness ; but that is more than I can 
tell you. She has fancied herself in a 
consumption a great while ; but though 
she has had the most dreadful cough I 
ever heard in my life, all the doctors said, 
it was not that ; but none of them did 
say what it was. The doctor here, who is 
an extraordinary good one (butlives four- 
teen long miles off), has lately been left 
ten thousand pounds, and now hates his 
business ; he says, it is a sharp humour 

lords justices, losing her purse, here are these 

verses : — 

" Yes (says she), the steward I remember, 

when I was at my lady Shrewsbury's, 
Such a thing as this happened just about the 

time of gooseberries. 
This steward was Mr. Ferrers; and dame 
Wadgar was the old deaf housekeeper in lord 
Berkeley's family, when he was one of the 
lords justices of Ireland. 

* The duchess of Dorset. 

t Mrs. Biddy Floyd. 



that falls upon her nerves, sometimes on 
her stomach and bowels ; and indeed 
what he has given her, has, to appear- 
ance, had much better effect than the 
millions of things she has been forced 
to take. After this, you will not expect 
I should have followed your orders, and 
ride, for I have scarcely walked ; al- 
though I dare not be very much in her 
room, because she constrained herself to 
hide her illness from me. 

The duke and duchess of Dorset have 
not been here yet ; but I am in hopes 
they will soon. 1 do not know whether 
you remember Mrs. Crowther and Mrs. 
Acourt ; they and Mr. Parsode are my 
company : but as I love my house full, 

I expect more still. My lady - 

talks of making me a short visit. I have 
been so full of Mrs. Floyd, that I had 
like to have forgot to tell you, that I am 
such a dunderhead, that 1 really do not 
know what my sister Pen's age was ; 
but I think she could not be above 
twelve years old. She was the next to 
me ; but whether tvt^o or three years 
younger, I have forgot ; and, what is 
more ridiculous, I do not exactly know 
my own, for my mother and nurse used 
to differ upon that notable point ; and I 
am willing to be a young lady still, so 
will not allow myself to be more than 
forty -eight next birth-day; but if I 
make my letter any longer, perhaps you 
will wish I never had been born. So 
adieu, dear dean. 

LETTER CLXXVII. 

Froin the same to the same. 

London, Nov. 7, 1732. 
I SHOULD have answered yours sooner, 
but that I every day expect another from 
you, with your orders to speak to the 
duke ; which I should with great plea- 
sure have obeyed, as it was to serve a 
friend of yours. Mrs. Floyd is now, thank 
God, in as good health as I have seen her 
these many years, though she has still 
her winter cough hanging upon her ; 
but that, I fear, I must never expect she 
should be quite free from at this time of 
day. All my trouble with her now is, 
to make her drink wine enough, accord- 
ing to the doctor's order, which is not 
above three or four glasses, such as are 
commonly filled at sober houses ; and 
that she makes so great a rout with, so 



Sect. i. 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE 



323 



many faces, tliat there is nobody that 
did not know her perfectly well, but 
would extremely suspect she drinks 
drams in private. 

I am sorry to find our tastes so different 
in the stime person : and as every body 
has a natural partiality to their ovvn opi- 
nion, so it is surprising to me to find 

lady S dwindle in yours, who rises 

infinitely in mine the more and the 
longer I know her. But you say, you 
will say no more of courts for fear of 
growing angry ; and indeed I think you 
are so already, since you level all without 
knowing them, and seem to think tliat 
none who belong to a court can act right. 
I am sure this cannot be really and truly 
your sense, because it is unjust ; and if ifc 
is, I shall suspect there is something of 
youT old maxim in it (which I ever ad- 
mired and found true), that you must 
have offended them, because you do not 
forgive. I have been about a fortnight 
from Knowle*, and shall next Thursday 
go there again for about three weeks, 
where I shall be ready and v/illing to re- 
ceive your commands ; who am most 
faithfully and sincerely yours. 

LETTER CLXXVin. 

From the same to the same. 

Feb. 8, 1732-3. 
I RECEIVED yours of the 8th of Janu- 
ary but last week ; so find it has lain 
long on the road after the date. It was 
brought me whilst at dinner, that very 
lady sitting close to me, whom you seem 
to think such an absolute courtierf. She 
knew your hand, and inquired much 
after you, as she always does ; but I, find- 
ing her name frequently mentioned, not 
with that kindness I am sure she de- 
serves, put it into my pocket with silence 
and surprise. Indeed, were it in peo- 
ple's power that live in a court with the 
appearance of favour, to do all they de- 
sire for their friends, they might deserve 
their anger, and be blamed, when it 
does not happen right to their minds ; 
but that, I believe, never was the case of 
any one ; and in this particular of Mr. 
Gay, thus far I know, and so far I will 
answer for, that she was under very great 
concern that nothing better could be got 

* In Kent, the seat of the duke of Dorset. 
f The countess of S . 



for him ; the friendship upon all other 
occasions in her own power, that she 
shevv^ed him, did not look like a double 
dealer. 

As to that part concerning yourself 
and her, I suppose it is my want of com- 
prehension, that I cannot find out why 
she was to blame to give you advice 
when you asked it, that had all the ap- 
pearance of sincerity, good-nature, and 
right judgment. And if, after that, the 
court did not do what you wanted, and 
she both believed and wished they would, 
was it her fault? At least, I cannot find 
it out, that you have hitherto proved it 
upon her. And though you say, you 
lamented the hour you had seen her, yet 
I cannot tell how to suppose that your 
good sense and justice can impute any 
thing to her, because it did not fall out 
just ag she endeavoured and hoped it 
would. 

As to your creed in politics, I will 
heartily and sincerely subscribe to it — 
That I detest avarice in courts ; corrup- 
tion in ministers ; schisms in religion ; 
illiterate fawning betrayers of the church 
in mitres. But at the same time, I pro- 
digiously want an infallible judge, to de- 
termine when it is really so ; for as I 
have lived longer in the world, and seen 
many changes, I know those out of pow- 
er and place always see the faults of those 
in with dreadful large spectacles ; and, I 
dare say, you know maily instances of it 
in lord Oxford's time* But the strong-- 

est m my memory is, sir R W , 

being first pulled to pieces in the year 
1720, because the South Sea did not rise 
high enough ; and since that, he has been 
to the full as well banged about, because 
it did rise too high. So experience has 
taught me how wrong, unjust, and sense- 
less party factions are ; therefore, I am 
determined never wholly to believe any 
side or party against the other ; and to 
shew that I will not, as my friends are in 
and out of all sides, so my house receives 
them all together ; and those people meet 
here, that have, and would fight in any 
other place. Those of them that have 
great and good qualities and virtues, I 
love and admire ; in which number is 

lady ; and I do like and love 

her, because I lielieve, and, as far as I 
am capable of judging, know her to be 
a wise, discreet, lionest, and sincere 
courtier, who will promise no farther 
than she can i)erform, and will always 
Y2 



324 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book III 



perform what she does promise : so now 
you have my creed as to her. 

I thought I had told you in my last, 
at least 1 am sure I designed it, that I 
desire you would do just as you like 
ahout the monument ; and then it will be 
most undoubtedly approved by your most 
sincere and faithful servant. 

LETTER CLXXIX. 



The Duchess of 



to Dr. Swift. 



April 12, 1733. 

Dear sir, 
I RECEIVED yours of the 23d of March. 
Perpetual pains in my head have hin- 
dered me from writing till this moment ; 
so you see you are not the only person 
that way tormented. I dare believe 
there are as many bad heads in England 
as in Ireland; I am sure none worse 
than my own ; that I am made for pain 
and pain for me ; for of late we have 
been inseparable. It is a most dispirit- 
ing distemper, and brings on pain of 
mind; whether real or imaginary, it is 
all one. 

Whilst I had that very sincere good 
friend, I could sometimes lay open all my 
rambling thoughts, and he and I would 
often view and dissect them ; but now 
they come and go, and I seldom find out 
whether they be right or wrong, or if 
there be any thing in them. Poor man ! 
he was most truly every thing you could 
say of him. I have lost, in him, the 
usefuUest limb of my mind. This is an 
odd expression ; but I cannot explain 
my notion otherwise. 

1 deny that I am touchy ; yet am go- 
ing to seem so again, by assuring you 
my letters are never false copies of my 
mind^ They are often, I believe, imper- 
fections of an imperfect mind ; which, 
however, to do it justice, often directs 
it better than I act. Though I will not 
take upon me to declare my way of 
thinking to be eternally the same ; yet 
whatever I write is at that instant true. 
I would rather tell a lie than write it 
down ; for words are wind ('tis said) ; 
but the making a memorandum of one's 
own false heart would stare one in the 
face immediately, and should put one out 
of countenance. Now, as a proof of my 
unsettled way of thinking, and of my 
sincerity, I shall tell you that 1 am not 
so much in the wrong as you observed I 



was in my last ; for my regard to you is 
lessened extremely, since I observe you 
are just like most other people, viz. dis- 
obliged at trifles, and obliged at no- 
things ; for what else are bare words ? 
Therefore pray never believe I wish to 
serve you till you have tried me ; till 
then protestations are bribes, by which 1 
may only mean to gain the friendship of 
a valuable man, and therefore ought to 
be suspected. I seldom make any for 
that reason ; so that if I have the pecu- 
liar happiness to have any wise good peo- 
ple my flatterers, God knows how I came 
by it ; but sure nothing can equal such 
glory, except that of having the silly and 
bad people ray enemies. 

Here I think we agree. You declare 
that no such can depress your spirits ; 
and if our constitutions are alike, I will 
not only preach up good spirits, but 
prescribe the materials that have ever 
agreed with me. If any body has done 
me an injury, they have hurt themselves 
more than me. If they give me an ill 
name (unless they have my help) I shall 
not deserve it. If fools shun my com- 
pany, it is because I am not like them ; 
if people make me angry, they only raise 
my spirits ; and if they wish me ill, I 
will be well and handsome, wise and 
happy, and every thing, except a day 
younger than I am, and that's a fancy 
I never yet saw becoming to a man or 
woman, so it cannot excite envy. Here 
I have betrayed to you the devilishness 
of my temper; but I declare to you, 
nothing ever enlivened me half so much 
as unjust ill usage, either directed to my- 
self or my friends. The very reverse 
happens to me when 1 am too well 
spoken of ; for I am sorry to find I do 
not deserve it all. This humbleth me 
as much too much as the other exalts ; 
so I hope you will not be too civil, since 
I have declared the consequence. 

I am in great hopes you will make us 
a visit this summer ; for though I have 
a sensible satisfaction by conversing with 
you in this way, yet I love mightily to 
look in the person's face I am speaking 
to. By that, one soon learns to stop 
when it is wished, or to mend what is 
said amiss. 

Your stewards will take great care of 
your money ; but you must first direct 
us to your friend Mr. Lancelot, and order 
him to give up Mr. Gay's note, on his 
sister's paying the money to his grace. 



Sect. I. 



iMODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



325 



who will give him his note for the mo- 
ney, or send it to you, just as yon order. 
And as to what interest is due, I sup- 
pose you have kept some account. 

By this time you must be too much 
tired to bear reading- one word more ; 
therefore I will make no excuses. Pray 
employ me, for I want to be certain 
whether I know my own mind or not ; 
for something or other often tells me, 
that I should be very happy to be of any 
use to you. T^liether it be true or false, 
neither you nor I can he positive, till an 
opportunity sheAvs : but I do really think 
that I am, dear sir, most sincerely 
yours, &c. 



Lady B- 



LETTER CLXXX. 



G- 



~~ to Dr Swift. 

Knowle, July 9, 1733. 
Now, says parson Swift*, " What the 
devil makes this woman Avi'ite to me 
with this filthy white ink ? I cannot read 
a word of it, without more trouble ti)an 
her silly scribble is worth." Why, say 1 
again, Ay, it is the women are always 
accused of having- bad writing imple- 
ments ; but to my comfort be it spoke, 
this is his grace my lord lieutenant's f 
ink. My bureau at London is so well 
furnished, that his gTace and his secre- 
tary make so much use of it, that they 
are often obliged to give me half a crown, 
that I may not run out my estate in 
paper. It is very happy when a go-be- 
tween pleases both sides, and I am very 
well pleased with my oflBce ; for his grace 
is delighted that it was in his power to 
oblige you. So treve de compliment. 
Since I have declared my passion against 
a bishop and a parson, it is but fair I 
should tell you the story, whether you 
care to hear it or not ; but if you do not, 
I give you leave not to mind it, for, now 
it is over, I am calm again. 

As to the :|: bishop, I know neither his 
principles nor his parts, but his diocese 
is Peterborough, and having a small 
park in Northamptonshire, which 1 had 
a mind to increase by a small addition, 
to make my house stand in the middle of 
it. Three shillings and sixpence worth 
of land, at the largest computation, be- 

* The name she called the dean by, in the 
stanza which she inserted in his ballad on The 
Game of Traffic. 

t Duke of Dorset. % Dr. Robert Claverjug 



longs to the church ; for wliich my old 
parson (who flatters me black and blue, 
when he comes from a Sunday dinner, 
and says he loves me better than any 
body in the world) has made me give 
him up in lieu of that land, a house and 
ground that lets for 40s. a year, and is 
hardly content with that, but reckons it 
a vast favour. And the bishop has put 
me to ten times more charge than it is 
worth, by sending commissioners to view 
it, and making me give petitions, and 
dancing me through his court ; besides a 
great dinner to his nasty people. Now, 
am I not in the right to be angry ? But 
perhaps you will say, if I will have my 
fancies, I must pay for them; so I will 
say no more about it. I hear poor Mrs. 
Kelly is not near so well as she says ; 
and a gentleman that came from Bristol, 
says she looks dreadfully, and fears it is 
almost over with her, and that no mortal 
could know her : so ends youth and 
beauty ! That is such a moral reflection, 
that, lest it should make you melancholy, 
1 will tell you something to please you. 
Your old friend Mrs. Floyd is perfectly 
recovered. I think I have not seen her 
so well this great while ; but winter is 
always her bane, so I shall live in dread 
of that. 

In your next I desire to know what 1 
am in your debt for my sister's monu- 
ment. Adieu, my dear, good, old be- 
loved friend. 

LETTER CLXXXI. 

From the same to the saine. 

London, July 12, 1733. 

I HAVE not answered yours of the 15th 
of June so soon as I should ; but the 
duke of Dorset had answered all yours 
ere your letter came to my hands. So I 
hope all causes of complaint are at an 
end, and that he has shewed himself, as 
he is, much your friend and humble ser- 
vant, though he wears a garter, and had 
his original from Normandy, if herfilds 
do not lie, or his grnnums did not play 
false ; and whilst ho is lord-lieutenant 
(which I heartily wish may not be much 
longer) I dare say he will be very glad 
of any opportunity to do Avhat you re- 
commend to him. Thus far will I an- 
swer for his grace, though he is now in 
the country, and cannot subscribe to it 
himself. 



326 



ELEGANT E P J S T L E S. 



Book HI. 



Now to quite another affair. The 
countess of Suffolk (whom you know I 
have long had a great esteem and value 
for) has been so good and gracious as to 
take my brother George Berkeley for 
better for worse, though 1 hope in God 
the last will not happen, because I think 
he is an honest good-natured man. The 
town is surprised ; and the town talks, 
as the town loves to do, upon these ordi- 
nary extraordinary occasions. She is 
indeed four or five years older than he, 
and no more ; but for all that, he hath 
appeared to all the world, as well as me, 
to have long had (that is, ever since she 
hath been a widow, so pray do not mis- 
take me) a most violent i>assion for her^ 
as well as esteem and value for her num- 
berless good qualities. These things 
well considered, I do not think they 
have above ten to one against their be- 
ing very happy ; and if they should not 
be so, I shall heartily wish him hanged, 
because I am sure it will be wholly his 
fault. As to her fortune, though she has 
been twenty years a court favourite, yet 
I doubt she has been too disinterested to 
enlarge it, as others would have done : 
and sir Robert •*, her greatest enemy, 
does not tax her with getting quite forty 
thousand pounds. I wish, but fear it 
is not near that sum, but what she has 
she never told me, nor have I ever 
asked ; but whatever it is, they must 
live accordingly ; and he had of his own 
wherewithal to live by himself easily and 
genteelly. 

In this hurry of matrimony, I had like 
to forget to answer that part of your let- 
ter where you say you never heard of 
our being in print together. I believe it 
was about twenty years ago Mr. Curll 
set forth Letters, amorous, satirical, and 
gallant, betiveen Dr. Swift, lady Mary 
Chambre, lady Betty Germain, and Mrs. 
Anne Long, and several other persons. 
I am afraid some of my people used them 
according to their deserts ; for they have 
not appeared above-ground this great 
while : and now to the addition of 
writing the brave large hand you make 
me do for you, 1 have bruised my fingers 
prodigiounly ; and can say no more but 
Adieu. 

* Walpolc, afterwards lord Orford. 



LETTER CLXXXIL 

Dr. Swift to the Duke of Dorset, 

Dtc 30, 1735. 
My lord. 
Your grace fairly owes me one hundred 
and ten pounds a year in the churchy 
v/hich I thus prove : I desired yovi 
would bestow a preferment of one hun- 
dred and fifty pounds a year to a certain 
clergyman. Your answer was, that I 
asked modestly : that you would not pro- 
mise, but you Avould grant my request. 
However, for want of good intelligence 
in being (after a cant word used here) 
an expert king-fisher, that clergyman 
took up with forty pounds a year ; and 
I shall never trouble your grace any 
more in his behalf. Now, by plain 
arithmetic it follows, that one hundred 
and ten pounds remain j and this arrear 
I have assigned to Mr. John Jackson, 
who is vicar of Santry, and hath a small 
estate, with two sons, and as many daugh- 
ters, all grown up. He hath lain some 
years as a weight upon me, which I 
voluntarily took up, on account of his 
virtue, piety, and good sense, and mo- 
desty almost to a fault. Your grace is 
nov.' disposing of the debris f of two bi- 
shoprics ; among which is the deanery 
of Ferns, worth between eighty and one 
hundred pounds a year, which will make 
this gentleman easier ; who, besides his 
other good qualities, is as loyal as you 
could wish. 

I cannot but think that your grace, 
to whom God hath given every amiable 
quality, is bound, when you have satis- 
fied all the expectations of those who 
have power in your club;}:, to do some- 
thing at the request of others, who love 
you on your own account, without ex- 
pecting any thing for themselves. 1 have 
ventured once or twice to drop hints in 
favour of some very deserving gentlemen, 
who I was assured had been recom- 
mended to you by persons of weight; 
but I easily found by your general an- 
swers, that although 1 have been an old 
courtier, you knew how to silence me, 
by diverting the discourse, which made 
me refiect that courtiers resemble game- 
sters, the latter finding new arts unknown 
to the older : and one of them assured 



f The shattered rcmains. 
X The parliament of Ireland. 



Sect. I. 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



327 



me, that he has lost fourteen thousand 
pounds since he left off play, merely by 
dabbling! with those who had contrived 
new refinements. 

My lord, I will, as a divine, quote 
Scripture : — Although the children's meat 
should not be given to dogs, yet the dogs 
eat the scraps that fall from the children's 
table. This is the second request I have 
ever made your grace directly. Mr. Jack- 
son is condemned to live on his own 
small estate, part whereof is in his 
parish, about four miles from hence, 
where he hath built a family-house, more 
expensive than he intended, He is a 
clergyman of long standing, and of a 
most unblemished character ; but the 
misfortune is, he hath not one enemy, to 
whom I might appeal for the truth of 
what I say. 

Pray, my lord, be not alarmed at the 
word deanery, nor imagine it a dignity 
like those we have in England ; for ex- 



cept three or four, the rest have little 
power, rather none as a dean and chap- 
ter, and seldom any land at all. It is 
usually a living consisting of one or more 
parishes, some very poor, and others 
better endowed ; but all in tythes. 

Mr. Jackson cannot leave his present 
situation ; and only desires some very 
moderate addition. My lord, I do not 
deceive your grace, when I say, you will 
oblige great numbers, even of those who 
are most at your devotion, by conferring 
this favour, or any other that Avill an- 
swerthe same end. Multa — veiiiet inanus 
auxilio qucB — Sit mihi (nam multo plures 
sumus) ac veluti te — Judcei cogemus in hanc 
concedere turham. 

I would have waited on your grace, 
and taken the privilege of my usual 
thirteen minutes, if I had not been pre- 
vented by my old disorder in my head ; 
for which I have been forced to confine 
myself to the precepts of my physicians. 



BOOK THE THIRD. 

LETTERS OF THE LAST CENTURY, 
AND OF LATE DATE. 



SECTION II. 



MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS. 



LETTER I. 

Dr. Swift to Miss Jane IVaryng*. 

Dublin, May 4, 1700. 

Madam, 
I AM extremely concerned at the ac- 
count you give of your health ; for my 
uncle told me he found you in appear- 
ance better than you had been in some 
years ; and I was in hopes you had still 
continued so. God forbid I should ever 
be the occasion of creating more troubles 
to you, as you seem to intimate ! The 
letter you desired me to answer, 1 have 
frequently read, and thought I had re- 
plied to every part of it that required : 
however, since you are pleased to repeat 
those particulars wherein you desire sa- 
tisfaction, 1 shall endeavour to give it 
you as Avell as I am able. You would 
know what gave my temper that sudden 
turn, as to alter the style of my letters 
since I last came over. If there has been 
that alteration you observe, I have told 
you the cause abundance of times. I 
had used a thousand endeavours and ar- 
guments to get you from the company 
and place you are in ; both on the account 
of your health and humour, which I 
thought were like to suffer very much in 

*This letter, Mr. Faulkner says, was written 
" to a lady of family in the north of Ireland ;" 
and he adds, that it was " supposed to be pre- 
vious to Dr. Swift's acquaintance with Stella," 
It was written not long before the time of Stel- 
la's fixing her residence in Ireland. 



such an air, and before such examples. 
All I had in answer from you was no- 
thing but a great deal of arguing, and 
sometimes in a style so very imperious 
as I thought might have been spared, 
when I reflected how much you had been 
in the wrong. The other thing you 
would know is, whether this change of 
style be owing to the thoughts of a new 
mistress. I declare, upon the word of a 
Christian and a gentleman, it is not; 
neither had I ever thoughts of being 
married to any other person but yourself . 
I had ever an opinion that you had a 
great sweetness of nature and humour ; 
and whatever appeared to the contrary, 
I looked upon it only as a thing put on 
as necessary before a lover : but I have 
since observed in abundance of your let- 
ters such marks of a severe indifference, 
that I began to think it was hardly pos- 
sible for one of my few good qualities to 
please you. I never knew any so hard 
to be worked upon, even in matters where 
the interest and concern are entirely 
your own : all which, I say, passed easily 
while we w^ere in the state of formalities 
and ceremony ; but since that, there is 
no other way of accounting for this un- 
tractable behaviour in you, but by im- 
puting it to a want of common esteem 
and friendship for me. 

When I desired an account of your 
fortune, I had no such design as you 
pretend to imagine. I have told you 
many a time, that in England it was in 
the power of any young fellow of com- 



Sect. II. 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE, 



329 



mon sense to get a larger fortune than 
ever you pretended to. I asked, in order 
to consider whether it were sufficient, 
with the help of my poor income, to 
make one of your humour easy in a 
married state. I think it comes to almost 
a hundred pounds a year ; and I think 
at the same time, that no young woman 
in the world of the same income would 
dwindle away her health and life in such 
a sink, and among such family conver- 
sation : neither have all your letters been 
once able to persuade that you have the 
least value for me, because you so little 
regarded what I so often said upon that 
matter. The dismal account you say I 
have given you of my livings*, I can 
assure you to be a true one ; and, since 
it is a dismal one even in your own opi- 
nion, you can best draw consequences 
from it. The place where Dr. Bolton f 
lived is upon a living which he keeps 
with the deanery ; but the place of resi- 
dence for that they have given me, is 
within a mile of a town called Trim, 
twenty miles from hence ; and there is 
no other way, but to hire a house at 
Trim, or build one on the spot : the first 
is hardly to be done, and the other I am 
too poor to perform at present. For 
coming down to Belfast, it is what I 
cannot yet think of, my attendance is so 
close, and so much required of me ; but 
our government sits very loose, and I be- 
lieve will change in a few months ; whe- 
ther our part X will partake in the change, 
I know not, though I am very apt to 
believe it ; and then I shall be at leisure 
for a short journey. But I hope your 
other friends, more powerful than I, will 
before that time persuade you from the 

* Those of Laracor and Rathbeggin. 

f This gentleman, as well ais Dr. Swift, was 
chaplain to lord Berkeley when one of the lords 
justices in Ireland j and was promoted to the 
deanery of Derry, which had been previously 
promised to Dr. Swift : but Mr. Bush, the prin- 
cipal secretary, for weighty reasons best known 
to himself, laid Dr. Swift aside, unless he would 
pay him a large sum; which the Doctor refused 
with the utmost contempt and scorn. Dr. Bol- 
ton, who was also minister of St. Werberg's, 
Dublin, was advanced to the bishopric of Clon- 
fert, Sept. 12, 17^22 : translated to Elphin, April 
1 6, 1 724 ; to Cashel, Jan. 6, 1 729 ; and died in 
1744. He was one of the most eloquent speak- 
ers of bis time, and was particularly skilled in 
ecclesiastical history. 

X Meaning lord Berkeley, who was then one 
of the three lords justices. — The earl of Ro- 
chester was appointed lord-lieutenant in Sep- 
tember followinar. 



place where you are. I desire my ser- 
vice to your mother, in return for her 
remembrance : but for any other deal- 
ings that way, I entreat your pardon : 
and I think I have more cause to resent 
your desires of me in that cause, than 
you have to be angry with my refusals. 
If you like such company and conduct, 
much good do you with them ! my edu- 
cation has been otherwise. My uncle 
Adam § asked me one day in private, 
as by direction, what my designs were in 
relation to you, because it might be a 
hindrance to you if 1 did not proceed. 
The answer I gave him (which I suppose 
he has sent you) was to this effect : — 
" That I hoped I was no hindrance to 
you ; because the reason you urged 
against an union with me was drawn 
from your indisposition, which still con- 
tinued ; That you also thought my for- 
tune not sufficient, which is neither at 
present in a condition to offer you r 
That, if your health and my fortune were 
as they ought, I would prefer you above 
all your sex ; but that, in the present 
condition of both, I thought it was 
against your opinion, and would cer- 
tainly make you unhappy : That had you 
any other offers, which your friends or 
yourselfthoug'htmore to your advantage, 
I should think I were very unjust to be 
an obstacle in your way." Now for what 
concerns my fortune, you have answered 
it. I desire, therefore, you will let me 
know if yonr health be otherwise than it 
was when you told me the doctors ad- 
vised you against marriage, as what 
would certainly hazard your life. Are 
they or you grown of another opinion in 
this particular? Are you in a condition 
to manage domestic affairs, with an in- 
come of less (perhaps) than three hun- 
dred pounds a year ? Have you such an 
inclination to my person and humour, 
as to comply with my desires and way of 
living, and endeavour to make us both as 
happy as you can ? Will you be ready to 
engage in those methods I shall direct 
for the improvement of your mind, so as 
to make us entertaining company for 
each other, without being miserable 
when we are neither visiting nor visited ? 
Can you bend your love, esteem, and in- 
difference to others the same way as I do 
mine ? Shall I have so much power in 

§ Whose daughter, Anne, married a clergy- 
man of the name of Perry. 



330 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IlL 



your heart, or you so much government 
of your passions, as to grow in good hu- 
mour upon my approach, though pro- 
voked by a — ? Have you so much good 
nature as to endeavour by soft words to 
smooth any rugged humour occasioned 
by the cross accidents of life ? Shall the 
place wherever your husband is thrown 
be more welcome than courts and cities 
without him ? In short, these are some 
of the necessary methods to please men 
who, like me, are deep read in the world ; 
and to a person thus made, I shall be 
proud in giving all due returns toward^ 
making her happy. These are the ques- 
tions I have always resolved to propose 
to her with whom I meant to pass my 
life ; and whenever you can heartily an- 
swer them in the affirmative, I shall be 
blessed to have you in my arms, without 
regarding whether your person be beau- 
tiful, or your fortune large. Cleanli- 
ness in the first, and competency in the 
other, is all I look for. I desire indeed 
a plentiful revenue, but would rather it 
should be of my own; though I should 
bear from a wife to be reproached for 
the greatest. 

I have said all I can possibly say in 
answer to any part of your letter, and in 
telling you my clear opinion as to mat- 
ters between us. I singled you out at 
first from the rest of women ; and I ex- 
pect not to be used like a common lover. 
When you think fit to send me an an- 
swer to this without — , I shall then ap- 
prove myself, by all means you shall 
command, madam, your most faithful 
humble servant. 



LETTEU II. 

Dr. Tillotson to the Earl of Mulgrave. 

Oct. 23, 1G79. 
My lord, 
It was a great satisfaction to me to be 
anywise instrumental in the gaining of 
your lordship to our religion, which I 
am most firmly persuaded to be the 
truth ; but yet I am, and always was, 
more concerned that your lordship should 
continue a virtuous and good man, than 
become a protestant ; being assured that 
the ignorance and errors of men's under- 
standings will find a much easier for- 
giveness with God than the faults of 
their wills. I remember your lordship 



once told me, you would endeavour to 
justify the sincerity of your change, by a 
conscientious regard to all other parts 
and actions of your life ; I am sure you 
cannot more effectually condemn your 
own act, than by being a worse man, 
after your profession to have embraced a 
better religion. I will certainly be one 
of the last to believe any thing of your 
lordship that is not good ; but I always 
feared I should be among the first that 
should hear of it. Before the time I last 
waited on your lordship, I had heard some- 
thing which afilicted me very sensibly ; 
but I hoped it was not true, and was 
therefore loth then to trouble your lord- 
ship about it ; but having heard the same 
since from those whom I believe to bear 
no ill-will to your lordship, I now think 
it my duty to acquaint you with it. To 
speak plainly, I have been told that your 
lordship is of late fallen into a conversa- 
tion dangerous both to your reputation 
and virtue, two of the tenderest and 
dearest things in the world. I believe 
your lordship to have great command 
and conduct of yourself, but am very 
sensible of human frailty, and of the dan- 
gerous temptations to which youth is ex- 
posed in this dissolute age ; and there- 
fore I earnestly beseech your lordship to 
consider, besides the high provocation of 
Almighty God, and the hazard of your 
soul whenever you engage in a bad 
course, what a blemish you will bring 
upon a fair and unspotted reputation, 
what uneasiness and trouble you will 
create to yourself from the severe reflec- 
tions of a guilty conscience, and how 
great a violence you will offer to the 
good principles of your nature and edu- 
cation, and to a mind the best made 
for virtuous and worthy things. And 
do not imagine you can stop when you 
please ; experience shews us the con- 
trary, and that nothing is more vain than 
for men to think to set bounds to them- 
selves in any thing that is bad : 1 hope 
in God that no temptation hath yet pre- 
vailed upon your lordship so far as to 
be guilty of any lewd act : if it have, as 
you love your soul, let it not proceed to 
a habit. The retreat is yet easy and 
open, but will every day become more 
difficult and obstructed ; God is so mer- 
ciful, that upon our repentance and re- 
solution of amendment, he is not only 
ready to forgive what is ^past, but to as- 
sist us by his grace to do better for the 



Sect. 11. 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



331 



future ; but I need not enforce these 
considerations upon a mind so capable 
and easy to receive good counsel ; I shall 
only desire your lordship to think again 
and again how great a point of wisdom 
it is in all our actions to consult the 
peace of our own minds, and to have no 
quarrel with the constant and insepa- 
rable companion of our lives. If others 
displease us, we may quit their company : 
but he that is displeased at himself is 
unavoidably unhappy, because he hath 
no way to get rid of himself. 

My lord, for God's sake, and your 
own, think of being happy, and resolve 
by all means to save yourself from tliis 
untoward generation ; and determine 
rather upon a speedy change of your 
condition than to gratify the inclinations 
of youth in any way but what is lawful 
and honourable ; and let me have the 
contentment to be assured from your 
lordship, either that there hath been no 
ground for this report, or that there 
shall be none for the future, which will 
be the welcomest news to me in the 
world. I have now only to beg of your 
lordship to believe, that I have not done 
this to satisfy the formality of my pro- 
fession ; but that it proceeds from the 
truest affection and good-will that one 
man can possibly bear to another. 

T pray God every day for your lord- 
ship, with the same constancy and fer- 
vour of devotion as for myself ; and do 
now more earnestly beg of him, that this 
counsel may be acceptable and effectual. 
I am, &c. 

LETTER 111. 

Earl of Mulgrave to Dr. Tillotson. 



Sir, 



Whitehall, March 27, 1689. 



Nothing in this world is, nor ought to 
be, so dear to any man as his reputa- 
tion ; and consequently the defence of 
it is the greatest obligation that one 
man can lay on another : there are also 
some circumstances, that render this ob- 
ligation yet more acceptable and valu- 
able ; as when it is conferred generously, 
without any self-interest, or the least 
desire of invitation from the person so 
defended. All this happens to be my 
case at this time ; and therefore I hope 
you will not be surprised to find I am 
not the most un«:rateful and insensible 



man living ; which certainly 1 should be, 
if I did not acknowledge all your in- 
dustrious concern for me about the 
business of the ecclesiastical commission, 
which now makes so much noise in the 
world. You have, as I am told, so cor- 
dially pleaded my cause, that it is almost 
become your own ; and therefore, as un- 
willing as I am to speak of myself, es- 
pecially in a business which I cannot 
wholly excuse, yet 1 think myself now a 
little obliged to shew my part in this 
matter, though imprudent enough, yet 
is not altogether unworthy of so just 
and so considerable an advocate. 

The less a man says of himself, the 
better ; and it is so well known already 
how I was kept out of all secret coun- 
cils, that I need not justify myself, nor 
trouble you as to those matters : only I 
appeal to the unquestionable testimony 
of the Spanish ambassador, if 1 did not 
zealously and constantly take all occa- 
sions to oppose the French interest ; be- 
cause I knew it directly opposite both 
to the king and kingdom's good, which 
are indeed things inseparable, and ought 
to be so accounted, a§ a fundamental 
maxim in all councils of princes. 

This, I hope, will prepare the way a 
little for what I have to say concerning 
my being one of the ecclesiastical com- 
missioners ; of which error I am now as 
sensible as I was at first ignorant, being 
so unhappily conversant in the midst of 
a perpetual court flattery, as never to 
have heard the least word of any ille- 
gality in that commission before 1 was 
unfortunately engaged in it. 

For though my lord of Canterbury 
had very prudently refused to be of it, 
yet it was talked at court, it proceeded 
only from hia unwillingness to act at 
that time, and liot from any illegality 
he suspected in the commission ; hav- 
ing excused himself from it the most 
respectful way, by the infirmities he 
lay under. Being thus ignorant of the 
laws, and in such a station at court, 
1 need not desire a man of your judg- 
ment and candour to consider the hard- 
ness of my case, when 1 was commanded 
to serve in a commission with a lord 
chancellor, a lord chief justice, and 
two bishops, who had all of them 
already acted some time there, without 
shewing the least diftidence of their 
power, or any hesitation in the execu- 
tion of it ; and perhaps a man of more 



332 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book III, 



discretion than I can pretend to, might 
have been easily persuaded to act in such 
a conjunction, and to think he might do 
it safely, both in law and conscience ; 
but I need not say much to shew my de- 
sire to have avoided, if possible, a trou- 
blesome employment, that had not the 
least temptation of honour or profit to 
recommend it ; and which therefore I 
continued in upon no account in the 
world but to serve both king and clergy 
with the little ability I had, in mode- 
rating those councils, which I thought 
might grow higher if I left my place 
to be filled by any of those who waited 
for it greedily, in order to their ill de- 
signs. 

And I may expect the more credit in 
this, when it is considered that the two 
important affairs which passed in that 
ecclesiastical court, being the bishop of 
London's suspension, and the incapaci- 
tating the members of Magdalen col- 
lege : the first was done some months 
before I was a commissioner ; and I op- 
posed the last, both in voting and speak- 
ing, and with all the interest I was able 
to make use of, which indeed was but 
little after that opposition ; in which, 
being outvoted, I seldom came, and 
never acted in that court after, except 
to restore the bishop of London, though 
sent for continually, by reason of my 
lodging so near it. 

And since I have been forced to men- 
tion my good-will at least, if not my ser- 
vice, to such learned men of the clergy, 
who I thought deserved it, it may be al- 
lowed me to give this one instance more 
of it ; that although in preferring men 
to all other places of the household, I 
ever used to ask permission first, and 
accordingly was often refused, for the 
sake of Roman Catholics and others, who 
were recommended by persons more in 
favour than myself; yet I was so careful 
of keeping that considerable part of the 
family unmixed with mean or unworthy 
chaplains, whom others, I feared, would 
have imposed on his majesty, that I con- 
stantly filled up those vacancies without 
giving him the least notice or trouble 
about it, and supplied them with the 
ablest approved divines I could possibly 
find, most commonly recommended to 
me by the bishops who were not of the 
court : which I conceived the most pro- 
per course, in a matter concerning cler- 
gymen, with a king of a different per- 



suasion from their*, and intended for 
his real service, believing it had been 
better for him, as well as the kingdom, 
if the greater ecclesiastical dignities ha($ 
been disposed of by others with as much 
caution. 

And thus, sir, I have endeavoured to 
confirm you in your favourable opinion 
of me, which must be acknowleged by 
every body an approbation of such weight, 
that as 1 hope it may be an example of 
authority to many, so it is sufficient of 
itself to balance the censoriousness of 
others. I am, &c. 

LETTER IV. 

Dr. Lewis /itterbury* to Bishop Atterhwy. 

April ..., 1720. 

Dear brother. 
It is reported that the archdeacon [of 
Rochester] is dead ; and I have sent my 
servant to inform me, whether it is so or 
not. I have since considered all that you 
said to me yesterday ; and both from rea- 
son and matter of fact, still am of opi- 
nion, that there can be no just matter of 
exception taken. 

I shall only lay down two or three 
instances which lie uppermost in my 
thoughts. Your lordship very well 
knows, that Lanfranc, archbishop of 
Canterbury t, had a brother for his arch- 
deacon ; and that sir Thomas More's fa- 
ther was a puisne judge when he was 
lord chancellor % : and thus, in the sa- 
cred history, did God himself appoint, 
that the safety and advancement of the 
patriarchs should be procured by their 
younger brother ; and that they, with 
their father, should live under the pro- 
tection and government of Joseph. I 
instance in those obvious examples, only 

* Dr. Lewis Atterbury, elder brother of the 
bishop, was born at Caldecot, in the parish of 
Newport Pagnel, in Buckinghamsliire, the se- 
cond of Ma J', 165o. He was educated at West- 
minster school, under the celebrated Dr. Busby, 
between whom and our divine's father. Dr. 
Lewis Atterbury, there was a friendship and 
intimacy. 

f From 1070 till 1093. Anschibillus was 
made archdeacon in 1075. 

X On the disgrace of Wolsey, in 1530, the 
great seal was entrusted to sir Thomas More, 
who was the first layman that enjoyed that ho- 
nour, which he resigned in 1533, and was exe- 
cuted in 1535. His father, sir John, outlived 
him thirty-five years. 



Sect. U. 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



S33 



to let your lordship see that I have can- 
vassed these matters in my own thoughts ; 
and I see no reason but to depend on 
your kind intentions, intimated in your 
former letter, to your most affectionate 
brother, &c. 



LE^rTER V. 

Bishop Atterhury to his brother. 

Broinlej', Weilnesday, April ... 1720. 

Dear brother, 
Your letter directed to Westminster 
found me here tliis morning-. I hope to be 
at Westminster to-morrow. In the mean 
time you may assure yourself of any 
thing that is in my disposal. At present 
the gentleman* you mention is well, and 
likely to continue so. His distemper is 
the same as mine, though he has it in a 
worse degree. However, he is sixteen 
or seventeen years younger than I am, 
and may probably therefore outlive me. 
When he was in danger of late, the first 
person T thought of was you. But there 
are objections against that, in point of 
decency, which, I own, stick with me ; 
and which, after I have laid them before 
you, you shall allow, or over-rule, as you 
think fit. It had been a much properer 
post for my nephew t, if God had pleased 
to spare his life. You need not mention 
any thing of" this kind to me ; for you 
may depend upon it, you are never out 
of the thoughts of your ever affectionate 
brother. 



LETTER VI. 

From the same to the same. 



most unseemly indecent thing in the 
world ; and I am very sure the gene- 
rality of those, whose opinions I regard, 
will be of that opinion. I was so far 
from apprehending that such a station, 
under me, would be in the least wel- 
come to you, that I discoursed of it, and 
proposed it to another person:}: some 
time ago, and am entered very far into 
engagements on that head ; and had 
you not written to me, I do frankly 
own, tliat I should never have spoken 
a word to you about it. Believe me, 
when I tell you that this is a plain state 
of the fact ; and should you at last come 
to be of my opinion, I dare say you will 
not, at long run, think yourself mis- 
taken. I am sure I shall not be at ease 
till you are in some good dignity in the 
church ; such as you, and I, and all the 
world, shall agree, is every way proper 
for you. I am, &c. 



LETTER VII. 

From the same to the same 

May 20, H'JO. 

Dear brother. 
The person, to whom I told you I had 
gone very far towards engaging myself 
for the archdeaconry, was Dr. Brydges §, 
the duke of Chandois's brother ; and him 
I am this day going to collate to it. I 
hope you are convinced by what I have 
said and written, that nothing could have 
been more improper than the placing 
you in that post, immediately under my- 
self. Could I have been easy under that 
thought, you may be sure, no man living 
should have had the preference to you. 
I am, &c- 



Deanery? Tuesday ni^ht. 

Dear brother, 
I HOPE you have considered the matter 
of the archdeaconry, and do at last see 
it in the same light that I do. I pro- 
test to you, I cannot help thinking it the 

* Thomas Sprat, M. A. (son to the famous 
bishop of that name). He was archdeacon 
of Rochester; and a prebendary of West- 
minster, Winchester, and Rochester. He died 
May 10, 1720. 

f Dr. Lewis Atterbury had three sons ; of 
whom the first and second died in their infancy. 
The third, named Bedingfield Atterbury, was 
born Jan. 8, 1693, and died of the small-pox, 
Dec. 27, 1718. 



LETTER VIII. 

bishop Atterbury to his Son at Oxford. 
[Of uncertain date.] 

Dear Obby, 
I THANK you for your letter, because 
there are manifest signs in it of your 
endeavouring to excel yourself, and by 
consequence to please me. You have 
succeeded in both respects, and will al- 

X Dr. Brydges. See the next letter. 
§ Dr. Brydges was an old and intimate ac- 
quaintance of the bishop. He died May 9, 1728. 



334 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IIL 



ways succeed, if you think it worth your 
while to consider what you write, and to 
whom ; and let nothing, though of a tri- 
fling nature, pass through your pen negli- 
gently : get but the way of writing cor- 
rectly and justly, time and use will teach 
you to write readily afterwards ; not but 
that too much care may give a stiffness 
to your style, which ought, in letters, by 
all means to be avoided. The turn of 
them should be always natural and easy, 
for they are an image of private and fa- 
miliar conversation. I mention this 
with respect to the four or five first lines 
of yours, which have an air of poetry, 
and do naturally resolve themselves in 
blank verse. I send you the letter again, 
that you yourself may now make the 
same observation ; but you took the hint 
of the thought from a poem ; and it is 
no wonder therefore if you have height- 
ened your phrase a little when you were 
expressing it. The rest is as it should 
be ; and particularly there is an air of 
duty and sincerity in it, that, if it comes 
from the heart, is the most acceptable 
present you can make me : with these 
good qualities an incorrect letter would 
please me ; and without them, the finest 
thoughts and lang-^uage would make no 
lasting impression upon me. The Great 
Being says (you know), '' My son, give 
me thy heart" — implying, that without 
it all other gifts signify nothing : let me 
conjure you, therefore, never to say any 
thing, either in a lettef or common con- 
versation, that you do not think ; but 
always let your mind and your words go 
together, even on the most slight and 
trivial occasions. Shelter not the least 
degree of insincerity under the notion 
of a compliment, which (as far as it de- 
serves to be practised by a man of pro- 
bity) is only the most civil and obliging 
way of saying what you really mean ; and 
whoever employs it otherwise throws 
away truth for good-breeding; I need 
not tell you how little his character gets 
by such an exchange. I say not this as 
if 1 suspected that in any part of your 
letter you intended only to write what 
was proper, without any regard to what 
was true ; for I am resolved to believe 
that you were in good earnest from the 
beginning to the end of it, as much even 
as 1 am when I tell you that I am your 
loving father. 



LETTER IX. 

Bishop Atttrhury to Lord Toivnsend. 

The Tower, April 10, 1723. 

My lord, 
I AM thankful for the favour of seeing 
my daughter any way ; but was in hopes 
the restraint of an officer's presence in 
respect of her might have been judged 
needless, at a time when her husband is 
allowed to be as often and as long with 
me as he pleases without witness, espe- 
cially since we liave been parted now for 
near eight months*, and must sopn, 
if the bill takes placet, he parted for 
ever. 

My lord, I have many things to say 
to her, in relation to herself, her brother, 
and my little family affairs, which can- 
not with ease, to her or me, be said in 
presence of others ; and I dare say your 
lordship does not apprehend that the 
subject of our conversation will be of 
such a nature as to deserve to be in any 
degree watched or restrained. She has 
been the comfort of my life ; and I shall 
leave her with more regret than 1 leave 
my preferments (though when I am 
stripped of them I shall have nothing to 
support me). Nor is there scarce any 
loss, besides that of my country, which 
will touch me so nearly. 

Your lordship, who is known to be a 
tender father ;}:, will feel what I say ; and 
consider how far it is fit to indulge me 
in so innocent a request. It is a little 
thing I ask ; but nothing is little that 
can give any relief to a man in my sad 
circumstances, which deserve your lord- 
ship's compassion, and I hope will ob- 
tain it. 

I am, with all respect, your lord- 
ship's most humble and most obedient 
servant. 

LETTER X. 

The Bishop of Rochester to Mrs. Morice, 

Montpelier, Sept. 3, 1729. 

My dear heart, 

I HAVE so much to say to you, that I 

can hardly say any thing to you till I 

see you. My heart is full ; but it is in 

*Thebishop was apprehended Aug. 24,1722. 

-f- It passed the house of commons on the 9th 
of April, and received the royal assent May 27. 

X This nobleman retired from public busi- 
ness in 1730, and died June, 1738. 



Sect. II. 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



335 



vain to begin upon paper what I can 
never end. I have a thousand desires to 
see you, which are checked by a thousand 
fears, lest any ill accident should happen 
to you in the journey. God preserve you 
in every step of it, and send you safe 
hither ! And I will endeavour, by his 
blessing- and assistance, to send you well 
back again, and to accompany you in the 
journey, as far as the law of England 
will suffer me. 1 stay here only to re- 
ceive and take care of you (for no other 
view should have hindered my coming 
into the north of France this autumn) ; 
and I live only to help towards length- 
ening your life, and rendering it, if I 
can, more agreeable to you : for I see 
not of what use I am, or can be, in 
other respects. I shall be impatient t'll 
I hear you are safely landed, and as im- 
patient after that till you are safely ar- 
rived in your winter quarters. God, I 
hope, will favour you with good weather, 
and all manner of good accidents on the 
way ; and I will take care, my dear love, 
to make you as easy and happy as I can 
at the end of your journey. 

I have written to Mr. Morice about 
every thing I can think of relating to 
your accommodation on the road, and 
shall not therefore repeat any part of it 
in this letter, which is intended only to 
acknowledge a mistake under which I 
find myself. I thought I loved you be- 
fore as much as I could possibly ; but I 
feel such new degrees of tenderness 
arising in me upon this terrible long 
journey, as I was never before acquaint- 
ed with. God will reward you, I hope, 
for your piety to me, which had, I doubt 
not, its share in producing this resolu- 
tion, and will, in rewarding you, reward 
me also ;: that being the chief thing I 
have to beg of Him. 

Adieu, my dear heart, till I see you ! 
and till then satisfy yourself, that, what- 
ever uneasiness your journey may give 
you, my expectation of you, and concern 
for you, will give me more. I am got 
to another page, and must do violence 
to myself to stop here — but I will — 
and abruptly bid you, my dear heart, 
adieu, till I bid you welcome to Mont- 
pelier. 

A line, under your own hand, pray, 
by the post that first sets out after you 
land at Bourdeaux. 



LETTER XI. 

Mr. J. Evans to his Brother in London. 

Toulouse, Nov. 9, 1729. 
Dear brother. 
After a very tedious and fatiguing 
journey, Mr. Morice and his lady arrived 
here on Monday morning, the 7th, about 
seven o'clock, when she met her father : 
the only thing, I believe, she had to de- 
sire of God in this world. She went to 
bed, and never slept till she slept her 
last ; and well may it be called so ; for 
never was death received in so composed 
a manner, as I shall distinctly relate to 
you from Montpelier. She received the 
sacrament (upon her earnestly desiring 
to have it if possible) about an hour and 
a half before she expired. That remain- 
ing time she employed in directing what 
she would have done in the most mate- 
rial things that relate to family affairs, 
and that in a very moving manner ; and 
one of the last was to call her husband 
to her; when she said; " Dear Mr. 
Morice, take care of the children— I 
know you will : remember me to the 
duchess of Buckingham !" This fa- 
tal stroke being given on the way to her 
intended port, must, you will think, put 
us into uncommon disorder. Mr. Mo- 
rice goes for England as soon as in a 
condition to do it. Pray give my family 
an account of this ; and I shall, from 
Montpelier, do the same at large, as 
well as to yourself. Adieu ! Yours most 
affectionately. 

LETTER XII. 

The Bishop of Rochester to Mr. Pope. 

1 VENTURE to thank you for your kind 
and friendly letter, because I think my- 
self very sure of a safe conveyance ; and 
I am uneasy till I have told you what 
impressions it made upon me. I will do 
it with the same simplicity and truth 
with which I wrote to you from Mont- 
pelier upon a very melancholy occasion ; 
the memory of which would have been 
in the most touching manner awakened 
by what you writ, had it been entirely 
laid asleep, as it never will or can be. 
Time, and a succession of other objects, 
added to reason and religion (for even 
these great principles, that should com- 
mand our nature, want now and then 



336 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book III. 



some assistances from it) may divert the 
attention of my mind from what it loves 
too much to tliink of, though it finds no 

Sleasure in such thoughts ; they may 
eaden the quick sense of grief, and pre- 
vent the frequent returns of it ; but 
where it is well fixed, they cannot ex- 
tinguish it. 

LETTER XIII. 

The Bishop of Rochester fo * * * "*^. 

[Undated.] 
Dear sir. 
Your endeavours that I may forget my 
misfortune are truly noble. It would 
be to deserve them to fly from resolu- 
tion. They shall not depress me ; but 
I must help to bear what you tell me 
lies so heavy upon my friends. I pre- 
serve a mean ; which is the excellence, 
justice, and fitness of all things in the 
moral system : 

Virtue's a mean, and vice is an excess, 
In doing more than's fit, or doing less. 

To poetise, my friend, is no mark of a 
depressed fancy or excessive sorrow ; but 
a sort of comical way of treating things 
serious, not after the subtle fashions of 
those you speak of, that would magnify 
Nature by depressing the Deity ; who, 
setting forth their necessary agreement, 
make unnecessary strife. With reverence 
do I mention these things, and know 

How the great love of nature fills thy mind, 
And universal kindness to thy kind. 

I am, while thus juvenile, an advocate 
for, and not a railer against, extremes. 
Those symptoms strongly bode a second 
youth, that vapours with a feeble and 
defective flame ! It is the enervated arm 
of Priam impotently raised against the 
thundering rage of youthful Pyrrhus. 
However, this epistle, my dear friend, 
shall not become more tawdry by its not 
being of a piece ; for I will conclude with 
answering your last serious question 
with another scrap of poetry : 

Whate'er the soul of nature has designed, 
And wrought on matter, is th' effect of mind; 
The form of substance is the former's art, 
Hence beauty and design that strikethe heart; 
There's nought in simple matter to delight, 
*Tis the fair workmanship that takes the sight. 
The beautiful effect of mind alone 
Is comely, and in all things comely shown. 
Where mind is not, there horror needs must be, 
For matter formless is deformity. 



LETTER XIV. 

Dr. King to Bishop Atterhury. 

Give me leave, sir, to tell you a secret 
— that I have spent a whole day upon 
Dr. Bentley's late volume of scandal and 
criticism* ; for every one may not judge 
it for his credit to be so employed. He 
thinks meanly, I find, of my reading ; 
as meanly as I think of his sense, his 
modesty, or his manners ; and yet, for 
all that, I dare say I have read more 
than any man in England besides him and 
me ; for I have read his book all over. 

If you have looked into it, sir, you 
have found, that a person, under the 
pretence of criticism, may take what 
freedom he pleases with the reputation 
and credit of any gentleman; and that 
he need not have any regard to another 
man's character, who has once resolved 
to expose his own. 

It was my misfortune once in my life 
to be in the same place with Dr. Bentley, 
and a witness to a great deal of his rude 
and scurrilous language ; which he was 
so liberal of, as to throw it out at random 
in a public shop ; and is so silly now as 
to call it eaves- dropping in me, because 
he was so noisy, and I was so near, that 
I could not help hearing it. 

You desired me, at some years distance, 
to recollect what passed at that meeting, 
and I obeyed your commands. Shall I 
reckon it an advantage, that Dr. Bentley, 
who disputes the other testimonies, falls 
in entirely with mine ? I would, if I 
were not apprehensive that on that very 
account it might be one step farther from 
being credited. 

However, such is his spite to me, that 
he confirms the truth of all I told you. 
For the only particular I could call to 
mind he grants, with some slight dif- 
ference in the expression. And as to 
the general account I gave of his rude- 
ness and insolence, he denies it indeed ; 
but in so rude and insolent a manner, 
that there is no occasion for me to jus- 
tify myself on that head. 

I had declared, it seems, that he said, 
" the MS. of Phalaris would be worth 
nothing if it were collated." He sets 
me right ; and avers, the expression was, 
" That, after the various lections were 

^ The Dissertation on Phalaris. 



Sect. II. 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



337 



once taken, and printed, the MS. would 
be like a squeezed orange, and little 
worth for the future." The similitude 
of " a squeezed orange," is indeed a con- 
siderable circumstance, which I had for- 
gotten ; as I doubtless did several others ; 
but, for all that, I remember the general 
drift and manner of his discourse, as well 
as if all the particular expressions were 
present to me. Just as I know his last 
book to be a disingenuous, vain, con- 
fused, unmannerly performance ; though, 
to my happiness, hardly any of his awk- 
ward jests or impertinent quotations 
stick by me. 

I had owned it to be my opinion, 
" that a MS. was worth nothing unless 
it were collated." The doctor cun- 
ningly distinguishes upon me ; and says, 
" It is worth nothing indeed to the rest 
of the world ; but it is better for the 
owner, if a price were to be set upon 
it." I beg his pardon for my mistake. 
I thought we were talking of books in 
the way of scholars : whereas he answers 
me like a bookseller, and as if he dealt 
in MSS. instead of reading them. For 
my part, I measure the value of these 
kind of things from the advantage the 
public may receive from them, and not 
from the profit they are likely to bring 
in to a private owner ; and therefore 1 
have the same opinion of the Alexan- 
drian MS.* (which, he says, "he keeps 
in his lodgings") now, as I should have 
had before the editors of the English 
Polyglott published the collation of it ; 
though it may not perhaps bear up to 
the same price in St. Paul's Churchyard, 
or at an auction ; but I hope, if it be 
safely kept, it need never come to the 
experiment. 

As to the particular reflections he has 
cast on me, it is no more than I ex- 
pected. I could neither hope nor wish 
for better treatment from one that had 
used you so ill. It is reputable both to 
men and books to be ill spoken of by 
him ; and a favourable presumption on 
their side, that there is something in 
both which may chance to recommend 
them to the rest of the world. It is in 
the power of every little creature to 
throw dirty language : but a man must 
have some credit himself in the world, 
before things he says can lessen the re- 
putation of another ; and if Dr. Bentley 

* Of the Old Testament. 



must be thus qualified to mischief me, I 
am safe from all the harm that his malice 
can do me. I am, sir, your obliged 
humble servant. 



LETTER XV. 

Duchess of Somerset to Ladi/ Luxborough. 

Piercy Lodge, Feb. 25, 1754. 

Dear madam. 
Pray never think excuse can be neces- 
sary to me about exactness in answering 
my letters ; I am always glad to hear 
from you when it is agreeable to you to 
write, but am not one of those over- 
kind friends who are for ever out of 
humour with those whom they rather 
enthrall than oblige, by giving them 
that name. As a proof I never wish to 
act so by my friends, or am afraid of be- 
ing treated so by them, I will own to 
you, I am not quite sure I should have 
answered your last letter so soon, were 
it not that I am under serious concern 
to find how awkwardly I must have ex- 
pressed myself to Mr. Shenstone, if I 
gave him room to believe I harboured a 
secret wish to have so fine a poem as his 
Ode suppressed. On the contrary, I 
should think myself guilty of a very 
great crime and injustice to the public, 
if I were to be the means of depriving 
them of so charming and rational an 
entertainment. I gave him the true 
reasons in my letter, for desiring 
that my own name, nor that of my hum- 
ble yet peaceful dwelling, might be 
inserted. You know I always envied 
the lot of " /a violet te, qui se cache sous 
Vherber 

It is true, my dear lady Luxborough, 
times are changed with us, since no walk 
was long enough, or exercise painful 
enough, to hurt us, as we childishly ima- 
gined : yet after a ball or masquerade, 
have we not come home very well con- 
tented to pull off our ornaments and fine 
clothes, in order to go to rest ? Such me- 
thinks is the reception we naturally give 
to the warnings of our bodily decays ; 
they seem to undress us by degrees, to 
prepare us for a rest that will refresh us 
far more powerfully than any night's 
sleep could do. We shall then find no 
weariness from the fatigues Avhich either 
our bodies or our minds have undergone ; 
but all tears shall be wiped from our eyes, 
Z 



338 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IIL 



and sorrow, and crying-, and pains, shall 
be no more ; we shall then without wea- 
riness move in our new vehicles, trans- 
port ourselves from any part of the 
skies to another, with much more ease 
and velocity than we could have done 
in the prime of our strength, upon 
the fleetest horses, the distance of a 
mile. This cheerful prospect enables 
us to see our strength fail, and await 
the tokens of our approaching disso- 
lution with a kind of awful pleasure. I 
will ingenuously own to you, dear ma- 
dam, that I experience more true hap- 
piness in the retired manner of life that 
I have embraced, than I ever knew from 
all the splendour or flatteries of the 
world. There was always a void ; they 
could not satisfy a rational mind ; and 
at the most heedless time of my youth, 
I well remember, that I always looked 
forward with a kind of joy, to a decent 
retreat, when the evening of life should 
make it practicable. 

Boadicea I have read ; there is an in- 
teresting scene or two in it ; but there is 
something wanting in the management 
of the drama to keep up the spirits of 
the audience. Philoclea I have not seen, 
lior have heard such a character of it as 
to raise my curiosity. If you have not 
read Deformity, an Essay, by Mr. Hay, 
nor his Religio Philosophi (I do not 
know how that last word should end), 
I believe they will entertain you very 
well in their different ways. The Ad- 
venturer will soon be published in vo- 
lumes, and will be very well worth 
buying. I doubt I must agree with 
Mr. Shenstone, that the style of Sir 
Charles Grandison is too prolix ; and 
yet I do not know any of it I should be 
willing to part with, except Harriet 
Byron's conversation with the Oxonian, 
in the first volume, and the preparations 
and entertainments at sir Charles's wed- 
ding in the fifth. 

When 1 came home from taking the 
air on Friday, 1 was very agreeably 
surprised to find lady Northumberland 
ready to receive me, as I had no notion 
of her coming. She had been alarmed 
with a false report, that I had not been 
so v/ell for some days as she left me. 
I took the opportunity of shewing her 
your letter, and she desired me to 
make her compliments to your ladyship, 
and tell you, she keeps no servant about 
lady Elizabeth, while she is at school. 



and at her return will think it necessary 
to have a person of a middle age about 
her. Such a one she now has about 
her little boy; a pretty sort of woman, 
who speaks French and English equally 
well, is grave and properly behaved, 
and, I believe, hopes for lady Eliza- 
beth's place, when her little angel of a 
master goes into the hands of the men. 
His mamma took him away with her on 
Saturday, after lending him to me for a 
month (though she is excessively fond 
of him), because she sees he is the joy 
of my life. He has some faint resem- 
blance (thought not a good one) of his 
poor uncle ; but his openness and mild- 
ness of temper are the very same. Her 
eldest boy too is a very sensible and 
good one. He and lady Greville dine 
with me from Eton every Sunday ; they 
are here at present for two or three 
days, on account of there being holi- 
days. I have hardly left myself room 
to make Mr. Cowslad's compliments, 
and subscribe myself, dear madam, your, 
&c. 

LETTER XVL 

Countess of Hertford to Dr. Burnet, oc- 
casioned hy some Meditations the Doc- 
tor sent her, upon the Death of her 
Son, Lord Beauchanqy. 

Sir, 
I AM very sensibly obliged by the kind 
compassion you express for me, under 
my heavy affliction. The meditations 
you have furnished me with, afford the 
strongest motives for consolation that can 
be offered to a person under my unhappy 
circumstances. The dear lamented son 
I have lost was the pride and joy of 
my heart; but I hope I may be the 
more easily excused for having looked 
on him in this light, since he was not 
so from the outward advantages he pos- 
sessed, but from the virtues and recti- 
tude of his mind. The prospects which 
flattered me, in regard to him, were 
not drawn from his distinguished rank, 
or from the beauty of his person ; but 
from the hopes that his example would 
have been serviceable to the cause of 
virtue, and would have shewn the 
younger part of the world, that it was 
possible to be cheerful without being 
foolish or vicious, and to be religious 
without severity or melancholy. His 



Sect. II. 



MODERN, OF LATE DATE. 



339 



whole life was one iminterrupted course 
of duty and affection to his parents ; 
and when he found the hand of death 
upon him, his only regret was to think 
on the agonies which must rend their 
hearts ; for he was perfectly content to 
leave the world, as his conscience did 
not reproach him with any presump- 
tuous sins, and he hoped his errors 
would be forgiven. Tlius he resigned 
his innocent soul into the hands of his 
merciful Creator, on the evening of 
his birth-day, which completed him 
nineteen. You will not be surprised, sir, 



that the death of such a son should occa- 
sion the deepest sorrow ; yet, at the same 
time, it leaves us the most comfortable 
assurance, that he is happier than our 
fondest wishes and care could have made 
him, which must enable us to support 
the remainder of years, which it shall 
please God to allot for us here, without 
miu-muring or discontent, and quicken 
our endeavours to prepare ourselves to 
follow to that happy place, where our 
dear valuable child is gone before us. I 
beg the continuance of your prayers, and 
am, sir, your, &c. 



Z2 



BOOK THE FOURTH. 



RECENT LETTERS, 



SECTION I. 



^^ROM THE LETTERS OF WILLIAM SHENSTONE, ESQ. AND MR. GRAY, 
TO AND FROM THEIR FRIENDS. 



LETTER I. 

BIi\ Shenstone to a Friend. 

From Mr. Wintle's, Perfumer, 
near Temple Bar, &c. 
f)th Feb. 1740, 
Dear sir, 
I AM now, with regard to the town, 
pretty much in the same state in which 
I expect to be always with regard to the 
world ; sometimes exclaiming and rail- 
ing against it ; sometimes giving it a 
good word, and even admiring it. A 
siinshiny-day, a tavern-supper after a 
play well acted, and now and then an 
invigorating breath of air in the Mall, 
never fail of producing a cheerful effect. 
I do not know whether I gave you any 
account of Quin's acting Falstaff in my 
former letter ; I really imagined that I 
saw you tittering on one side me, shak- 
ing your sides, and sometimes scarce 
containing yourself. You will pardon the 
attitude in which I placed you, since it 
was what seemed natural at that circum- 
stance of time. Comus I have once 
been at, for the sake of the songs, 
though I detest it in any light ; but as 
a dramatic piece, the taking of it seems 
a prodigy ; yet indeed such a one, as 
was pretty tolerably accounted for by a 
gentleman who sat by me in the boxes. 
This learned sage, being asked how he 
liked the play, made answer, " He 
could not tell — pretty well, he thought 
— or indeed as well as any other play — 
he always took it, that people only 
came there to see and be seen — for as 
for what was said, he owned, he never 
understood any thing of the matter." 
I told him, I thought a great many of 
its admirers were in this case, if they 
wx)uld but own it. 



On the other hand, it is amazing to 
consider to what an universality of 
learning people make pretensions here. 
There is not a drawer, a chair or hack- 
ney coach man, but is politician, poet, 
and judge of polite literature. Chim- 
ney sweepers damn the convention, and 
black shoe boys cry up the genius of 
Shakespeare. " The Danger of writing 
Verse" is a very good thing; if you 
have not read it, I would recommend it 
to you as poetical. But now I talk of 
learning, I must not omit an interview 
which I accidentally had the other night 

in company with lord D and one 

Mr. C . We were taken to sup at 

a private house, where I found a person 
whom I had never seen before. The 
man behaved exceeding modestly and 
well ; till, growing a little merry over 
a bottle (and being a little countenanced 
by the subject we were upon), he pulls 
out of his pocket about half a dozen 
ballads, and distributes them amongst 
the company. I (not finding at first 
they were of his own composition) 
read one over, and, finding it a duU 
piece of stuff, contented myself with 
observing that it was exceedingly well 
printed. But to see the man's face 
on this occasion would make you pity 
the circumstance of an author as long 
as you live. His jollity ceased (as 
a flame would do, should you pour 
water upon it) ; and, I believe, for 
about five minutes, he spoke not a 
syllable. At length recovering himself, 
he began to talk about his country 
seat, about Houghton Hall, and soon 
after desired a health, imagining (as 
I found afterwards) that lord D — 
would have given sir Robert's. But he 



Sect« I. 



RECENT. 



341 



did not, naming sir T — L — . Mine, 
which followed, was that of Mr. L — . 
Now, who do you think this should be, 
but honest Ralph Freeman (at least the 
writer of the paper so subscribed), your 
father's old friend and intimate, sir Ro- 
bert's right hand, a person that lives 
elegantly, drive six of the best horses in 
the town, and plays on St. John's organ 
(you know Mr. L — is not only sir Ro- 
bert's greatest enemy, but the Gazet- 
teer's proper antagonist). We were in- 
vited to see him very civilly ; and indeed 
the man behaved with the utmost good- 
humour, without arrogance, or any at- 
tempts at wit, which probably would 
not have been very successful. — Ask 
your father what he would say to me, if 
I should join in the cause with his old 
friend, and take a good annuity under 
sir Robert, which, I believe, I might 
have ; and little encouragement, God 
knows, have I met with on the other 
side of the question. I say, I believe I 
might have, because I know a certain 
person gives pensions of three pounds a- 
week to porters and the most illiterate 
stupid fellows you can imagine, to talk 
in his behalf at ale-houses ; where they 
sit so long a time, and are as regularly 
relieved as one sentry relieves another. — 
At least tell him that I expect in his an- 
swer to my letter (which I shall not 
allow him to assign to you) he write 
something to confirm me in my in- 
tegrity, and to make me prefer him, and 
you, and honesty, to lace, brocade, and 
the smiles of the ladies. 

Et Veneris et cunis, et plumis Sardanapali. 

But I hope to keep my Hercules in view, 
whether in print or manuscript ; and 
though I am as fond of pleasure as most 
people, yet I shall observe the rule, 

Positam sic iangere noli. 

I desire I may hear from you next post : 
I have a line or two, which I intend for 
the sons of utter darkness (as you call 
them) next magazine : I would send 
them to you, for your advice, but cannot 
readily find them. I like every thing 
in Mr. Somervile's but the running of 
the last line. I think to insert them. 
Should be glad to have a line or two of 
yours, that one may make a bold attack. 
I look on it as fun, without the least 
emotion, I assure you. I am, dear sir, 
your, &c. 



LETTER II. 

Mr. Shenstone to Mr. Jago, on the Death 
of his Father. 

Leasowes, Aug. '2S, 1740. 

Dear Mr. Jago, 
I FIND some difficulty in writing to you 
on this melancholy occasion. No one 
can be more unfit to attempt to lessen 
your grief than myself, because no one 
has a deeper sense of the cause of your 
affliction. Though I would by no means 
be numbered by you amongst the com- 
mon herd of your acquaintance that tell 
you they are sorry, yet it were imperti- 
nent in me to mention a mere friend's 
concern to a person interested by so 
many more tender regards. Besides, I 
should be glad to alleviate your sorrow, 
and such sort of condolence tends but 
little to promote that end. I do not 
choose to flatter you : neither could I, 
more especially at this time ; but though 
I could perhaps find enough to say to 
persons of less sense than you, I know of 
nothing but what your own reason must 
have suggested. Concern indeed may 
have suspended the power of that facul- 
ty ; and upon that pretence, I have a 
few things that I would suggest to you. 
After all, it is time alone that can and 
will cure all afflictions, and such as are 
the consequence of vice ; and yours, I 
am sure, proceeds from a contrary prin- 
ciple. 

I heard accidentally of this sorrowful 
event, and accompanied you to London 
with the utmost concern. I wished it 
was in my power to mitigate your griefs 
by sharing them, as I have often found 
it in yours to augment my pleasure by 
so doing. 

All that I can recommend to you is, 
not to confine your eye to any single 
event in life, but to take in your Avhole 
circumstances before you repine. 

When you reflect that you have lost 
one of the best of men in a father, you 
ought to comfort yourself that you had 
such a father; to whom I cannot for- 
bear applying these lines from Milton : — 

" Since to part ! 

Go, heav'nly guest, ethereal messenger ! 
Sent by whose sovereign goodness we adore ! 
Gentle to me and affable has been 
Thy condescension, and shall be honour'd ever 

With grateful'st memory " 

End of Book viii, Par. Lost. 

1 would have you by all means come 



342 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



over hither as soon as you can. I will 
endeavour to render the time you spend 
here as satisfactory as it is in my power ; 
and I hope you will ever look upon me 
as your hearty friend, through all the vi- 
cissitudes of life. 

Pray give my humble service to Mrs. 
Jago and your brother. I am, &c. 



LETTER III. 

Mr. Shenstone to Mr. Reynolds. 

Leasowes, Aug. 1740. 
Dear sir, 
Wonderful were the dangers and dif- 
ficulties through which I went, the 
night I left you at Barrels ; which I 
looked upon as ordained by fate for the 
temporal punishment of obstinacy. It 
was very kind, and in character, for you 
to endeavour to deter me from the ways 
of darkness ; but having a sort of pen- 
chant for needless difficulties, I have an 
undoubted right to indulge myself in 
them so long as I do not insist upon any 
one's pity. It is true, these ought not 
to exceed a certain degree ; they should 
be lenia tormenta; and I must own the 
labour I underwent that night did not 
come within the bounds which my ima- 
gination had prescribed. I cannot for- 
bear mentioning one imminent danger. 
I rode along a considerable piece of wa- 
ter, covered so close with trees, that it 
was as probable I might have pursued 
the channel, which was dangerous, as 
my way out of it. Or, to put my case 
in a more poetical light, having by night 
intruded upon an amour betwixt a 
Wood-nymph and a River-god, I owed 
my escape to Fortune, who conveyed me 
from the vengeance which they might 
have taken. I put up finally at a little 
alehouse about ten o'clock, and lay all 
night awake, counting the cords which 
supported me, which 1 could more safely 
swear to than to either bed or blanket. 
For farther particulars, see my epistle to 
the Pastor Fido of Lap worth. Mr. 
Graves says, he should be glad to shew 
you any civilities in his power, upon his 
own acquaintance ; and will serve you as 
far as his vote goes, upon my recom- 
mendation ; but is afraid, without the 
concurrence of some more considerable 
friends, your chance will be but small 
this year, &c. If the former part of this 



news gives you any pleasure, I assure you 
it gives me no less to communicate it ; 
and this pleasure proceeds from a princi- 
ple, which would induce me to serve you 
myself if it should ever be in my power. 
I saw Mr. Lyttleton last week ; he is a 
candidate for the county of Worcester, 
together with Lord Deerhurst ; 1 hope 
Mr. Somervile will do him the honour 
to appear as his friend, which he must 
at least think second to that of succeed- 
ing. 

I hear you are commenced chaplain 
since I saw you. I wish you joy of it. 
The chaplain's title is infinitely more 
agreeable than his office ; and I hope 
the scarf, which is expressive of it, will 
be no diminutive thing, no four-penny- 
half-penny piece of ribboning ; but that 
it will 

" High o'er the neck its rustling folds display, 1 
Disdain all usual bounds, extend its sway, > 
Usurp the head, and push the wig away." 3 

I hope it will prove ominous, that my 
first letter is a congratulatory one ; and 
if I were to have opportunities of send- 
ing all such, it would entirely quadrate 
with the sincere wishes of your, &c. 

I beg my compliments to Mr. Somer- 
vile, Mrs. Knight, and your family. 



LETTER IV. 



Mr. Shenstone to Mr 



on his 



taking Orders in the Church. 

Leasowes, June 8, 1741. 
Dear sir, 

I WRITE to you out of the abundant in- 
clination I have to hear from you ; ima- 
gining that, as you gave me a direction, 
you might possibly expect to receive a 
previous letter from me. I want to be * 
informed of the impressions you receive 
from your new circumstances. The 
chief aversion which some people have 
to orders is, what I fancy you will re- 
move in such as you converse with. I 
take it to be owing partly to dress, and 
partly to the avowed profession of reli- 
gion. A young clergyman, that has dis- 
tinguished his genius by a composition 
or two of a polite nature, and is capable 
of dressing himself and his religion in a 
diflFerent manner from the generality of 
his profession, that is, without formality, 
is certainly a genteel character. I speak 



Sect. I. 



RECENT. 



343 



this not Avith any sly design to advise, 
but to intimate that 1 think you very ca- 
pable of shining in a dark-coloured coat. 
You must consider me yet as a man of 
the world, and endeavouring to elicit 
that pleasure from gaiety which my rea- 
son tells me T shall never find. It is im- 
possible to express how stupid I have 
been ever since 1 came home, insomuch 
that I cannot write a common letter 
without six repetitions. This is the third 
time I have begun yours, and you see 
what stuff it is made up of. I must 
e'en hasten to matter of fact, which is 
the comfortable resource of dull people, 
though, even as to that, I have nothing 
to communicate. But I would be glad 
to know, whether you are under a ne- 
cessity of residing on week days ; and^ if 
not, why I may not expect you a day or 
two at the Leasowes very soon. Did you 
make any inquiry concerning the num- 
ber of my poems sold at Oxford ? Or did 
you hear any thing concerning it that 
concerns me to hear? — Will. S — (for 
that is his true name) is the excess of 
simplicity and good nature. He seems 
to have all the industry imaginable to 
divert and amuse people, without any 
ambitious end to serve, or almost any 
concern whether he has so much as a 
laugh allowed to his stories, any farther 
than as a laugh is an indication that 
people are delighted. This, joined with 
his turn of thought, renders him quite 
agreeable. I wish it were in my power 
to conciliate acquaintance with half his 
ease. Pray do not delay writing to me. 
Adieu. 



LETTER V. 

Mr. Shenstone to a Friend, expressing his 
Dissatisfaction at the Manner of Life 
in which he is engaged, 

1741. 
Dear sir, 
I WONDER I have not heard from you 
lately — of you indeed I have, from Mr. 
W — . If you could come over, proba- 
bly I might go back with you for a day 
or two ; for my horse, I think, gets ra- 
ther better, and may, with indulgence, 
perform such a journey. I want to ad- 
vise with you about several matters ; — 
to have your opinion about a building 



that I have built, and about a journey 
which I design to Bath ; and about 
numberless things, which, as they are 
numberless, cannot be comprehended in 
this paper. I am your, &c. 

Now I am come home from a visit — 
every little uneasiness is sufficient to in- 
troduce my whole train of melancholy 
considerations, and to make me utterly 
dissatisfied with the life I now lead, and 
the life which I foresee I shall lead. I 
am angry, and envious, and dejected, 
and frantic, and disregard all present 
things, just as becomes a madman to do. 
I am infinitely pleased (though it is a 
gloomy joy) with the application of Dr. 
Swift's complaint, '^ that he is forced to 
die in a rage, like a poisoned rat in a 
hole." My soul is no more suited to 
the figure I make, than a cable rope to 
a cambric needle : — I cannot bear to see 
the advantages alienated, v/hich I thine 
I could deserve and relish so much mork 
than those that have them. Nothing 
can give me patience but the soothing 
sympathy of a friend, and that will only 
turn my rage into simple melancholy. — 
I believe soon I shall bear to see nobody. 
I do hate all hereabouts already, except 
one or two. I Avill have my dinner 
brought upon my table in my absence, 
and the plates fetched away in my ab- 
sence ; and nobody shall see me ; for I 
can never bear to appear in the same 
stupid mediocrity for years together, 

and gain no ground. As Mr. G 

complained to me (and, I think, you too, 
both unjustly), "I am no character." 
— I have in my temper some rakishness, 
but it is checked by want of spirits ; 
some solidity, but it is softened by va- 
nity ; some esteem of learning, but it is 
broke in upon by laziness, imagination, 
and want of memory, &c. — I could 
reckon up twenty things throughout my 
whole circumstances wherein I am thus 
tantalized. Your fancy will present 
them. — Not that all I say here will sig- 
nify to you : I am only mider a fit of 
dissatisfaction, and to grumble does me 
good — only excuse me, that I cure my- 
self at your expense. Adieu ! 



344 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



LETTER VL 



M)\ Shenstone to Mr. 



with an In- 



vitation to accompany him to Town. 

The Leasowes, Nov. 25, 1741. 

Dear sir, 
The reason why 1 write to you so sud- 
denly is, that I have a proposal to make 
to you. If you could contrive to he in 
London for about a month from the end 
of December, I imagine you would 
spend it agreeably enough along with 
me, Mr. Outing, and Mr. Whistler. 
According to my calculations, Ave should 
be a very happy party at a play, coffee- 
house, or tavern. Do not let your su- 
percilious friends come in upon you 
with their prudential maxims. Consi- 
der you are now of the proper age for 
pleasure, and have not above four or 
five whimsical years left. You have not 
struck one bold stroke yet, that I know 
of. Saddle your mule, and let us be 
jogging to the great city. I will be an- 
swerable for amusement. — Let me have 
the pleasure of seeing you in the pit, in 
a laughter as cordial and singular as 

your friendship. Come — let us go 

forth into the Opera-house ; let us hear 
how the eunuch-folk sing. Turn your 
eye upon the lilies and roses, diamonds 
and rubies ; the Belindas and the Sylvias 
of gay life ! Think upon Mrs. Clive's 
inexpressible comicalness ; not to men- 
tion Hippesley's joke-abounding physi- 
ognomy ! Think, I say, now; for the 
time cometh when you shall say, " I 
have no pleasure in them." 

I am conscious of much merit in 
bringing ^bout the interview betwixt 

Mr. L and Mr. S ; but merit, 

as Sir John Falstaff says, is not regarded 
in these coster-monger days. 

Pray now do not write me word that 
your business will not allow you ten mi- 
nutes in a fortnight to write to me ; an 
excuse fit for none but a cobbler, who 
has ten children dependent upon a waxen 
thread. Adieu. 



LETTER VIL 

From the same to the same. 



1741. 



My good friend. 
Our old friend Somervile is dead ! I 



did not imagine I could have been so 
sorry as 1 find myself on this occasion — 
*' Sublatum qvcerimus!' I can now ex- 
cuse all his foibles ; impute them to age 
and to distress of circumstances ; the 
last of these considerations wrings my 
very soul to think on. For a man of 
high spirit, conscious of having (at 
least in one production) generally pleased 
the world, to be plagued and threatened 
by wretches that are low in every sense ; 
to be forced to drink himself into pains 
of the body, in order to get rid of the 
pains of the mind ; is a misery which I 
can well conceive, because I may, with- 
out vanity, esteem myself his equal in 
point of oeconomy, and consequently 
ought to have an eye on his misfortunes 
(as you kindly hinted to me about twelve 
o'clock at the Feathers) : I should re- 
trench ; — I will ; but you shall not see 
me : — I will not let you know that I 
took your hint in good part. I will do 
it at solitary times, as I may ; and yet 
there will be some difficulty in it ; for 
whatever the world might esteem in 
poor Somervile, I really find, upon cri- 
tical inquiry, that I loved him for no- 
thing so much as his flocci-nauci-nihili- 
pili-fication of money. 

Mr. A was honourably acquitted : 

lord A , who was present, and be- 
haved very insolently they say, was 
hissed out of court. They proved his 
application to the carpenter's son, to 

get him to swear against Mr. A , 

though the boy was proved to have said 
in several companies (before he had been 

kept at lord A 's house) that he 

was sure the thing was accidental. Fi- 
nally, it is believed he will recover the 
title of A — ea. 

The apprehension of the whores, and 
the suffocation of four in the round-house 
by the stupidity of the keeper, engrosses 
the talk of the town. The said house is 
rebuilding every day (for the mob on 
Sunday night demolished it), and re- 
demolished it every night. The duke of 

M — gh, J S his brother, lord 

C — r G — , were taken into the round- 
house, and confined from eleven at 
night till* eleven next day : I am not 
positive of the duke of M — gh ; the 
others are certain ; and that a large 
number of people of the first fashion 
went from the round-house to De Veil's, 
to give in informations of their usage. 



Sect, I. 



RECENT 



345 



The justice himself seems greatly scared ; 
the prosecution will be carried on with 
violence, so as probably to hang the 
keeper, and there is an end. 

Lord Bath's coachman got drunk and 
tumbled from his box, and he was forced 
to borrow lord Orford's. Wits say, 
that it was but gratitude for my lord 
Orford's coachman to drive my lord 
Bath, as my lord Bath himself had 
driven my lord Orford. Thus they. 

I have ten million things to tell you ; 
though they all amount to no more 
than that I wish to please you, and that 
I am your sincere friend and humble 
servant. 

I am pleased that I can say 1 knew 
Mr. Somervile, which I am to thank you 
for. 

LETTER VIIL 

Mr. Shenstone to Mr. Graves » on Bene- 
volence and Friendship. 

The Leasowes, Jan. 19, 1741-2. 

Dear Mr. Graves, 
I CANNOT forbear immediately writing 
to you : the pleasure your last letter 
gave me, put it out of my power to re- 
strain the overflowings of my benevo- 
lence. I can easily conceive, that, upon 
some extraordinary instances of friend- 
ship, my heart might be si fort attendri 
that I could not bear any restraint upon 
my ability to shew my gratitude. It is 
an observation I made upon reading to- 
day's paper, which contains an account 
of C. KhevenhuUer's success in favour of 
the queen of Hungary. To think what 
sublime affection must influence that 
poor unfortunate queen, should a faith- 
ful and zealous general revenge her upon 
her enemies, and restore her ruined af- 
fairs ! 

Had a person shewn an esteem and af- 
fection for me, joined with any elegance 
or without any elegance in the expression 
of it, T should have been in acute pain 
till I had given some sign of my will- 
ingness to serve him. From all this, I 
conclude that I have more humanity 
than some others. 

Probably enough I shall never meet 
with a larger share of happiness than I 
feel at present. If not, I am thoroughly 
convinced, my pain is greatly superior to 
my pleasure. That pleasure is not ab- 



solutely dependent on the mind, I know 
from this, that I have enjoyed happier 
scenes in the company of some friends 
than 1 can possibly at present; — but, 
alas ! all the time you and I shall enjoy 
together, abstracted from the rest of our 
lives, and lumped, will not perhaps 
amount to a solid year and a half. How 
small a proportion ! 

People will say to one that talks thus, 
*' Would you die?" To set the case 
upon a right footing, they must take 
away the hopes of greater happiness in 
this life, the fears of greater misery 
hereafter, together with the bodily pain 
of dying, and address me in a disposition 
betwixt mirth and melancholy ; and I 
could easily resolve them. 

1 do not know how I am launched 
out so far into this complaint : it is, 
perhaps, a strain of constitutional whin- 
ing ; the effect of the wind — did it come 
from the winds ? to the winds will I 
deliver it : 

Tradam protervis m mare Crelicuniy 
Poriare ventis — 

I will be as happy as my fortune will 
permit, and make others so ; 

Pone me pigris iibi nulla campis 
Arbor (Estiva reaeatur aura 

I will be so. The joke is, that the 
description which you gave of that coun- 
try was, that you had few trees about 
you ; so that I shall trick fortune if she 
should grant my petition implicitly. 
But, in earnest, I intend to come and 
stay a day or two with you next sum- 
mer. 

Mr. Whistler is at Mr. Gosling's, 
bookseller, at the Mitre and Crown, in 
Fleet Street, and inquired much after 
you in his last letter to me. He writes 
to me ; but 1 believe his affection for 
one weighs less with him while the town 
is in the other scale ; though he is very 
obliging. I do not know whether I do 
right, when I say I believe we three, 
that is, in solitary circumstances, have 
an equal idea of, and affection for, each 
other. I say, supposing each to be 
alone, or in the country, which is nearly 
the same ; for scenes alter minds as much 
as the air influences bodies. For in- 
stance, v/hen Mr. Whistler is in town, I 
suppose we love him better than he does 
us ; and when we are in town, I suppose 
tlie same may be said in regard to him. 



346 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



The true burlesque of Spenser, whose 
characteristic is simplicity, seems to 
consist in a simple representation of such 
things as one laughs to see or to observe 
one's self, rather than in any monstrous 
contrast betwixt the thoughts and words. 
I cannot help thinking, that my added 
stanzas have more of his manner than 
what you saw before, which you are not 
a judge of till you have read him. 



LETTER IX. 

Mr. Shenstone to Mr. Graves. 

1743. 

Dear sir, 
I LONG heartily to talk over affairs. with 
you iete-d-tete ; but am an utter enemy 
to the fatigue of transcribing what might 
pass well enough in conversation. I shall 
say nothing more concerning my de- 
parture from L — , than that it was ne- 
cessary, and therefore excusable. I have 
been since with a gentleman upon the 
borders of Wales, Bishop's Castle, from 
whence I made a digression one day be- 
yond Offa's Dyke ; saw mountains which 
converted all that I had seen into mole- 
hills ; and houses, which changed the 
Leasowes into Hampton Court : where 
they talk of a glazed window as a piece 
of magnificence ; and w^here their highest 
idea of his majesty is, that he can ride 
in such a coach as 'squire Jones or 
'squire Pryce's. The woman of the inn, 
at one place, said, " Glass (in windows) 
was very genteel, that it was ; but she 
could not afford such finery." 

You agree with the rest of the married 
world in a propensity to make proselytes. 
This inclination in some people gives one 
a kind of dread of the matter. They are 
ill-natured, and can only wish one in 
their own state because they are unhap- 
py ; like persons that have the plague, 
who, they say, are ever desirous to pro- 
pagate the infection. I make a con- 
trary conclusion when you commend 
marriage, as you seem to do, when you 

wish miss may reconcile me to more 

than the name of wife. I know not 
what you have heard of my amour ; pro- 
bably more than I can thoroughly con- 
firm to you. And what if I should say 
to you, that marriage was not once the 
subject of our conversation ? 

Nee conjug'ts unquam 

Prcelcndi (ecdas, aul hccc in fcedera vcni. 



Do not you think every thing in na-^ 
ture strangely improved since you were 
married, from the tea table to the 
warming pan ? 

I want to see Mrs. Jago's hand-writ- 
ing, that I may judge of her temper ; 
but she must write something in my 
praise. Pray see you to it, in your next 
letter. 

I could parodize my lord Carteret's 
letter from Dettingen, if I had it by 
me. " Mrs. Arnold (thanks be praised ! ) 
has this day gained a very considerable 
victory. The scold lasted two hours. 

Mrs. S e was posted in the hall, and 

Mrs. Arnold upon the staircase ; which 
superiority of ground was of no small 
service to her in the engagement. The 
fire lasted the whole space, without in- 
termission ; at the close of which the 
enemy was routed, and Mrs. Arnold kept 
the field." 

Did you hear the song to the tune of 
"The Cuckow.^" 

"The Baron stood behind a tree, 
In woful plight, for nought hearti he 

IJut cannon, cannon, &o. 
O word of fear ! 
Unpleasing to a German ear." 

The notes that fall upon the word "can- 
non" express the sound with its echo 
admirably. 

I send you my pastoral elegy (or bal- 
lad, if you think that name more proper), 
on condition that you return it Avith am- 
ple remarks in your next letter : I say 
" return it," because I have no other 
copy, and am too indolent to take one. 
Adieu. 



LETTER X. 

F7^07H the same to the same; written in 
Haj/ Harvest. 

July 3, 3743. 
Dear Mr. Graves, 
I DID not part from you without a great 
deal of melancholy. To think of the 
short duration of those interviews which 
are the objects of one's continual wishes, 
has been a reflection that has plagued 
me of old. I am sure I returned home 
with it then, more aggravated, as I fore- 
saw myself returning to the same series 
of melancholy hours from which you 
had a while relieved me, and which I had 
particularly suffered under all this last 
spring. I wish to God you might hap- 



Sect. I. 



R E C E N T. 



347 



pen to be settled not far from me : a 
day's journey distance, however; I mean 
an easy one. But the odds are infinitely 
against me. I must only rely for my 
happiness on the hopes of a never-ceas- 
ing correspondence ! 

Soon after you were gone I received 
my packet. The History of Worcester- 
shire is mere stuff. T — I am so fond 
of, that 1 believe I shall have his part of 
the collection bound over again, neatly 
and separately. But sure Hammond has 
no right to the least inventive merit, as 
the preface writer would insinuate. I do 
not think there is a single thought, of 
any epainence, that is not literally trans- 
lated. I am astonished he could content 
himself with being so little an original. 

Mr. Lyttelton and his lady are at 
Hagley. A malignant caterpillar has 
demolished the beauty of all her large 
oaks. Mine are secured by their little- 
ness. But I guess the park suffers ; a 
large wood near me being a mere win- 
ter-piece for nakedness. 

At present I give myself up to riding 
and thoughtlessness ; being resolved to 
make trial of their efficacy towards a to- 
lerable degree of health and spirits. I 
wish I had you for my director. I should 
proceed with great confidence of suc- 
cess ; though I am brought very low by 
two or three fits of a fever since I saw 
you. Had I written to you in the midst 
of my dispirited condition, as I was 
going, you would have had a more ten- 
der and unaffected letter than I can 
write at another time ; what I think, 
perhaps, at all times ; but what sickness 
can alone elicit from a temper fearful of 
whining. 

Surely the *' nunc forinosissimus an- 
nus" is to be limited to hay harvest. I 
could give my reasons : but you will ima- 
gine them to be, the activity of country 
people in a pleasing employment; the 
full verdure of the summer ; the prime 
of pinks, woodbines, jasmines. Sec. I am 
old, very old ; for few things give me so 
much mechanical pleasure as lolling on 
a bank in the very heat of the sun, 

" When the old come forth to play- 
On a sunshine holiday." 

And yet itpsjas much'as I can do to keep 
Mrs. Arnold from going to neighbouring- 
houses in her smock, in despite of de- 
cency'and my^known disapprobation. 
1 find myself more of a patriot than I 



ever thought I was. Upon reading the 
account of the battle I found a very sen- 
sible pleasure, or, as the Methodists term 
it, " perceived my heart enlarged," &c. 
The map you sent me is a pretty kind of 
toy, but does not enoiigh particularize 
the scenes of the war, &c., which was the 
end I had in view when I sent for it. 

' ' dura messorum ilia ! " About half 
the appetite, digestion, strength, spirits, 
&c. of a mower, would make me the 
happiest of mortals ! I would be under- 
stood literally and precisely. Adieu. 

LETTER XI. 

Mr. Shensione to Mr. Graves; after the 
Disappointment of a Visit. 

The Leasowes, Nov. 9, 1743. 
Dear sir, 
I AM tempted to begin my letter as 
Memmius does his harangue, " Multa 
me dehortantur a vohis, ni studium vir- 
tutis vestrce omnia exsuperet.''^ You con- 
trive interviews of about a minute's du 
ration ; and you make appointments in 
order to disappoint one ; and yet, at the 
same time that your proceedings are 
thus vexatious, force one to bear testi- 
mony to the inestimable value of your 
friendship ! I do insist upon it, that you 
ought to compound for the disappoint- 
ment you have caused me, by a little let- 
ter every post you stay in town. I shall 
now scarce see you till next summer, or 
spring at soonest ; and then I may pro- 
bably take occasion to visit you, under 
pretence of seeing Derbyshire. Truth 
is, your prints have given me some cu- 
riosity to see the original places. I am 
grateful for your intentions with regard 
to giving me part of them, and imperti- 
nent in desiring you to convey them to 
me as soon as you can well spare them. 
Let me know if they are sold separately 
at the print shops. I think to recom- 
mend them to my new acquaintance, 
Mr. Lyttelton Brown. I like the hu- 
mour of the ballad you mention, but am 
more obliged for your partial opinion of 
me. The notes that fall upon the word 
" cannon, cannon," are admirably ex- 
pressive of the sound, I dare say : I mean 
jointly with its echo : and so, I suppose, 
you will think, if you ever attended to 
the Tower guns. I find I cannot afford 
to go to Bath ])reviously to my London 
journey ; though I look upon it as a pro- 



346 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV, 



per metliod to make my residence in 
town more agreeable. I shall probably 
be there about the first of December ; or 
before, if I can accelerate my friend 
Whistler's journey. The pen 1 write 
with is the most disagreeable of pens ! 
But 1 have little else to say ; only this — 
that our good friend Jack Dolman is 
dead at Aldridge, his father's benefice. 

I beg, if you have leisure, you would 
inclose me in a frank the following songs, 
with the notes: "Stella and Flavia," 
«* Gentle Jessy," ** Sylvia, wilt thou 
waste thy prime?" and any other that 
is new. I should be glad of that num- 
ber of the British Orpheus which has 
my song in it, if it does not cost above 
sixpence. Make my compliments to 
your brother and sister; and believe 
me, in the common forms, but in no 
common degree, dear Mr. Graves's most 
aflFectionate friend and servant. 

Do write out the whole ballad of 
** The Baron stood behind a Tree." 



LETTER Xn. 

Mr. Shenstone to Mr. Graves^ with 
Thoughts on Advice. 

The Leasowes, Sept. 21, 1747. 
Dear Mr. Graves, 
I A3I under some apprehension that you 
dread the sight of a letter from me, as it 
seems to lay claim to the compliment of 
an answer. I will therefore write you 
one that shall wave its privilege, at least 
till such time as your leisure encourages, 
or your present dissipation does not for- 
bid you to send one. I dare now no 
longer expatiate upon the affair you 
have in hand ; it is enough for me if 
you will excuse the freedom I have taken. 
I have often known delay produce good 
effects in some cases, which even sagacity 
itself could not surmount ; and, if I 
thought I did not go too far, would pre- 
sume to recommend it now. You know 
I have very little of the temper of an 
alderman. I almost hate the idea of 
wealthiness as much as the word. It 
seems to me to carry a notion of fulness, 
stagnation, and insignificancy. It is 
this disposition of mine that can alone 
give any weight to the advice I send 
you, as it proves me not to give it 
through any partiality to fortune. As 



to what remains, you are, I hope, assured 
of the value I must ever have for you 
in any circumstances, and the regard I 
shall always shew for any that belongs 
to you. I cannot like you less or more^ 
I now drop into other matters. Bergen, 
I see, is taken at last ; pray what are the 
sentiments of your political companions ? 
I dined some time ago with Mr. Lyttel- 
ton and Mr. Pitt, who both agreed it 
was worth twenty thousand men to the 
French ; wliich is a light in which I 
never used to consider it. Any little 
intimation that you please to confer 
upon me, enables me to seem wise in 
this country for a month ; particularly if 
I take care to adjust my face accordingly. 
As I was returning last Sunday from 
church, whom should I meet in my way, 
but that sweet-souled bard Mr. James 
Thomson, in a chaise drawn by two 
horses lengthways? I welcomed him 
into the country, and asked him to ac- 
company Mr. Lyttelton to the Leasowes 
(who had offered me a visit) , which he 
promised to do. So I am in daily ex- 
pectations of them and all the world this 
week. I fancy they will lavish all their 
praises upon nature, reserving none for 
poor art and me. But if I ever live, 
and am able to perfect my schemes, I 
shall not despair of pleasing the few I 
first began with, the few friends pre- 
judiced in my favour ; and then Fico 
por los malign atores. Censures will not 
affect me ; for I am armed so strong in 
vanity, that they will pass by me as the 
idle wind which I regard not, I think it 
pretty near equal, in a country place, 
whether you gain the small number of 
tasters, or the large crowd of the vul- 
gar. The latter are more frequently 
met with, and gape, stupent, and stare 
much more. But one would choose to 
please a few friends of taste before mob 
or gentry, the great vulgar or the small; 
because therein one gratifies both one's 
social passions and one's pride, that is, 
one's self-love. Above all things, I 
would wish to please you ; and if I have 
a wish that projects or is prominent be- 
yond the rest, it is to see you placed to 
your satisfaction near me ; but Fortune 
must vary from her usual treatment be- 
fore she favours me so far. And yet 
there was a time, when one might pro- 
bably have prevailed on her. I knew 
not what to do. The affair was so in- 
tricately circumstanced — your surpris- 



^ECT. I. 



RECENT. 



349 



ing silence after the hint I gave. Mr. 
D — offering to serve any friend of mine ; 
nay, pressing me to use the opportunity. 
His other relations, his guardians, teas- 
ing him with sure symptoms of a rup- 
ture in case of a refusal on their side. 
Mr. P — soliciting me if the place were 
sold, which it could not legally he. 
Friendship, propriety, impartiality, self- 
interest (which I little regarded), endea- 
vouring to distract me ; I think I never 
spent so disagreeable an half-year since 
I was born. To close the whole, I could 
not foresee the event, which is almost 
foretold in your last letter, and I knew I 
could not serve you ; but I must render 
it a necessary one. In short, when I can 
tell you the whole affair at leisure, you 
will own it to be of such a nature, that I 
must be ever in suspense concerning my 
behaviour, and of course shall never re- 
flect on it with pleasure. Believe me, 
with the truest affection, yours. 

LETTER XIII. 

From the same to the same. 

It is somewhere about the 2()th of 
Sept. 1747; and I write from 
The Leasowes. 
Dear sir, 
I THINK I have lived to out-correspond 
almost all my correspondents ; whether 
you are the last that is to be subdued, I 
will not say ; the rest are so fatigued, 
that they are not able to achieve a line. 
Apprised of this, and being by nature 
disposed to have mercy on the van- 
quished (parcere subjectis), I seldom write 
a syllable more than is requisite to fur- 
ther some scheme, or ascertain some in- 
terview, the latter of these being the 
purpose of this mine epistle. I am in 
great hopes I shall be at liberty to see 
you ere many weeks be past ; and would 
beg of you, in the mean time, to inform 
me, by a letter, when I am likely, or 
when very unlikely, to meet with you at 
home. I am detained, just at present, 
by continual expectations of the Hagley 
family. 

As I was returning from church on 
Sunday last, whom should I meet, in a 
chaise with two horses lengthways, but 
that right friendly bard Mr. Thomson ? 
I complimented him upon his arrival in 
this country, and asked him to accom- 
pany Mr. Lyttelton to the Leasowes, 
which he said he would with abundance 



of pleasure : and so we parted. You will 
observe, that the more stress I lay upon 
this visit, and the more I discover to 
you, the more substantial is my apology 
for deferring mine into Warwicksliire. 
I own, I am pleased with the prospect of 
shewing them something at the Leasowes 
beyond what they expect. I have begun 
my terrace on the high hill I shewed you, 
made some considerable improvements in 
Virgil's Grove, and finished a walk from 
it to the house, after a manner which 
you will approve. They are going to 
build a castle in the park round the 
lodge, which, if well executed, must have 
a good effect ; and they are going like- 
wise to build a rotund to terminate the 
vista. The fault is, that they anticipate 
every thing which I propose to do when 
I become rich; but as that is never 
likely to be, perhaps it is not of any im- 
portance ; but what I term rich, implies 
no great deal ; I believe you are a wit- 
ness to the moderation of my desires ; 
and I flatter myself that you will believe 
your friend in that respect something 
above the vulgar : 

Crede non ilium tibi de scelesta 
Plebe dilectum, neque sic Jidelem, 
Sic lucro aversum, potuisse nasci 

Paire pudenda. 

If I come to your house, positively I 

will not go to see Mr. M . He has 

been twice as near me as the Grange, 
with C — L — , and never deemed my 
place worth seeing. I doubt, you are a 
little too modest in praising it wherever 
you go. Why do not you applaud it with 
both hands, utroque pollice? *' Parcen- 
tes ego dexterus odi, sparge rosas." I 
am so very partial to my native place, 
that it seems a miracle to me that it is 
not more famous. But I complain un- 
justly of you; for, as you have always 
contributed to my happiness, you have 
taken every opportunity to contribute to 
my figure. I wish I could say the same 
of some who have it more in their power. 
I have yet about a thousand things 
to say to you, not now, though ; lady 
L— h's visit I reserve till I see you. A 
coach with a coronet is a pretty kind of 
phoenomenon at my door, few prettier, 
except the face of such a friend as you ; 
for 1 do not want the grace to prefer a 
generous and spirited friendship to all 
the gewgaws that ambition can contrive. 
I have M rote out my Elegies, and heartily 



350 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



wish you had them to look over before I 
come. — I know not how to send them. — 
I shall bring and leave some poetry with 
you. — *' Thus et odores .'*' or rather a 
proper covering- for '* Thus et odores, et 
piper, et quicquid chartis amicitur in- 
eptis.** Adieu ! dear sir, believe me ever 
yours. 

LETTER XIV. 

Mr. Shenstone to Mr. Graves. 

1747. 

Dear sir, 
Being just returned from a small excur- 
sion, it was with the utmost pleasure 
that I read over your letter ; and, though 
it abounds both in wit and waggery, I 
sit down incontinently to answer it with 
none. 

The agreeableness of your letters is 
now heightened by the surprise they give 
me. I must own, I have thought you 
in a manner lost to the amusements in 
which you once delighted, correspon- 
dences, works of taste and fancy, &c. 
If you think the opinion worth removing, 
you need only favour me with such a 
letter now and then, and I will place you 
(in my imagination) where you shall see 
all the favourites of fortune cringing at 
your feet. 

I think I could add about half a dozen 
hints to your observations on electricity, 
which might at least disguise the facts : 
and then why will you not put it into 
some newspaper, or monthly pamphlet ? 
You might discover yourself to whom 
you have a mind. It would give more 
than ordinary pleasure at this time. — 
Some other will take the hint. — Pity 
your piece should not have the advantage 
of novelty as well as of wit ! 

I dined and stayed a night with Dr. 
E — : he was extremely obliging, and I 
am glad of such a friend to visit at B — . 
He asked much after you. — He shewed 
me his Ovid — I advised him to finish 
some one epistle highly, that he might 
shew it. — The whole Avill not take, though 
it goes against me to tell him so. I should 
be glad he could succeed at B — ; and 
could I serve him, it would be with a 
safe conscience, for I take him to excel 
the rest of B — 's physicians far in point 
of speculation and diligence, &c. 

I send you the song you asked for, and 
request of you to v>'v\te me out your new 



edition of the Election Verses ; and, at 
your leisure, a copy of the poem which 
we altered. 

THE LARK. 

Go, tuneful bird, that gladd'st the skies. 
To Daphne's window speed thy way. 

And there on quiv'ring pinions rise, 
And there thy vocal art display. 

And if she deign thy notes to hear, 
And if she praise thy matin song; 

Tell her, the sounds that sooth her ear. 
To simple British birds belong. 

Tell her in livelier plumes array'd. 

The bird from Indian groves may shine: 

But ask the lovely, partial maid. 

What are his notes compar'd to thine ? 

Then bid her treat that witless beau 
And all his motley race with scorn ; 

And heal deserving Damon's woe. 

Who sings her praise, and sings forlorn. 

I am, sir, your most faithful friend 
and servant. 

Have you read Watson, Martyn, and 
Freke, on electricity ? I accidentally met 
with the two former, by which my head 
is rendered almost giddy — Electrics, non- 
electrics, electrics per se, and bodies that 
are only conductors of electricity, have a 
plaguy bad effect on so vortical a brain 
as mine. 

I will infallibly spend a week with you, 
perhaps about February, if it suits you : 
though I think too it must be later. 

I have been painting in water-colours, 
during a visit I made, flowers. I would 
recommend the amusement to you, if 
you can allow it the time that is ex- 
pedient. 

I trust you will give me one entire^ 
week in the spring, when my late altera- 
tions may exhibit themselves to ad- 
vantage. 



LETTER XV. 

Mr. Shenstone to Mr. Jago. 

The Leasowes, March 23, 1747-8. 
Dear sir, 
I HAVE sent Tom over for the papers 
which I left under your inspection ; hav- 
ing nothing to add upon this head, but 
that the more freely and particularly you 
give me your opinion, the greater will 
be the obligation which I shall have to* 
acknowledge, - 



Sect. 1. 



RECENT. 



351 



I shall be very glad if 1 happen to re- 
ceive a good large bundle of your own 
compositions ; in regard to which, I will 
observe any commands which you shall 
please to lay upon me. 

I am favoured with a certain corre- 
spondence, by way of letter, which I told 
you I should be glad to cultivate ; and I 
find it very entertaining. 

Pray did you receive my answer to 
your last letter, sent by way of London ? 
I should be extremely sorry to be de- 
barred the pleasure of writing to you by 
the post, as often as T feel a violent pro- 
pensity to describe the notable incidents 
of my life ; which amount to about as 
much as the tinsel of your little boy's 
hobby-horric. 

I am on the point of purchasing a 
couple of busts for the niches of my hall ; 
and believe me, my good friend, I never 
proceed one step in ornamenting my lit- 
tle farm, but I enjoy the hopes of ren- 
dering it more agreeable to you, and the 
small circle of acquaintance which some- 
times favour me with their company. 

I shall be extremely glad to see you 
and Mr. Fancourt when the trees are 
green ; that is, in May ; but I would not 
have you content yourself with a single 
visit this summer. If Mr. Hardy (to 
whom you will make my compliments) 
inclines to favour me so far, you must 
calculate so as to wait on him whenever 
he finds it convenient ; though I have 
better hopes of making his reception 
here agreeable to him when my lord 
Dudley comes down. I wonder how he 
would like the scheme 1 am upon, of 
exchanging a large tankard for a silver 
standi sh. 

I have had a couple of paintings given 
me since you were here. One of them 
is a Madonna, valued, as it is said, at ten 
guineas in Italy, but which you would 
hardly purchase at the price of five shil- 
lings. However, I am endeavouring to 
make it out to be one of Carlo Maratt's, 
who was a first hand, and famous for 
Madonnas ; even so as to be nick -named 
Cartuccio delle Madonne, by Salvator 
Rosa. Two letters of the cypher (CM) 
agree ; what shall I do with regard to the 
third ? It is a small piece, and sadly black- 
•ened. It is about the size (though iiot 
•quite the shape) of the Bacchus over the 
parlour door, and has much such a frame. 

A person may amuse himself almost 
as cheaply as he pleases. 1 find no small 



delight in rearing all sorts of poultry ; 
geese, turkeys, pullets, ducks, &c. I 
am also somewhat smitten with a black- 
bird which I have purchased : a very fine 
one ; brother by father, but not by mo- 
ther, to the unfortunate bird you so 
beautifully describe, a copy of which de- 
scription you must not fail to send me ; — 
but as I said before, one may easily ha- 
bituate one's self to cheap amusements ; 
that is, rural ones (for all town amuse- 
ments are horridly expensive) ; — I would 
have you cultivate your garden ; plant 
flowers ; have a bird or two in the hall 
(they will at least amuse your children) ; 
write now and then a song; buy now 
and then a book ; write now and then a 
letter to your most sincere friend, and 
affectionate servant. 

P. S. I hope you have exhausted all 
your spirit of criticism upon my verses, 
that you may have none left to cavil at 
this letter ; for I am ashamed to think, 
that you, in particular, should receive the 
dullest I ever wrote in my life. Make 
my compliments to Mrs. Jago. — She can 
go a little abroad, you say. — ^Tell her, I 
should be proud to shew her the Lea- 
se wes. Adieu! 



LETTER XVI. 

Mr. Shenstone to Mr. — , on his Marriage. 

This was written August 21, 1748; 
but not sent till the 28th. 

Dear sir. 
How little soever I am inclined to write 
at this time, I cannot bear that you should 
censure me of unkindness in seeming to 
overlook the late change in your situa- 
tion. It will, I hope, be esteemed super- 
fluous in me to send you my most cor- 
dial wishes that you may be happy ; but 
it will, perhaps, be something more sig- 
nificant to say, that I believe you will : 
building my opinion on the knowledge 
I have long had of your own temper, and 
the account you give me of the person 
whom you have made choice of, to whom 
I desire you to pay my sincere and most 
affectionate compliments. 

I shall always be glad to find you jor«- 
sentibus cequum, though I should always 
be pleased when I saw you tentantem 
major (I. I think you should neglect no 
opportuhity at this time of life to push 



352 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV- 



your fortune so far as an elegant compe- 
tency, that you be not embarrassed with 
those kind of solicitudes towards the 
evening of your day : 

Ne te semper inops agitet vexetgue cupula, 
Ne pavor, et rerum mediocriter utili/m spes ! 

I would have you acquire, if possible, 
what the world calls, with some pro- 
priety, an easy fortune ; and what I inter- 
pret, such a fortune as allows of some 
inaccuracy and inattention, that one may 
not be continually in suspense about the 
laying out a shilling. This kind of ad- 
vice may seem extremely dogmatical in 
me ; but, if it carries any haughty air, 
I will obviate it by owning that 1 never 
acted as I say. I have lost my road to 
hajipiness, I confess ; and instead of pur- 
suing the way to the fine lawns and rene- 
rable oaks which distinguish the region 
of it, 1 am got into the pitiful parterre- 
garden of amusement, and view the no- 
bler scenes at a distance. I think I can 
see the road too that leads the better 
way, and can shew it others ; but I have 
many miles to measure back before I can 
get into it myself, and no kind of reso- 
lution to take a single step. My chief 
amusements at present are the same they 
have long been, and lie scattered about 
my farm. The French have Avhat they 
call a parque ornee ; I suppose, approach- 
ing about as near to a garden as the 
park at Hagley. I give my place the title 
of Viferme ornee; though, if I had money, 
I should hardly confine myself to such de- 
corations as that name requires. I have 
made great improvements ; and the con- 
sequence is, that I long to have you see 
them. 

I have not heard whether Miss — 's 
match proceeded. — I suppose your ob- 
jections were grounded on the person's 
age and temper ; and that they had the 
less weight, as they supposed you acted 
indiscreetly yourself: I can say but little 

on the occasion. You know better 

than I do. Only this I must add, that 
I have so great an esteem for your sister, 
that it will be necessary to my ease, that 
whoever marries her she should be happy. 

I have little hopes that I shall now see 
you often in this country ; though it would 
be you, in all probability, as soon as any, 
that would take a journey of fifty miles, 

" To see the poorest of the sons of men." 

the truth is, my affairs are miserably 
embroiled, by my own negligence, and 



the non-payment of tenants. I believe 
I shall be forced to seize on one next 
week for three years and a half s rent, due 
last Lady-day ; an affair to which 1 am 
greatly averse, both through indolence 
and compassion. I hope, however, I 
shall be always able (as I am sure I shall 
be desirous) to entertain a friend of a phi- 
losophical regimen, such as you and Mr. 
Whistler; and that will be all I can do. 

Hagley park is considerably improved 
since you were here, and they have built 
a castle by way of ruin on the highest 
part of it, which is just seen from my 
wood ; but by the removal of a tree or 
two (growing in a wood that joins to the 
park, and which, fortunately enough, be- 
longs to Mr. Dolman and me) I believe 
it may be rendered a considerable object 
here. 

I purpose to write to Mr. Whistler 
either this post or the next. The fears 
you seemed in upon my account are very 
kind, but have no grounds. I am, dear 
Mr. — , habitually and sincerely your, &c. 

My humble service to your neighbours. 
— Smith (whom you knew at Derby) 
will publisli a print of my grove in a 
small collection. 



LETTER XVII. 

Mr. Shenstqne to Mr. Jago, with an In- 
vitation to the Leasowes. 

Sept. 3, Saturday niyht, 
1748. 

Dear Mr. Jago, 
I HARDLY know whcthcr it will be pru- 
dent in me to own, that I wrote you a 
long letter upon the receipt of your last, 
which I have now upon my table. I 
condemn this habit in myself entirely, 
and should, I am sure, be very unhappy, 
if my friends, by my example, should be 
induced to contract the same. The truth 
is, I had not expressed myself in it to my 
mind, and it was full of blots, and blun- 
ders, and interlinings ; yet, such as it 
was, it had wearied my attention, and 
given me disinclination to begin it afresh. 
I am now impatient to remove any scru- 
ple you may have concerning my grate- 
ful sense of all your favours, and the 
invariable continuance of my affection 
and esteem. — I find by your last oblig- 
ing letter, that my machinations and de- 
vices are not-entirelyprivate. — You knew 



Sect. I. 



R E C E N T 



353 



of my draught of Hagley castle about the 
bigness of a barley-corn ; you knew of 
our intended visit to lady Luxborough's ; 
and I must add, Mr. Thomas Hall knew 
of my contrivance for the embellishment 
of Mr. Hardy's house. Nothing is there 
hid that shall not be revealed. Our visit 
to Barrels is now over and past. Lady 
Luxborough has seen Hagley castle in 
the original : and as to my desire that 
my draught might be shewn to no Chris- 
tian soul, you surely did but ill comply 
with it, when you shewed that drawing 
to a clergyman. However, you may have 
acted up to my real meaning, if you have 
taken care not to shew it to any connois- 
seur. I meant chiefly to guard against 
any one that knows the rules ; in whose 
eyes, I am sure, it could not turn to my 
credit. Pray how do you like the fes- 
toons dangling over the oval windows ? 
It is the chief a,dvantage in repairing an 
old house, that one may deviate from the 
rules without any extraordinary censure. 

I will not trouble you now with many 
particulars. The intent of Tom's coming 
is, to desire your company and ^Irs. Jago's 
this week. I should be extremely glad 
if your convenience would allow you to 
come on Monday or Tuesday ; but if it 
is entirely impracticable, I would beseech 
you not to put off the visit longer than the 
Monday following, for the leaves of my 
groves begin to fall a great pace. I beg 
once more, you would let no small incon- 
venience prevent your being here on Mon- 
day. As to my visit to Icheneton, you 
may depend upon it soon after ; and I 
hope you will not stand upon punctilio, 
when I mention my inclination that you 
may all take a walk through my coppices 
before their beauty is much impaired. 
Were I in a sprightly vein, I would aim 
at saying something genteel by way of 
answer to Mrs. Jago's compliment. As 
it is, I can only thank her for the sub- 
stance, and applaud the politeness of it. 
1 postpone all other matters till I see 
you. I am, habitually and sincerely, 
your, &c. 

I beg my compliments to Mr. Hardy. 

P. S. 1 am not accustomed, my dear 
friend, to send you a blank page ; nor 
can I be content to do so now. 

I thank you very sensibly for the verses 
with which you honour me. I think them 
good lines, and so do others that have seen 
them ; but you will give me leave, Avhen 



I see you, to propose some little altera- 
tion. As to an epistle, it would be exe- 
cuted with difficulty, and I Avould have it 
turn to your credit as well as mj own. 
But you have certainly of late acquired 
an ease in writing ; and I am tempted to 
think, that what you write hencefortli 
will be universally good. Persons that 
have seen youf* Elegies like ' ' The Black- 
birds" best, as it is most assuredly the 
most correct ; but I, who pretend to great 
penetration, can foresee that "The Lin- 
nets" will be made to excel. More of 
this when I see you. Poor Miss G — , 
J — R— says, is married ; and poor Mr. 
Thomson, Mr. Pitt tells me, is dead. 
He was to have been at Hagley this week, 
and then I should probably have seen him 
here. As it is, I wdll erect an urn in Vir- 
gil's Grove to his memory. I was really 
as much shocked to hear of his death, as 
if I had known and loved him for a num- 
ber of years : God knows, I lean on a 
very few friends : and if they drop rae, I 
become a wretched misanthrope. 



LETTER XVIIL 

3Jt\ Skensione to a Friend, disappoint hig 
him of a Visit. 

Fie on Mr. N — ! he has disappointed 
me of the most seasonable visit that heart 
could wish or desire. My flow^ers in blos- 
som, my walks newly cleaned, my neigh- 
bours invited, and I languishing for lack of 
your company ! Mean time you are going 
to dance attendance on a courder. — 
Would to God he may disappoint you I 
according to the usual practice of those 
gentlemen ; I mean, by giving you a far 
better living than you ever expected. 

I have no sooner made than I am ready 
to recall that wish, in order to substitute 
another in its place ; which is, that you 
may rather squat yourself down upon a 
fat goose living in ^Warwickshire, or one 
in Staffordshire, or perhaps Worcester- 
shire, of the same denomination. I do 
not mention Shropshire, because I think 
I am more remote from the main body of 
that county than I am from either of the 
others. But, nevertheless, by all means 
wait on Mr. N — ; shew him all respect, 
yet so as not to lay out any of the pro- 
fits of your contingent living in a black 
velvet Avaistcoat and breeches to appear 
before him. True merit needeth nought of 
2 A 



3.^4 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



this. BesideSj'peradventure, you may not 
receive the first quarter's income of it this 
half year. He will prohably do something 
f©r you one time or other ; but you shall 
never go into Ireland, that is certain, for 
le»s than a deanery ; not for less than 
the deanery of St. Patrick's, if you take 
my advice. Lower your hopes only to 
advance your surprise, '^^ grata .superve- 
nient qv(B non spejYibimus." Come to me 
as you may. A week is elapsed since you 
began to be detained ; you may surely come 
over in a fortnight now at farthest : I will 
be at home. However, write directly ; 
you know our letters are long upon their 
journey. 1 expected you the beginning 
of every week, till I received your last 
letter, impatiently. 

For my part, I begin to wean myself 
from all hopes and expectations whatever. 
I feed my wild-ducks, and I water my 
carnations ; happy enough, if I could ex- 
tinguish my ambition quite, or indulge 
(what I hope I feel in an equal degree) 
the desire of being something more bene- 
ficial in my sphere. Perhaps some few 
other circumstances would want also to 
be adjusted. 

I have just read lord Bolingbroke's 
three Letters, which I like as much as 
most pieces of politics I ever read. I 
admire, especially, the spirit of the style. 
1 as much admire the editor's unpo- 
pular preface. I know the family hi- 
therto seemed to make it a point to con- 
ceal Pope's affair ; and now, the editor, 
imder lord B.'s inspection, not only re- 
lates, but invites people to think the 
worst of it. What collateral reasons 
my lord may have for thinking ill of Mr. 
Pope, I cannot say ; but surely it is not 
political to lessen a person's character 
that had done one so much honour. I 
am, dear sir, your, &c. 

I have this moment received a long 
letter from lady Luxborough ; and you 
are to look on all I said concerning both 
lord Bolingbroke's affair and her resent- 
ment as premature. My lady's daughter 
and son-in-law visit her next week. 

LETTER XIX. 

Mr, Shenstone to Mr, Jago. 

From the Leasowes, as it appears on 
a rainy evening, June 1749. 
Dear sir. 
It would probably be so long before you 
can receive this letter by the post, that I 



cannot think of subjecting my thanks for 
your last, or my hopes of seeing you soon , 
to such an uncertainty. I shall now have 
it in my power to meet you at Mr. Wren's 
immediately, so would lose no time in re- 
questing your company here next week, 
if you please. I hope Mrs. Jago also 
will accompany you, and that you will set 
out the first day of the week, even Mon- 
day ; that you may not leave me in less 
than six days' time, under a pretence of 
necessity. As to the verses you were 
so kind to convey, I will take occasion, 
when you come, 

— " To find out, like a friend, 
Something to blame, and mickle to commend." 

So I say no more at present on that 
head. 

I love to read verses, but I write none. 
*' Peti, nihil me sicut antejuvat scribere !*' 
I will not say none ; for I wrote the 
following at breakfast yesterday, and they 
are all I have wrote since I saw you. They 
are now in one of the root-houses of Vir- 
gil's Grove, for the admonition of my 
good friends the vulgar ; of whom I have 
multitudes every Sunday evening, and 
who very fortunately believe in fairies, 
and are no judges of poetry. 

*' Herein cool grot, and mossy cell. 

We tripping fauns and fairies dwell : 

Though rarely seen by mortal eye, 

Oft as the moon, ascended high, 

Darts through yon limes her qixiv'ring beam. 

We frisk it near this crystal stream. 

*'Theu fear to spoil these sacred bow'rs; 
Nor wound the shrubs, nor crop the flow'rs : 
So may your path with sweets abound, 
So may your couch with rest be crown'd ! 
But ill betide or nymph or swain, 
Who dares these hallow'd haunts profane." 

Oberon. 

I suppose the rotund at Hagley is com- 
pleted ; but I have not seen it hitherto ; 
neither do I often journey or visit any 
where, except when a shrub or flower is 
upon the point of blossoming near my 
walks. I forget one visit I lately made 
in the neighbourhood, to a young cler- 
gyman of taste and ingenuity. His name 
is Pixell ; he plays finely upon the violin, 
and very well upon the harpsichord ; has 
set many things to music, some in the 
soft way, with which I was much de- 
lighted. He is young, and has time to 
improve himself. He gave me an oppor- 
tunity of being acquainted with him by 
frequently visiting, and introducing com- 



Sect. I. 



R E C E N T. 



355 



pany to my walks. I met him one morn- 
ing with an Italian in my grove, and our 
acquaintance has been growing- ever since. 
He has a share in an estate that is near 
mc, and lives there at present ; but I doubt 
will not do so long; when you come, I 
will send for him. Have you read my 
lord Bolingbroke's Essays on Patriotism, 
&c. ? and have you read Merope ? and do 
you take in the Magazin des Londres? 
and pray how does your garden flourish ? 
I warrant you do not yet know tlie differ- 
ence betwixt a ranunculus and an ane- 
mone — God help ye ! Come to me, and 
be informed of the nature of all plants, 
'* from the cedar on Mount Lebanon 
to the hyssop that springeth out of the 
wall." Pray do not fail to decorate your 
new garden, whence you may transplant 
all kinds of flowers into your verses. If 

by chance you make a visit at I 

fifty years hence, from some distant part 
of England, shall you forget this little 
angle where you used to muse and sing ? 
*' JLn unquam, Sfc. Post aliquot, tua regna 
videns nu'rabere, aristas.'' 

I expect by the return of Tom to re- 
ceive a trifle that will amuse you. It is 
a small gold seal of Vida's head, given 
by Vertue to a relation of mine, who 
published Vida, and introduced Vertue 
into business. Perhaps you remember 
Mr. Tristram of Hampton, and the day 
we spent there from school ; it was his. 
I am, very cordially, yours. 



LETTER XX. 



Mr. Shenstonc to C- 



W- 



-, Esq. 



TheLeasowes, Nov. 2, 1753. 
Dear sir, 
It never can be that I owe you for three 
letters : as to two, I will agree with you ; 
one that I received together with my 
books, and the other soon after ; but that 
I am indebted for more than these — 

Credut JudcEus Apella, 
Non ego. 

Even that same Judceus Apella who af- 
fords me this very opportunity of send- 
ing my compliments to you and Mrs. 
W — , and of assuring you that if I had 
not purposed to have seen you, I had 
wrote to you long ago. 

Master Harris talks very respectfully 
of your garden ; and we have no dispute, 
save only in one point — he says, that 
you labour very hard in your vocation : 
whereas I am not willing to allow that 



all the work you ever did, or Avill do in 
it, is worth a single bunch of radishes., 
However, I dare not contradict him too 
much, because he waits for my letter. 

How happy are you that can hold up 
your spade, and cry, " Avaunt, Satan !" 
when a toyman offers you his deceitful 
vanities ! Do not you rejoice inwardly, 
and pride yourself greatly in your own 
philosophy ? 

" Twas thus — 
The wise Athenian cross'd a glitt'ring fair: 
Unmov'd by tongues and sights he walk'd the 

place, 
Through tape, tags, tinsel, gimp, perfume, and 

lace; 
Then bends from Mars's Hill his awful eyes, 
And, 'What a world I never want!' he cries." 

Parnei.t. 

Meantime do not despise others that can 
find any needful amusement in what, I 
think, Bunyan very aptly calls Vanity 
Fair ; I have been at it many times this 
season, and have bought many kinds of 
merchandise there. It is a part of phi- 
losophy, to adapt one's passions to one's 
way of life ; and the solitary unsocial 
sphere in which I move makes me think 
it happy that I can retain a relish for such 
trifles as I can drav/ into it. Meantime, 
I dare not reason too much upon this 
head. Reason, like the famous concave 
mirror at Paris, would in two minutes 
vitrify all the Jew's Pack : I mean, that 
it would immediately destroy all the form, 
colour, and beauty, of every thing that 
is not merely useful. But I ramble too 
far, and you do not want such specula- 
tions. My intent, when I sat down, was 
to tell you that I shall probably see yon 
very soon, and certainly remain in the 
meantime, and at all times, sir, your, &c. 

LETTER XXI. 

Mr. Shenstone to Mr. Graves, on the 
Death of Mr, Shenstone^s Brother. 

The Leasowes', Feb. 14, 175?. 

Dear Mr. Graves, 
You will be amazed at my long silence ; 
and it might reasonably excite somer dis- 
gust, if my days had passed of late in the 
manner they used to do : but I am not 
the man I was ; perhaps I never shall be. 
Alas ! my dearest friend ! I have lost my 
only brother ! and, since the fatal close 
of November, I have had neither peace 
nor respite from agonizing thoughts ! 

You, I think, have seen my brother; 
2 A 2 



356 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book iV- 



but perhaps had no opportunity of dis- 
tinguishing him from the g'roup of others 
whom we called good-natured men. 
This part of his character was so visible 
in his countenance, that he was gene- 
rally beloved at sight : I, who must be 
allowed to know him, do assure you, 
that his understanding was no way 
inferior to his benevolence. He had 
not only a sound judgment, but a lively 
wit and genuine humour. As these 
were many times eclipsed by his native 
bashfulness, so his benevolence only 
suffered by being shewn to an excess. 
I here mean his giving too indiscrimi- 
nately into those jovial meetings of 
company, where the warmth of a social 
temper is discovered with least reserve ; 
but the virtues of his head and heart 
would soon have shone without alloy. 
The foibles of his youth were wearing 
off ; and his affection for me and regard 
to my advice, with his own good sense, 
would soon have rendered him all that 
I could have wished in a successor. 
I never in my life knew a person more 
sincere in the expression of his love or 
dislike. But it was the former that 
suited the propensity of his heart ; the 
latter was as transient as the starts of pas- 
sion that occasioned it. In short, with 
much true genius and real fortitude, he 
was, according to the English acceptation, 
' ' a truly honest man ; " and I think I may 
also add, a truly English character ; but 
*' Habeo, dixi? immo hahui fratrem ei 
amicu7n, Chreme /" All this have I lost in 
him. He is now in regard to this world 
no more than a mere idea ; and this idea, 
therefore, though deeply tinged with me- 
lancholy, I must, and surely ought to, 
cherish and preserve. 

I believe I wrote you some account of 
his illness last spring ; from which to all 
appearance he was tolerably well reco- 
vered. He took the air, and visited about 
with me, during the warmer months of 
summer ; but my pleasure was of short 
duration. *' Hasit lateri lethalis arundo /" 
Tlie peripneumony under which he la- 
boured in the spring had terminated in 
an adhesion of the lungs to the pleura, so 
that he could never lie but upon his right 
side ; and this, as the weather grew 
colder, occasioned an obstruction that 
could never be surmounted. 

Though my reason forewarned me of 
the event, I was not the more pi epared 
for it. Let me not dwell upon it It is 



altogether insupportable in every re- 
spect, and my imagination seems more 
assiduous in educing pain from this 
occasion, than I ever yet found it in 
administering to my pleasure. This 
hurts me to no purpose — I know it ; 
and yet, when I have avocated my 
thoughts, and fixed them for a while 
upon common amusements, I suffer the 
same sort of consciousness as if 1 were 
guilty of a crime. Believe me, this has 
been the most sensible affliction I ever 
felt in my life ; and you, who know my 
anxiety when I had far less reason to 
complain, will more easily conceive it 
now, than I am able to describe it. 

I cannot pretend to fill up my paper 
with my usual subjects. I should thank 
you for your remarks upon my poetry ; 
but I despise poetry : and I might tell 
you of all my little rural improvements ; 
but I hate them. What can I now ex- 
pect from my solitary rambles through 
them, but a series of melancholy reflec- 
tions and irksome anticipations ? JEven 
the pleasure I should take in showing 
them to you, the greatest they can afford 
me, must be now greatly inferior to what 
it might formerly have been. 

How have I prostituted my sorrow on 
occasions that little concerned me ! I am 
ashamed to think of that idle " Elegy 
upon Autumn," when I have so much 
more important cause to hate and to con- 
demn it now : but the glare and gaiety 
of the spring is what I principally dread ; 
when I shall find all things restored but 
my poor brother, and something like 
those lines of Milton will run for ever in 
my thoughts : 

" Thus, with the year, 
Seasons return ; but not to me returns 
A brother's cordial smile, at eve or morn." 

I shall then seem to wake from amuse- 
ments, company, every sort of inebria- 
tion with which I have been endeavour- 
ing to lull my grief asleep, as from a 
dream ; and I shall feel as if I were, that 
instant, despoiled of all I have chiefly va- 
lued for thirty years together ; of all my 
present happiness, and all my future pros- 
pects. The melody of birds, which he no 
more must hear ; the cheerful beams of 
the sun, of which he no more must par- 
take ; every wonted pleasure will produce 
that sort of pain to which my temper is 
most obnoxious. Do not consider this as 
poetry. Poetry on such occasions is no 



Sect. I, 



R E C E N T. 



;io7 



more than literal truth. In the present 
case it is less ; for half the tenderness I 
feel is altogether shapeless and inex- 
pressible. 

After all, the wisdom of the world may 
perhaps esteem me a gainer. Ill do they 
judge of this event, who think that any 
shadow of amends can be made for the 
deatli of a brother, and the disappoint- 
ment of all my schemes, by the acces- 
sion of some fortune, which I never can 
enjoy! 

This is a mournful narrative : I will 
not, therefore, enlarge it. Amongst all 
changes and chances, I often think of 
you ; and pray there may be no suspi- 
cion or jealousy betwixt us during the 
rest of our lives. I am, dear sir, 
yours, &c. 

LETTER XXII. 

Mr. Shenstone to C — IV — , Esq. 

July 22, 1732. 

Dear Mr. W~ , 
I DO not know why I made you a pro- 
mise of a pretty long letter. Wliat I now 
write will be but a moderate one, both 
in regard to length and style ; yet write 
I must, par maniere d' acquit, and you 
have brought fourpence expense upon 
yourself for a parcel of nonsense, and to 
no manner of purpose. This is not tau- 
tology, you must observe ; for nonsense 
sometimes answers very considerable 
purposes. In love, it is eloquence itself. 
In friendship, therefore, by all the rules 
of sound logic, you must allow it to be 
something ; what, I cannot say, " nequeo 
monstrare, et sentio tantum.'^ The prin- 
cipal part of a correspondendence betwixt 
two idle men consists in two important 
inquiries — what we do, and how we do : 
but as all persons ought to give satisfac- 
tion before they expect to receive it, I 
am to tell you in the first place, that my 
own health is tolerably good, or rather 
what I must call good, being, I think, 
much better than it has been this last 
half year. Then as touching my occu- 
pation, alas! "Othello's occupation's 
gone." I neither read nor write aught 
besides a fev/ letters ; and I give myself 
up entirely to scenes of dissipation ; 
lounge at my lord Dudley's for near a 
week together ; make dinners ; accept 
of invitations ; sit up till three o'clock 
in the morning with young sprightly 



married women, over wliite port and vin 
de paysans ; ramble over my fields ; issue 
out orders to my hay-makers ; foretell 
rain and fair weather ; enjoy the fra- 
grance of hay, the cocks, and the wind- 
rows ; admire that universal lawn which 
is produced by the scythe ; sometimes in - 
spect and draw mouldings for my car- 
penters ; sometimes paper my walls, and 
at other times my ceilings ; do every so- 
cial office that falls in my way, but never 
seek out for any. 

" Sed vos quid tandem ? qucB circupivo- 
litas agilis thyma ? non tu corpus eras 
sine pectore. Non tibi parvum ingenium, 
non incultum est .'^^ In short, what do 
you ? and how do you do ? — that is all. 

Tell my young pupil, your son, he 
must by all manner of means send me a 
Latin letter : and if he have any billet 
in French for Miss Lea at The Grange, 
or even in Hebrew, Coptic, or Syriac, I 
will engage it shall be received very gra- 
ciously. Thither am I going to dinner 
this day, and there " implebor veteris 
Bacchi, pinguisque feriiia 

All this looks like extreme jollity ; but 
is this the true state of the case, or may 
I not more properly apply the 

" Spent vullu simulat, premit atrum corde de- 
lorem ? " 

Accept this scrawl in place of a letter, 
and believe me yours, &c. 

LETTER XXIII . 

Mr. Shenstone to Mr. G — . on the Re- 
ceipt of his Picture. 

The Leasowes, Oct. 3, 1752. 
Dear Mr. G— , 
I AM very unfeignedly ashamed to reflect 
how long it is since I received your pre- 
sent, and how much longer it is since I 
received your letter. I have been resolv- 
ing to write to you almost daily ever 
since you left me ; yet have foolishly 
enough permitted avocations (of infi- 
nitely less importance than your corre- 
spondence) to interfere with my gratitude, 
my interest, and my inclination. What 
apology I have to make, though no way 
adequate to my negligence, is in short 
as follows. After the receipt of your 
letter, I deferred writing till I could 
speak of the arrival of your picture. 
This did not happen till about a month 
or five weeks agO, when I was embar- 



358 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV 



rassedwith masons, carvers, carpenters, 
and company, all at a time. And though 
it were idle enough to say, that I could 
not find one vacant hour for my purpose, 
yet in truth my head was so contused 
by these multifarious distractions, that 1 
could have written nothing satisfactory 
either to myself or you ; nothing worth 
a single penny, supposing the postage 
Avere to cost you no more. The work- 
men had not finished my rooms a minute, 
when lady Luxborough, Mrs. Davies, 
and Mr. Outing arrived, with five ser- 
vants and a set of horses, to stay with me 
for some time. After a nine days' visit, 
I returned with them to Barrels, where I 
continued for a week ; and whither (by 
the way) T go again with lord Dudley in 
about a fortnight's time. Other com- 
pany filled up the interstices of my sum- 
mer ; and I hope my dear friend will ac- 
cept of this apology for so long a chasm 
of silence, during which I have been uni- 
formly at his service, and true to that 
inviolable friendship I shall ever bear 
him. 

I proceed now to thank you for the 
distinction you shew me, in sending me 
your picture : I do it very sincerely. It 
is assuredly a strong likeness, as my lady 
Luxborough v/ith all her servants, that 
have seen you, pronounce, as well as I ; 
consequently more valuable to a friend 
than a face he does not know, though it 
were one of Raphael's. The smile about 
the mouth is bad ; as it agrees but ill 
with the gravity of the eyes, and as a 
smile ever so little outre has a bad effect 
in a picture where it is constant, though 
it may be ever so graceful in a person 
where it is transitory. However, this may 
be altered, when I can meet with a good 
painter. I have no other objection, but 
to the prominence of the belly. The 
hair, I think, is good; and the coat and 
band no way exceptionable. 1 have 
given it all the advantage I can : it has 
a good light, and makes part of an ele- 
gant chimney-piece in a genteel, though 
little breakfast room, at the end of my 
house. 

Mr. Wliistler and I are now upon terms, 
and two or three friendly letters have 
been interchanged betwixt us. He press- 
es me to come to Whitchurch, and I 
him to come over to the Leasowes ; but 
the winter cometh, when no man can 
visit. The dispute is adjusted by time, 
whilst we arc arguing it by exi)Ostulation 



— no uncommon event in most sublunary 
projects ! 

Ijady Luxborough said very extraordi- 
nary things in praise of Mrs. G — , after 
you left us at Barrels : yet I sincerely be- 
lieve no more than she deserves. I took 
the liberty of shewing her your letter 
here, as it included a compliment to her 
which I thought particularly genteel — 
She will always consider you as a person 
of genius, and her friend. 

During most of this summer (wherein 
I have seen much company either here 
or at lord Dudley's), I have been almost 
constantly engaged in one continued 
scene of jollity . I endeavoured to find re- 
lief from such sort df dissipation ; and, 
when I had once given in to it, I was 
obliged to proceed ; as, they say, is the 
case when persons disguise their faces 
with paint. Mine was a sort of painting 
applied to my temper — " Spem vultu si- 
midare, premere atrum corde doloremJ'^ 
And the moment I left it off, my soul 
appeared again aU haggard and forlorn. 
My company has now deserted me ; the 
spleen-fogs begin to rise ; and the terri- 
ble incidents of last winter revive apace 
in my memory. This is my state of 
mind, Avhile I write you these few lines ; 
yet, 1 thank God, my health is not much 
amiss. 

I did not forget my promise of a box, 
&c. to Mrs. G — . I had a dozen sent 
me, one or two of which I could have 
liked, had they been better finished. They 
were of good oval, white enamel, with 
flowers, &c. ; but horridly gilt, and not 
accurately painted. I beg my best service 
to her, and will make a fresh essay. My 
dearest friend, accept this awkward let- 
ter for the present. In a few posts I will 
write again. Believe me yours from the 
bottom of my soul. 

I will send you a label for made wine, 
after my own plan. It is enamel, with 
grapes, shepherd's pipe, &c. The motto 

*' Vin de PaisanJ' 



LETTER XXIV. 

Mr. Shenstone to Mr. Jago. 

The Leasowes, Nov. 15, 1752. 
Dear Mr. Jago, 
Could I with convenience mount my 
horse, and ride to Harbury this instant. 



Sect. I. 



RECENT. 



359 



I should much more willingly do so than 
begin this letter. Such terrible events 
have happened to us, since we saw each 
other last, that, however irksome it may 
be to dwell upon them, it is in the same 
degree unnatural to substitute any sub- 
ject in their place. 

I do sincerely forgive your long silence, 
my good friend, indeed I do ; though it 
gave me uneasiness. I hope you do the 
same by mine. I own, I could not readily 
account for the former period of yours, 
any otherwise than by supposing that I 
had said or done something in the levity 
of my heart, which had given you dis- 
gust ; but being conscious to myself of 
the most sincere regard for you, and be- 
lieving it could never be discredited for 
any trivial inadvertencies, I remember, I 
continued still in expectation of a letter, 
and did not dream of writing till such 
time as I had received one. I trusted 
you would write at last ; and that by all 
my past endeavours to demonstrate my 
friendship, you would believe the tree 
was rooted in my heart, whatever ir- 
regularity you might observe in the 
branches. 

This was my situation before that 
dreadful sera which gave me such a shock 
as to banish my best friends for a time 
out of my memory. And when they re- 
curred, as they did the first of any thing, 
I was made acquainted with that deplo- 
rable misfortune of yours. Believe me, I 
sympathized in your affliction, notwith- 
standing my own ; but alas ! what com- 
fort could I administer, who had need 
of every possible assistance to support 
myself? I wrote indeed a few lettors with 
difficulty ; amongst the rest, one to my 
friend Graves ; but it was to vent my 
complaint. I will send you the letter, if 
you please, as it is by far my least pain- 
ful method of conveying you some ac- 
count of my situation. Let it convince 
you, that I could have written nothing 
at that time, which could have been of 
any service to you : let it afford you at 
least a faint sketch of my dearest bro- 
ther's character ; but let it not appear an 
ostentatious display of sorrow, of which 
I am by no means guilty. I know but 
too well that I discovered upon the oc- 
casion, what some would call an un- 
manly tenderness ; but I know also, that 
sorrow upon such subjects as these is very 
consistent with virtue, and with the most 
absolute resignation to the just decrees 



of Providence — " Hominis est eniin afficl 
dolore, sentire; resistere tamen et solatia 
admiitere, non solatiis non egere'" (Pliny). 
I drank, purchased amusements, never 
suffered myself to be a minute without 
company, no matter what, so it was con- 
tinual, xit length, by an attention to 
such conversation and such amusements 
as I could at other times despise, I for- 
got so far as to be cheerful. And after 
this, the summer, through an ahuost 
constant succession of lively and agree- 
able visitants, proved even a scene of jol- 
lity. It was inebriation all, though of a 
mingled nature ; yet has it maintained 
a sort of truce with grief, till time can 
assist me more effectually by throwing 
back the event to a distance. Now, in- 
deed, that my company has all for- 
saken me, and I am delivered up to win- 
ter, silence, and reflection, the incidents 
of the last year revive apace in my me- 
mory ; and I am even astonished to think 
of the gaiety of my summer. The fatal 
anniversary, the " dies quern semper acer^ 
hum^'' &c. is beginning to approach, and 
every face of the sky suggests the ideas 
of last winter. Yet I find myself cheer- 
ful in company ; nor would I recommend 
it to you to be much alone. You would 
lay the highest obligation upon me by 
coming over at this time. I pressed 
your brother, whom I saw at Birming- 
ham, to use his influence with you ; but 
if you can by no means undertake the 
journey, I will take my speediest oppor- 
tunity of seeing you at Harbury. Mr. 
Miller invited me strenuously to meet 
Dr. Lyttelton at his house ; but I believe 
my most convenient season will be, when 
my lord Dudley goes to Barrels ; for I 
can but iU bear the pensiveness of a long 
and lonely expedition. After all, if you 
could come hither first, it would afford 
me the most entire satisfaction. I have 
been making alterations in my house 
that would amuse you ; and have many 
matters to discourse with you, which 
would be endless to mention upon paper. 
Adieu ! my dear friend ! May your 
merit be known to some one who has 
greater power to serve you than myself ; 
but be assured, at the same time, that 
no one loves you better, or esteems you 
more. 



360 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



LETTER XXV. 



Mr. Shenstone to Mr. Jago. 



The Leasowes, Feb. 27. 1753. 
Dear Mr. Jago, 
I WROTE you some account of myself, 
and inclosed some trivial criticisms, in a 
letter 1 sent you about a fortnight ago, 
which I hope you have received. — Tom 
comes now to inquire after your health, 
and to bring back my " Ode to Colonel 
Lyttleton ;" in regard to which, I desire 
that you will not be sparing of your ani- 
madversions. I whispered my difficul- 
ties to Mr. Miller at Hagley, how delicate 
I found the subject, and how hard it was 
to satisfy either myself or others ; in all 
which points he agreed with me. Ne- 
vertheless, having twice broken my pro- 
mise of sending a corrected copy to sir 
George, I was obliged to make my peace 
by a fresh one, which, I suppose, I must 
of necessity perform. — Give me your 
whole sentiments hereupon, I beseech 
you : in particular and in general, as a 
critic and as a friend. — The bad state of 
spirits which I complained of in my last, 
for a long time together made me utterly 
irresolute : every thing occasioned me 
suspense ; and I did nothing with appe- 
tite. — This was owing in a great measure 
to a slow nervous fever, as I have since 
discovered by many concurrent symp- 
toms. It is now, I think, wearing off by 
degrees. I seem to anticipate a little of 
that " vernal delight" which Milton 
mentions, and thinks 

" able to chase 
All sadness, but despair.'* 

At least, I began to resume my silly clue 
of hopes and expectations : which I know, 
however, will not guide me to any thing 
more satisfactory than before. 

I have read scarce any new books this 
season. Voltaire's new tragedy was sent 
me from London ; but vdiat has given 
me the most amusement has been the 
" Let Ires de Madatne de Maintenon.^* 
You have probably read them already in 
English, and then I need not recommend 
thera. The ' ' T^ife of Lord Bolingbroke " 
is entirely his public life, and the book 
three parts filled with political remarks. 

As to writing, I have not attempted 
it this year and more ; nor do I know 
when I shall again. Hov/ever, I would 
be glad to correct that " Ode to the 



Duchess of Somerset," when once I can 
find in whose hands it is deposited. I 
was shewn a very elegant letter of hers, 
the other day ; wherein she asks for it 
with great politeness ; and as it includes 
nothing but a love of rural life, and such 
sort of amusements as she herself ap- 
proves, I shall stand a good chance of 
having it received with partiality. She 
lives the life of a ,religieuse. She has 
written my lady Lnxborough a very se- 
rious letter of condolence upon the mis- 
fortune in her family ; and need enough 
has lady Luxborough of so unchangeable 
a friend ; for sure nothing could have 
happened to a person in her situation 
more specifically unfortunate. Mr. Rey- 
nolds has been at Barrels, I hear, and 
has brought her a machine that goes into 
a coat-pocket, yet answers the end of " a 
jack for boots, a reading-desk, a crib- 
bage-board, a pair of snuffers, a ruler, 
an eighteen-incli rule, three pair of nut- 
cracks, a lemon-squeezer, two candle- 
sticks, a picquet-board, and the lord 
knows what beside." Can you form an 
idea of it ? If you can, do you not think 
it must give me pain to reflect, that I 
myself am useful for no sort of purpose^ 
when a paltry bit of wood can answer so 
many ? But, indeed, whilst it pretends 
to these exploits, it performs nothing 
well ; and therein I agree with it. So 
true it is, with regard to me, what I 
told you long ago, 

Multa el prcEclara rainantem 
Vivere nee recte, nee siaviler ! 

We have a turnpike-bill upon the point 
of being brought into the House of Com- 
mons ; it will convey you about half the 
way betwixt Birmingham and Hales, and 
from thence to Hagley ; but, I trust, 
there will be a left-hand attraction, which 
will always make you deviate from the 
straight line. 

I should be ashamed to reflect how 
much I have dwelt upon myself in this 
letter, but that I seriously approve of 
egotism in letters ; and were I not to do 
so, I should not have any other subject. 
I have not a single neighbour, that is ei- 
ther fraught with politeness, literature, 
or intelligence ; much less have I a tide 
of spirits to set my invention afloat : but 
the less I am able to amuse you, the 
more desirous am I of your letters ; v/hich 
afford me the truest entertainment, even 
when my spirits are ever so much de- 
pressed. 



Sect. I. 



RECENT. 



361 



That universal cheerfulness, which is the 
lot of some people, persons that you and 
I may envy at the same time that we de- 
spise, is worth all that either fortune or 
nature can bestow. 

I am, Avith entire affection, yours. 

LETTER XXVI. 

3Ii\ Shenstoiie to Mr. Graves, on the 
Death of Mr. Whistler. 

The Leasowes, June 7, 1754. 

Dear Mr. Graves, 
The melancholy account of our dear 
friend Wliistler's death was conveyed to 
me, at the same instant, by yours and by 
his brother's letter. I have written to 
his brother this post ; though I am very 
ill able to write upon the subject, and 
would willingly have waved it longer, 
but for decency. The triumvirate, which 
was the greatest happiness and the great- 
est pride of my life, is broken ! The fa- 
bric of an ingenuous and disinterested 
friendship has lost a noble column ! yet 
it may, and will, 1 trust, endure till one 
of us be laid as low. In truth, one can 
so little satisfy one's self with what we 
say upon such sad occasions, that I made 
three or four essays before I could en- 
dure what I had written to his brother. 
Be so good as excuse me to him as well 
as you can, and establish me in the good 
opinion of him and Mr. Walker. 

Poor Mr. Whistler ! how do all our 
little strifes and bickerments appear to us 
at this time ! Yet we may with comfort 
reflect, that they were not of a sort that 
touched the vitals of our friendship ; and 
I may say, that we fondly loved and es- 
teemed each other, of necessity — " Tales 
animus oportuit esse Concordes." Poor 
Mr. Whistler ! not a single acquaintance 
have I made, not a single picture or cu- 
riosity have 1 purchased, not a single em- 
bellishment have I given to my place, 
since he was last here, but I have had his 
approbation and his amusement in my 
eye. I will assuredly inscribe my larger 
urn to his memory ; nor shall I pass it 
without a pleasing melancholy during 
the remainder of my days. We have each 
of us received a pleasure from his con- 
versation, which no other conversation 
can afford us at our present time of life. 

Adieu ! my dear friend ! may our re- 
membrance of the person we have lost be 
the strong and everlasting cement of our 



affection ! Assure Mr. John Whistler of 
the regard I have for him, upon his own 
account, as well as his brother's. Write 
to me ; directly if you have opportunity. 
Whether you have or no, believe me to 
be ever most affectionately yours. 

I beg my compliments to Mrs. Graves. 

LETTER XXVII. 

From the same to the same, on hearing 
that his Letters to Mr. Whistler were 
destroyed. 

The Leasowes, Oct. 23, 1754. 

Dear Mr. Graves, 
It is certainly some argument of a pe- 
culiarity in the esteem I bear you, that 
I feel a readiness to acquaint you with 
more of my foibles than I care to trust 
with any other person. I believe nothing 
shews us more plainly either the different 
degrees or kinds of regard that we enter- 
tain for our several friends (I may also 
add the difference of their characters), 
than the ordinary style and tenor of the 
letters we address to them. 

I confess to you, that I am consider- 
ably mortified by Mr. John W 's con- 
duct in regard to my letters to his bro- 
ther ; and, rather than they should have 
been so unnecessarily destroyed, would 
have giren more money than it is allow- 
able for me to mention with decency. I 
look upon my letters as some of my chef- 
d'osuvres; and, could I be supposed to 
have the least pretensions to propriety of 
style or sentiment, I should imagine it 
must appear principally in my letters to 
his brother, and one or two more friends. 
I considered them as the records of a 
friendship that will be always dear to me, 
and as the history of my mind for these 
twenty years last past. The amusement 
I should have found in the perusal of 
them would have been altogether inno- 
cent ; and I would gladly have preserved 
them, if it were only to explain those 
which I shall preserve of his brother's. 
Why he should allow either me or them 
so very little weight as not to consult 
me with regard to them, I can by no 
means conceive. I suppose it is not un- 
customary to return them to the surviv- 
ing friend. I had no answer to the let- 



ter which I wrote Mr. J. W- 



I 



ceived a ring from him ; but as I thought 
it an inadequate memorial of the friend- 
ship which his brother had for me, I gave 



362 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



iioOK IV. 



it to my servant the moment I received 
it ; at the same time I have a neat standish, 

on which I caused the lines Mr. W 

left with it to be inscribed, and which 
appears to be a much more agreeable re- 
membrancer. 

I have read your new production with 
pleasure ; and as this letter begins with 
a confession of foibles, I will own, that 
through mere laziness 1 have sent you 
back your copy in which I have made 
some erasements, instead of giving you 
my reasons on which those erasements 
were founded. Truth is, it seems to me 
to want mighty few variations from what 
is now the present text ; and that, upon 
one more perusal, you will be able to 
give it as much perfection as you mean it 
to have. And yet, did I suppose you 
would insert it in Dodsley's Collection, 
as I see no reason you have to the con- 
trary, I would take any pains about it 
that you would desire me. I must beg 
another copy, at your leisure. 

I should like the inscription you men- 
tion upon a real stone urn, which you 
purchase very reasonable at Bath : but 
you must not risque it upon the vase you 
mention, on any account whatever. 

Now I mention Bath, I must acquaint 
you, that I have received intelligence 
from the younger Dodsley, that his bro- 
ther is now there, and that none of the 
papers I sent him are yet sent to press ; 
that he expects his brother home about 
the fourth or fifth of November, when 
he proceeds with his publication. Pos- 
sibly you may go to Bath whilst he is 
there, and, if so, may choose to have an 
interview. 

I shall send two or three little pieces of 
my own, in hopes that you will adjust 
the reading, and return them as soon as 
you conveniently can. All I can send 
to-night is this " Ode to Memory." I 
shall in the last place desire your opinion 
as to the manner of placing what is sent. 
The first pages of his Miscellany must 
be already fixed. I think to propose 
ours for the last ; but as to the order, it 
will depend entirely upon you. 

Adieu ! in other words, God bless 
you. 1 have company at the table all 
the time I am writing. Your ever most 
aflfectionate, &c. 



LETTER XXVIIL 

Mr. West to Mr. Gray. 

Christ Church, Nov. 14, 1735. 
You use me very cruelly : you have sent 
me but one letter since 1 have been at 
Oxford, and that too agreeable not to 
make me sensible how great my loss is 
in not having more. Next to seeing 
you is the pleasure of seeing your hand- 
writing : next to hearing you is the plea- 
sure of hearing from you. Really and 
sincerely I wonder at you, that you 
thought it not worth while to answer 
my last letter. I hope this will have 
better success in behalf of your quondam 
school-fellow ; in behalf of one who has 
walked hand in hand with you, like the 
two children in the wood, 
Thro' many a flowery path and shelly grot, 
Where learning lull'd us in her private maze. 

The very thought, you see, tips my pen 
with poetry, and brings Eton to my view. 
Consider me very seriously here in a 
strange country, inhabited by things that 
call themselves Doctors and Masters of 
Arts ; a country flowing with syllogisms 
and ale, where Horace and Virgil are 
equally unknown ; consider me, 1 say, 
in this melancholy light, and then think 
if something be not due to yours, &c. 

P. S. I desire you will send me soon, 
and truly and positively, *a history of 
your own time. 

LETTER XXIX. 
Mr. Gray to Mr. West. 

Cambridge, May 8, 1736. 
Permit me again to write to you, though 
I have so long neglected my duty ; and 
forgive my brevity, when I tell you it is 
occasioned wholly by the hurry I am in 
to get to a place where I expect to meet 
with no other pleasure than the sight of 
you ; for I am preparing for London in 
a few days at furthest. I do not wonder 
in the least at your frequent blaming my 
indolence, it ought rather to be called in- 
gratitude, and I am obliged to your good- 
ness for softening so harsh an appellation. 
When we meet, it will, however, be my 
greatest of pleasures to know what you 
do,^|Avhat you read, and|how you spend 
your time, &c. &c., and to tell you what 
I do not read, and how I do not, &e. ; for 



* Alluding to his grandfather's history. 



Sect. I. 



RECENT. 



363 



almost all the employment of my hours 
may be best explained by negatives ; 
take my word and experience upon it, 
doing nothing is a most amusing business ; 
and yet neither something nor nothing 
gives me any pleasure. Wlien you have 
seen one of my days, you have seen a whole 
year of my life ; they go round and round 
like the blind horse in the mill ; only he 
has the satisfaction of fancying he makes 
a progress, and gets some ground ; my 
eyes are open enough to see the same 
dull prospect, and to know that having 
made four-aud-twenty steps more, I shall 
be just where I was ; I may, better than 
most people, say my life is but a span, 
were I not afraid lest you should not be- 
lieve that a person so short-lived could 
write even so long a letter as this ; in 
short, I believe I must not send you the 
history of my own time, till I can send 
you that also of the Reformation*. How- 
ever, as the most undeserving people in 
the world must sure have the vanity to 
wish somebody had a regard for them, 
so I need not wonder at my own, in be- 
ing pleased that you care about me. You 
need not doubt, therefore, of having a 
first row in the front box of my little 
heart, and I believe you are not in dan- 
ger of being crowded there : it is asking 
you to an old play, indeed ; but you will 
be candid enough to excuse the whole 
piece for the sake of a few tolerable lines. 
For this little while past I have been 
playing with Statins : we yesterday had 
a game of quoits together ; you will 
easily forgive me for having broke his 
head, as you have a little pique to him. 
I send you my translation f, which I did 
not engage in because I liked that part 
of the poem, nor do 1 now send it to you 
because I think it deserves it, but merely 
to shew you how 1 mispend my days. 

Third in the labours of the Disc came on, 
With sturdy step and slow, Hippomedon ; 
Artful and strong he pois'd the well-known 

weight, 
By Phlegyas warn'd, and fir'd by Mnestheus* 

fate. 
That to avoid, and this to emulate. 
His vigorous arm he try'd before he flung, 
Brac'd all his nerves, and every sinew strung; 
Then with a tempest's whirl and wary eye, 
Pursu'd his cast, and hurl'd the orb on high j 

* Carrying on the allusion to the other His- 
tory, written by Mr. West's grandfather. 

f This consisted of about 1 10 lines, which 
were sent separately ; and as it was Mr. Gray's 
first attempt in English verse, it is a curiosity 
not to be entirely withheld from the reader. 



The orb on high tenacious of its course. 

True to the mighty arm that gave it force. 

Far overleaps all bound, and joys to see 

Its ancient lord secure of victory. 

The theatre's green height and woody wall 

Tremble ere it precipitates its fall ; 

The pond'rous mass sinks in the cleaving 

ground. 
While vales, and woods, and echoing hills re- 
bound. 
As when from ^Etna's smoking, summit broke. 
The eyeless Cyclops heav'd the craggy rock ; 
Where Ocean frets beneath the dashing oar. 
And parting surges round the vessel roar ; 
'Twas there he aim'd the meditated harm. 
And scarce Ulysses scap'd his giant arm. 
A tiger's pride the victor bore away. 
With native spots and artful labour gay j 
A shining border round the margin roll d. 
And calm'd the terrors of his claws in gold, &c. 



LETTER XXX. 

Mr. West to Mr. Gray. 

Christ Church, May 24, 1736. 
I AGREE with you that you have broke 
Statius's head, but it is in like manner as 
Apollo broke Hyacinth's, you have foiled 
him infinitely at his own weapon : I 
must insist on seeing the rest of your 
translation, and then I will examine it 
entire, and compare it with the Latin, 
and be very wise and severe, and put on 
an inflexible face, such as becomes the 
character of a true son of Aristarchus, 
of hypercritical memory. In the mean 
while, 

And calm'd the terrors of his claws in gold 
is exactly Statins — Summos auro mansue- 
verat ungues. I never knew before that 
the golden fangs on hammer-cloths were 
so old a fashion. Your " Hymeneal "J I 
was told was the best in the Cambridge 
Collection before I saw it, and indeed it 
is no great compliment to tell you I 
thought so when I had seen it, but sin- 
cerely it pleased me best. Methinks the 
college bards have run into a strange 
taste on this occasion. Such soft un- 
meaning stuff about Venus and Cupid, 
and Peleus and Thetis, and Zephyrs and 
Dryads, was never read. As for my poor 
little Eclogue, it has been condemned 
and beheaded by our Westminster judges ; 
an exordium of about sixteen lines abso- 
lutely cut off, and its other limbs quar- 
tered in a most barbarous manner. I will 
send it you in my next as my true and 
lawful heir, in exclusion of the pretender, 

X Published in the Cambridge Collection of 
Verses on the Prince of Wales's Marriage. 



364 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



who has the impudence to appear under 
my name. 

As yet I have not looked into Sir Isaac. 
Public disputations I hate ; mathematics 
I reverence ; history, morality, and na- 
tural philosophy, have the greatest charms 
in my eye ; but who can forget poetry ? 
They call it idleness, but it is surely the 
most enchanting thing in the world, 
" ac dulce otium el pcene omni nsgotio pul- 
chrius.'' 1 am, dear sir, yours, &c. 

LETTER, XXXI. 

Mr. Gratj to Mr. West. 

Peterhouse, Dec. 1736. 

You must know that I do not take de- 
grees, and after this term, shall have 
nothing more of college impertinencies 
to undergo, which I trust will be some 
pleasure to you, as it is a great one to 
me. I have endured lectures daily and 
hourly since I came last, supported by 
the hopes of being shortly at full liberty 
to give myself up to my friends and 
classical companions, who, poor souls ! 
though I see them fallen into great con- 
tempt with most people here, yet I can- 
not help sticking to them, and out of a 
spirit of obstinacy (I think) love them 
the better for it ; and indeed, what can 
I do else ? Must I plunge into metaphy- 
sics ? Alas ! I cannot see in the dark ; 
nature has not furnished me with the 
optics of a cat. Must I pore upon ma- 
thematics ? Alas ! I cannot see in too 
much light ; I am no eagle. It is very 
possible that two and two make four, 
but I would not give four farthings to 
demonstrate this ever so clearly ; and if 
these be the profits of life, give me the 
amusements of it. The people I behold 
all around me, it seems, know all this 
and more, and yet 1 do not know one 
of them who inspires me with any ambi- 
tion of being like him. Surely it was of 
this place (now Cambridge, but formerly 
known by the name of Babylon), that 
the Prophet spoke when he said, " the 
wild beasts of the desert shall dwell there, 
and their houses shall be full of doleful 
creatures, and owls shall build there, 
and satyrs shall dance there ; their forts 
and towers shall be a den for ever, a joy 
of wild asses ; there shall the great owl 
make her nest, and lay and hatch and 
gather under her shadow ; it shall be a 
court of dragons ; the screech-owl also 



shall rest there, and find for herself a 
place of rest." You see here is a pretty 
collection of desolate animals, which is 
verified in this town to a tittle ; and per- 
haps it may also allude to your habita- 
tion, for you know all types may be 
taken by abundance of handles : how- 
ever, I defy your owls to match mine. 

If the default of your spirits and 
nerves be nothing but the effect of the 
hyp, I have no more to say. We all 
must submit to that wayward queen ; I 
too in no small degree own her sway : 

I feel her influence while I speak her power. 

But if it be a real distemper, pray 
take more care of your health, if not for 
your own, at least for our sakes, and do 
not be so soon weary of this little world : 
I do not know what refined friendships 
you may have contracted in the other, 
but pray do not be in a hurry to see your 
acquaintance above; among your terres- 
trial familiars, however, though I say it 
that should not say it, there positively is 
not one that has a greater esteem for you 
than yours most sincerely, &c. 

LETTER XXXII. 

Mr. West to Mr. Gray. 

Christ Church, Dec. 22, 173d. 
I CONGRATULATE you ou your being 
about to leave college, and rejoice much 
you carry no degrees with you. For I 
would not have you dignified, and I not, 
for the world ; you would have insulted 
me so. My eyes, such as they are, like 
yourSj are neither metaphysical nor ma- 
thematical ; I have, nevertheless, a great 
respect for your connoisseurs that way, 
but am always contented to be their 
humble admirer. Your collection of de- 
solate animals pleased me much ; but 
Oxford, I can assure you, has her owls 
that match yours, and the prophecy has 
certainly a squint that way. Well, you 
are leaving this dismal land of bondage ; 
and which way are you turning your 
face ? Your friends, indeed, may be happy 
in you ; but what will you do with your 
classic companions ? An inn of court is as 
horrid a place as a college, and a moot 
case is as dear to gentle dulness as a syl- 
logism. But wherever you go, let me 
beg you not to throw poetry " like a 
nauseousweed away:" cherish its sweets 
in your bosom, they will serve you now 
and then to correct the disgusting sober 



Sect. I. 



RECENT. 



365 



follies of the common law : misce stultiti- 
am consiliis hrevem ; didce est desipere in 
loco ; so said Horace to Virgil, those two 
sons of Anac in poetry, and so say I to 
you, in this degenerate land of pigmies, 

Mix with your grave designs a little pleasure, 
Each day of business has its hour of lelsuie. 

In one of these hours, I hope, dear sir, 
you will sometimes think of me, write 
to me, and know me yours, 

that is, write freely to me and openly, as 
1 do to you ; and to give you a proof of 
it 1 have sent yovi an elegy of Tibulius 
translated. TihuUus, you must know, 
is my favourite elegiac poet ; for his lan- 
guage is more elegant and his thoughts 
more natural than Ovid's. Ovid excels 
him only in wit, of which no poet had 
more in my opinion. Tlie reason 1 choose 
so melancholy a kind of poesie, is be- 
cause my low spirits and constant ill 
health (things in me not imaginary, as 
you surmise, but too real, alas ! and I 
fear, constitutional) " have tun'd my 
heart to elegies of woe ; " and this like- 
wise is the reason why I am the mofet 
irregular thing alive at college, for you 
may depend upon it I value my health 
above what they call discipline. As for 
this poor unlicked thing of an elegy, pray 
criticise it unmercifully, for I send it 
with that intent. Indeed your late trans- 
lation of Statins might have deterred me ; 
but I know you are not more able to ex- 
cel others, than your are apt to forgive the 
want of excellence, especially when it 
is found in the productions of your most 
sincere friend. 

LETTER XXXIII. 

Mr. Gray to Mr. Walpole, 

Peterhouse, Dec. 23, 173G. 
You can never weary me with the repe- 
tition of any thing that makes me sen- 
sible of your kindness ; since that has 
been the only idea of any social happi- 
ness that I have almost ever received, 
and which (begging your pardon for 
thinking so differently from you in such 
cases) I would by no means have parted 
with for an exemption from all the un- 
easinesses mixed with it : but it would 
be unjust to imagine my taste was any 
rule for yours ; for which reason my 
letters are shorter and less frequent than 



they would be, had I any materials but 
myself to entertain you with. Love and 
brown sugar must be a poor regale for 
one of yourgow^ : and, alas ! you know I 
am by trade a grocer*. Scandal (if I 
had any) is a merchandise you do not 
profess dealing in ; now and then, indeed, 
and to oblige a friend, you may perhaps 
slip a little out of your pocket, as a de- 
cayed gentlewoman would a piece of 
right Mecklin, or a little quantity of run 
tea, but this only now and then, not to 
make a practice of it. Monsters ap- 
pertaining to this climate you have seen 
already, both wet and dry. So you per- 
ceive within how narrow bounds my pen 
is circumscribed, and the whole contents 
of my share in our correspondence may 
be reduced under the two heads of, 1st, 
You ; 2dly, I : the first is, indeed, a sub- 
ject to expatiate upon, but you might 
laugh at me for talking about what I do 
not understand ; the second is so tiny, 
so tiresome, that you shall hear no more 
of it than that it is ever yours. 

LETTER XXXIV. 

Mr. West to Mr. Gray. 

C;hrist Church, July 4, 1737. 
I HAVE been very ill, and am still hard- 
ly recovered. Do you remember Elegy 
5th, Book 3d, of Tibulius, " Fo.s tenet:' 
8cc. ; and do you remember a letter of 
Mr. Pope's, in sickness, to Mr. Steele? 
This melancholy elegy and this melan- 
choly letter I turned into a more melan- 
choly epistle of my own, during my 
sickness, in the way of imitation ; and 
this I send to you and my friends at 
Cambridge, not to divert them, for it 
cannot, but merely to shew them how 
sincere I was when sick : I hope my 
sending it to them now may convince 
them I am no less sincere, though per- 
haps more simple, when wellf. 

LETTER XXXV. 

Mr. Gray to Mr. We,^t. 

London, Aug. 22, 1737. 

After a month's expectation of you, 
and a fortnight's despair, at Cambridge, 
I am come to town, and to better hopes 

* i. e. A man who deals only in coarse and 
ordinary wares. 

f See the poem [Ad Amicos] in Elegant 
Extracts in Verse. 



366 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



of seeing you. If what you sent me last 
be the product of your melancholy, 
what may 1 not expect from your more 
cheerful hours ? For by this time the ill 
health that you complain of is (I hope) 
quite departed ; though, if I were self- 
interested, I ought to wish for the con- 
tinuance of any thing that could be the 
occasion of so much pleasure to me. 
Low spirits are my true and faithful com- 
panions ; they get up with me, go to bed 
with me, make journeys and returns as 
I do ; nay, and pay visits, and will even 
affect to be jocose, and force a feeble 
laugh with me ; but most commonly we 
sit alone together, and are the prettiest 
insipid company in the world. However, 
when you come, I believe they must un- 
dergo the fate of all humble companions, 
and be discarded. Would I could turn 
them to the same use that you have done, 
and make an Apollo of them ! If they 
could write such verses with me, not 
hartshorn, nor spirit of amber, nor all 
that furnishes the closet of an apothe- 
cary's widow, should persuade me to part 
with them : but, while I write to you, I 
hear the bad news of lady Walpole's 
death on Saturday night last. Forgive 
me if the thought of what my poor Ho- 
race must feel on that account obliges 
me to have done, in reminding you that 
I am yours, &c. 

LETTER XXXVI. 

Mr. Gray to Mr. Walpole. 

September, 1737. 
I WAS hindered in my last, and so could 
not give you all the trouble I would 
have done. The description of a road, 
which your coach-wheels have so often 
honoured, it would be needless to give 
you ; suffice it that I arrived safe * at my 
uncle's, who is a great hunter in imagi- 
nation ; his dogs take up every chair in 
the house, so I am forced to stand at this 
present writing; and though the gout 
forbids him galloping after them in the 
field, yet he continues still to regale his 
ears and nose with their comfortable 
noise and stink. He holds me mighty 
cheap, I perceive, for walking when I 
should ride, and reading when I should 
hunt. My comfort amidst all this is, 
that I have at the distance of half a mile, 

* At Burnham in Buckinghamshire. 



through a green lane, a forest (the vul- 
gar call it a common) all my own, at 
least as good as so, for I spy no human 
thing in it but myself. It is a little chaos 
of mountains and precipices ; mountains, 
it is true, that do not ascend much above 
the clouds, nor are the declivities quite 
so amazing as Dover cliflF; but just such 
hills as people, who love their necks as 
well as 1 do, may venture to climb, and 
crags that give the eye as much pleasure 
as if they were more dangerous : both 
vale and hill are covered with most ve- 
nerable beeches, and other very reverend 
vegetables, that, like most other ancient 
people, are always dreaming out their 
old stories to the winds, 

And as they bow their hoary tops relate. 

In murmuring sounds, the dark decrees of fate; 

While visions, as poetic eyes avow. 

Cling to each leaf, and swarm on every bough. 

At the foot of one of these squats me {il 
penseroso), and there I grow to the trunk 
for a whole morning. The timorous hare 
and sportive squirrel gambol around me 
like Adam in Paradise, before he had an 
Eve ; but I think he did not use to read 
Virgil, as I commonly do there. In this 
situation I often converse with my Ho- 
race, aloud too, that is, talk to you ; but 
I do not remember that 1 ever heard you 
answer me. I beg pardon for taking all 
the conversation to myself, but it is en- 
tirely your own fault. We have old 
Mr. Southern at a gentleman's house a 
little way off, who often comes to see 
us ; he is now seventy-seven years oldf, 
and has almost wholly lost his memory ; 
but is as agreeable as an old man can be, 
at least I persuade myself so when I look 
at him, and think of Isabella and Oroo- 
noko. I shall be in town in about three 
weeks. Adieu. 

LETTER XXXVII. 

From the same to the same^' 

Burnham, Sept. 17.'i7. 
I SYMPATHIZE with you in the suffer- 
ings which you foresee are coming upon 

f He lived nine years longer, and died at 
the great age of eighty-six. Mr. Gray always 
thought highly of his pathetic powers, at the 
same time that he blamed his ill-taste for mix- 
ing them so injudiciously with farce, in order 
to produce that monstrous species of compo- 
sition called Tragi-comedy. 

X Mr. Walpole was at this time with his 
father at Houghton. Mr. Gray writes from his 
uncle's house in Buckinghamshire. 



Sect. I. 



RECENT. 



367 



you. We are both at present, I ima- 
gine, in no very agreeable situation ; for 
my part I am under the misfortune of 
having nothing to do ; but it is a misfor- 
tune which, thank my stars, I can pretty 
well bear. You are in a confusion of 
wine, and roaring, and hunting, and to- 
bacco, and. Heaven be praised, you too 
can pretty well bear it ; while our evils 
are no more, I believe we shall not much 
repine. I imagine, however, you will 
rather choose to converse with the living 
dead, that adorn the walls of your apart- 
ments, than with the dead living that 
deck the middles of them ; and prefer a 
picture of still life to the realities of a 
noisy one ; and, as I guess, will imitate 
what you prefer, and for an hour or two at 
noon wiU stick yourself up as formal as 
if you had been fixed in your frame for 
these hundred years, with a pink or rose 
in one hand, and a great seal ring on the 
other. Your name, I assure you, has 
been propagated in these countries by a 

convert of yours, one ; he has 

brought over his whole family to you ; 
they were before pretty good Whigs, but 
now they are absolute Walpolians. We 
have hardly any body in the parish but 
knows exactly the dimensions of the hall 
and saloon at Houghton, and begin to 
believe that the lanthorn * is not so great 
a consumer of the fat of the land as dis- 
affected persons have said ; for your 
reputation, we keep to ourselves your not 
hunting nor drinking hogan, either of 
which here would be sufficient to lay 
your honour in the dust. To-morrow 
se'nnight I hope to be in town, and not 
long after at Cambridge. I am, &c. 

LETTER XXXVIII. 

Mr. West to Mr. Gray. 

Christ Church, Dec. 2, 1738. 
Receiving no answer to my last letter, 
which I writ above a month ago, I must 
own I am a little uneasy. The slight 
shadow of you which I had in town, has 
only served to endear you to me the more. 
The moments 1 past with you made a 
strong impression upon me. I singled 
you out for a friend ; and I would have 
you know me to be yours, if you deem 
me worthy. Alas ! Gray, you cannot 
imagine how miserably my time passes 

* A favourite object of Tory satire at the time. 



away. My health and nerves and spirits 
are, thank my stars, the very worst, 
I think, in Oxford. Four-and-twenty 
hours of pure unalloyed health together 
are as unknown to me as the four hun- 
dred thousand characters in the Chinese 
vocabulary. One of my complaints has 
of late been so overcivil as to visit me 
regularly once a month, jam certus con' 
viva. This is a painful nervous head- 
ach, which perhaps you have sometimes 
heard me speak of before. Give me leave 
to say, I find no physic comparable to 
your letters. If, as it is said in Eccle- 
siasticus, " Friendship be the physic of 
the mind," prescribe to me, dear Gray, as 
often and as much as you think proper, 
I shall be a most obedient patient. 

Non ego 
Fidis irascar medicis, offendar amicis. 

I venture here to write you down a 
Greek epigram f, which I lately turned 
into Latin, and hope you will excuse it. 

Perspicui puerum ludentem in margine rivi, 
Immersit vitrecE limpidus error aguce: 

At gelido ut mater moribundum e jlumine traxit 
Credula, et amplexu funus inane foret ; 

Parxlatim puer in dileclo pectore, somno 
Languidus, ecternum lumina composuit. 

Adieu ! I am going to my tutor's lec- 
tures on one Puffendorff, a very juris- 
prudent author as you shall read on a 
summer's day. Believe me yours, &c. 

LETTER XXXIX. 

Fro77i the same to the same, 

Dartmouth-street, Feb. 21, 1737-8. 
I OUGHT to answer you in Latin, but I 
feel I dare not enter the lists with you, 
cupidum, pater optime, vires dejiciunt. 
Seriously, you write in that language 
with a grace and an Augustan urbanity 
that amazes me : your Greek too is per- 
fect in its kind. And here let me won- 
der that a man, longe Grcccorum doctis- 
simus, should be at a loss for the verse 
and chapter whence my epigram is taken. 
I am sorry I have not my Aldus with 
me, that I might satisfy your curiosity ; 
but he with all my other literary folks are 
left at Oxford, and therefore you must 
still rest in suspense. I thank you again 
and again for your medical prescription. 
I know very well that those ** nsus, fes- 

f Of Posidippus. Vide Anthologia, H. Ste- 
phan. p. 220. 



368 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



tivitates et facetm'" would contribute 
greatly to my cure ; but then you must 
be my apothecary as well as physician, 
and make up the dose as well as direct 
it ; send me, therefore, an electuary of 
these drugs, made up secundmn artem, 
*' et eris rnihi magnus Apollo,'' in both 
his capacities, as a god of poets and god 
of physicians. Wish me joy of leaving 
my college, and leave yours as fast as 
you can. I shall be settled at the Tem- 
ple very soon. 

LETTER XL. 

Mr, Gray to Mr. Walpole. 

August, 1738 

My dear sir, I should say Mr. Inspector 
General of the exports and imports * ; 
but that appellation would make but an 
odd figure in conjunction with the three 
familiar monosyllables above written, 
for 

Non bene convcniunt, nee in una sede morantitr 
Majestas et amor. 

Which is, being interpreted, Love does 
not live at the Custom-house. How- 
ever, by what style, title, or denomina- 
tion soever you choose to be dignified 
or distinguished hereafter, these three 
words will stick by you like a bur, and 
you can no more get quit of these and 
your Christian name than St. Anthony 
could of his pig. My motions at present 
(which you are pleased to ask after) are 
much like those of a pendulum, or (Dr. 
Longicallyt speaking) oscillatory. I 
swing from chapel or hall home, and 
from home to chapel or hall. All the 
strange incidents that happen in my 
journeys and returns I shall be sure to 
acquaint you with ; the most wonderful 
is, that it now rains exceedingly; this 
has refreshed the prospect, as the way 
for the most part lies between green fields 
on either hand, terminated with build- 
ings at some distance, castles, I presume, 
and of great antiquity. The roads are 
very good, being, as I suspect, the works 
of Julius Csesar's army, for they still 
preserve, in many places, the appearance 
of a pavement in pretty good repair, and, 

* Mr. Walpole was just named to that post, 
which he exchanged soon after for that of 
usher of the exchequer. 

f Dr. Long, the master of Pembroke hall, 
at this time read lectures in experimental 
philosophy. 



if they were not so near home, might 
perhaps be as much admired as the Via 
Appia ; there are at present several rivu- 
lets to be crossed, and which serve to 
enlighten the view all around. The 
country is exceedingly fruitful in ravens 
and such black cattle ; but not to tire 
you with my travels, I abruptly conclude 
yours, &c. 

LETTER XLl. 

Mr. Gray to Mr. West. 

^ept. 1733. 
1 AM coming away all so fast, and leav- 
ing behind me, without the least re- 
morse, all the beauties of Sturbridge 
fair. Its white bears may roar, its apes 
may wring their hands, and crocodiles 
cry their eyes out, all is one for that ; I 
shall not once visit them, nor so much as 
take my leave. The university lias pub- 
lished a severe edict against schismatical 
congregations, and created half a dozen 
new little proctorlings to see its order 
executed, being under mighty apprehen- 
sions lest Henleyl and his gilt tub should 
come to the fair and seduce their young 
ones : but their pains are to small pur- 
pose, for lo, after all, he is not coming. 

I am at this instant in the very agonies 
of leaving college, and would not wish 
the worst of my enemies a worse situa- 
tion. If you knew the dust, the old 
boxes, the bedsteads, and tutors that are 
about my ears, you would look upon this 
letter as a great effort of my resolution 
and unconcernedness in the midst of 
evils. I fill up my paper with a loose 
sort of version of that scene in Pastor 
Fido that begins, " Care selve beati.'* 

LETTER XLII. 

Mr. West to Mr. Gray. 

Sept. 17, 173S. 
I THANK you again and again for your 
two last most agreeable letters. . They 
could not have come more a-propos ; I 
was without any books to divert me, 
and they supplied the want of every 
thing : 1 made them my Classics in the 
country ; they were my Horace and Ti- 
bullus : Non ita loquor assentandi causa, 
ut probe nostl si me noris; verum quia sic 
mea est sententia. I am but just come to 

X Orator Henley. 



Sect. I. 



[i E C E N T. 



369 



town ; and, to shew you my esteem of 
your favours, I venture to send you by 
the penny post, to your fathers, what 
you will find on the next page ; I hope it 
will reach you soon after your arrival, 
your boxes out of the waggon, yourself 
out of the coach, and tutors out of your 
memory. 

Adieu ; we shall see one another, I 
hope, to-morrow. 

LETTER XLin. 

Mr. West to Mr. Gray. 

Temple, Sept. 28, 1739. 
If wishes could turn to realities, I would 
fling down ray law books, and sup with 
you to-night. But, alas ! here am I 
doomed to fix, while you are fluttering 
from city to city, and enjoying all the 
pleasures which a gay climate can afford. 
It is out of the poAver of my heart to 
envy your good fortune, yet I cannot 
help indulging a few natural desires ; as 
for example, to take a walk with you on 
the banks of the Rhone, and to be 
climbing up Mount Fourviere ; 

Jam mens preplrepiclans (rcet vaguri : 
Jam l<sti studio pedes vigescunt. 

However, so long as I am not deprived 
of your correspondence, so long shall 1 
always find some pleasure in being at 
home. And, setting all vain curiosi<^y 
aside, when the fit is over, and my rea- 
son begins to come to herself, I have se- 
veral other powerful motives which might 
easily cure me of my restless inclinations : 
amongst these, my mother's ill state of 
health is not the least ; which was the 
reason of our going to Tunbridge, so 
that you cannot expect much description 
or amusement from thence. Nor^ in- 
deed is there much room for either ;' for 
all diversions there may be reduced to two 
articles, gaming and going to church. 
They were pleased to publish certain 
Tunbrigiana this season ; but such ana ! 
I believe there were never so many vile 
little verses put together before. So 
much for Tunbridge. London affords 
me as little to say. What ! so huge a 
town as London? Yes, consider only how 
I live in that town. I never go into the 
gay -world or high world, and conse- 
quently receive nothing from thence to 
brighten my imagination. The busy 
world 1 leave to the busy ; and am re- 



solved never to talk politics till I can act 
at the same time. To tell old stories, 
or prate of old books, seems a little 
musty ; and toujours chapon houilli will 
not do. However, for want of better 
fare, take another little mouthful of my 
poetry. 

mea- jucunda comes qxdetls I 
2u(E fere cEgrolum solita es levare 
Pectus, et sensim ab ! nimis ingruenies 
Fallere curas : 

Quid canes f quanto Lyra die furore 
Gesties, quando hac reducem sodalem 
Glauciam^ gaudere simul videbis, 

Meque sub umbra f 

LETTER XLIV. 

Fro?}i the same to the same. 

Pope's, March 28, 1742. 

I WRITE to make you write, for I have 
not much to tell you. I have recovered 
no spirits as yet ; but as I am not dis- 
pleased with my company, 1 sit purring 
by the fire-side in my arm-chair with no 
small satisfaction. I read too sometimes, 
and have begun Tacitus, but have not 
yet read enough to judge of him ; only 
his Pannonian sedition in the first hook 
of his Annals, which is just as far as I 
have got, seemed to me a little tedious. 
T have no more to say, bvit to desire you 
will write letters of a handsome length, 
and always answer me within a reason- 
able space of time, which I leave to your 
discretion. 

P. S. The new Dunciad ! qu^en pen- 
sez vous f 

LETTER XLV. 

Mr. Gray to Mr. West. 

I TRUST to the country, and that easy 
indolence you say you enjoy there, to 
restore you your health and spirits ; and 
doubt not but, when the sun grows warm 
enough to tempt you from your nre-side, 
you will (like all other things) be the 
iDCtter for his influence. He is my old 
friend, and an excellent nurse, I assure 
you. Had it not been for him, life had 
often been to me intolerable. Pray do 
not imagine that Tacitus, of all authors 
in the world, can be tedious. An anna- 
list, you know, is by no means master 
of his subject ; and I think one may ven- 

* He gives Mr. Gray the name of Glaucias 
frequently in his Latin verse, as Mr. Gray 
calls him Favonius, 

2 B 



3/0 



E L E G A N r EPISTLES. 



Book IV, 



ture to say, that if those Pannouian af- 
fairs are tedious in his hands, in another's 
they would have been insupportable. 
However, fear not, they will soon be 
over, and he will make ample amends. 
A man, who could join the brilliant of 
wit and concise sententiousness peculiar 
to that age, with the truth and gravity of 
better times, and the deep reflection and 
good sense of the best moderns, cannot 
choose but have something to strike 
you. Yet what I admire in him, above 
all this, is his detestation of tyranny, and 
the high spirit of liberty that every now 
and then breaks out, as it were, whether 
he would or no. 1 remember a sentence 
in his " Agricola," that (concise as it is) 
I always admired for saying much in a 
little compass. He speaks of Domitian, 
who upon seeing the last will of that 
general, where he had made him coheir 
with his wife and daughter, " Satis con- 
stahat Icztatum eum, velut hojiore,judicio- 
que: tarn cceca et corrupta mens assiduis 
adulationibus erat, ut nesciret a bono pa- 
tre non scnbi hceredejn, nisi malum prin- 
cipemy 

As to the Dunciad, it is greatly ad- 
mired : the Genii of operas and schools, 
with their attendants, the pleas of the 
Virtuosos and Florists, and the yawn of 
Dulness in the end, are as fine as any 
thing he has written. The Metaphysi- 
cian's part is to me the worst ; and here 
and there a few ill expressed lines, and 
some hardly intelligible. 

I take the liberty of sending you a 
long speech of Agrippina ; much too 
long, but I could be glad you would re- 
trench it. Aceronia, you may remem- 
ber, had been giving quiet counsels. I 
fancy, if it ever be finished, it will be in 
the nature of Nat. Lee's Bedlam Tra- 
gedy, which had twenty-five acts and 
some odd scenes. 

LETTER XLVL 

Mr. Gray to Mr. West. 

London, April, Thursday. 

You are the first who ever made a Muse 
of a cough ; to me it seems a much more 
easy task to versify in one's sleep (that 
indeed you were of old famous for*), 
than for want of it. Not the wakeful 
nightingale (when she had a cough) ever 

* At Eton school. 



sung so sweetly. I give you thanks for 
your warble, and wish you could sing 
yourself to rest. These wicked remains 
of your illness will sure give way to 
warm weather and gentle exercise ; 
which I hope you will not omit as the 
season advances. Wliatever low spirits 
and indolence, the effect of them, may 
advise to the contrary, I pray you add 
five steps to your walk daily for my 
sake ; by the help of which, in a month" s 
time, I propose to set you on horseback. 

I talked of the Dunciad as concluding 
you had seen it ; if you have not, do 
you choose I should get and send it 
to you ? I have myself, upon your re- 
commendation, been reading " Joseph 
Andrews." The incidents are ill laid and 
without invention ; but the characters 
have a great deal of nature, which always 
pleases even in her lowest shapes. Par- 
son Adams is perfectly well ; so is Mrs. 
Slipslop, and the story of Wilson ; and 
throughout he shews himself well read 
in stage-coaches, country squires, inns, 
and inns of court. His reflections upon 
high people and low people, and misses 
and masters, are very good. However 
the exaltedness of some minds (or rather, 
as I shrewdly suspect, their insipidity 

and Trant of feeling- or observatloii) may 

make them insensible to these light 
things (1 mean such as characterize and 
paint nature), yet surely they are as 
weighty and much more useful than your 
grave discourses upon the mindf, the 
passions, and v/hat not. Now, as the 
paradisiacal pleasures of the Mahome- 
tans consist in playing upon the flute 
and lying with Houris, be mine to read 
eternal new romances of Marivaux and 
Crebillon. 

You are very good in giving yourself 
the trouble to read and find fault with 
my long harangues. Your freedom (as 
you call it) has so little need of apolo- 
gies, that I should scarce excuse you 
treating me any otherwise : which, what- 
ever compliment it might be to my va- 
nity, would be making a very ill one to 
my understanding. As to matter of style 
I have this to say : the language of the 
age is never the language of poetry ; 
except among the French, whose verse, 
where the thought or image does not 
support it, differs in nothing from prose. 

f He seems here to glance at Hutchinson, 
the disciple of Shaftesbury ; of whom he had 
not a much better opinion than of his master. 



Sect, i, 



U E C K N T. 



371 



Our poetry, on the contrary, has a lan- 
guage peculiar to itself; to which almost 
every one that has written has added 
something by enriching it with foreign 
idioms and derivatives ; nay, sometimes 
words of their own composition or in- 
vention. Shakespear and Milton have 
been great creators this way ; and no one 
more licentious than Pope or Dryden, 
who perpetually borrow expressions from 
the former. Let me give you some in- 
stances from Dryden, whom every body 
reckons a great master of our poetical 
tongue. Full of museful viopings—wn- 
like the trim of love — a pleasant bever- 
age — a roundelay of love— stood silent in 
his mood — with knots and knares de- 
formed — his ireful mood — in proud ar- 
ray — his boon was granted — c/^^ar/Y/j/ 
and shameful rout — wayivard but wise 
— -furbished for the field — the foiled dod- 
dered oaks — disherited — smouldering 
flames — retchless of l^vrs — crones old and 
ugly — the beldam at his side — the gran- 
dam-hag—villanize iiis father's fame. — 
But they are infinite : and our language 
not being a settled thing (like the 
French), has an undoubted right to 
words of an hundred years old, provided 
antiquity have not rendered them unin- 
telligible. In trulli, Shakcspcar's lan- 
guage is one of his principal beauties ; 
and he has no less advantage over your 
Addisons and Rowes in this, than in 
those other great excellencies you men- 
tion. Every word in him is a picture. 
Pray, put me the foUov^ing lines into the 
tongue of our modern dramatics ; 

But I that am not sbap'd for sportive tricks. 
Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass; 
Ijthatamvudelystampt, audwant love's majesty 
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph : 
1, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion, 
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature, 
Deform'd, unfinish'd, sent before my time 
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up, 

and what follows. To me they appear 
untranslateable ; and if this be the case, 
our language is greatly degenerated. 
However, the affectation of imitating 
Shakespear may doubtless be carried too 
far ; and is no sort of excuse for senti- 
ments'.ill-suited, or speeches ill-timed, 
which I believe is a little the case with 
me. I guess the most faulty expressions 
may be these — silken — son of dalliance 
— drowsier pretensions — wrinkled bel- 
dams — arched the hearer's brow and ri- 
petted his eyes m fearful extasie. These 



are easily altered or omitted ; and indeed 
if the thoughts be wrong or superflous, 
there is nothing easier than to leave out 
the whole. The first ten or twelve lines 
are, I believe, the best * ; and as for the 
rest, I was betrayed into a good deal of 
it by Tacitus ; only what he has said in 
five words, I imagine 1 have said in fifty 
lines : such is the misfortune of imitat- 
ing the inimitable. Now, if you are of 
my opinion, una litura may do the busi- 
ness better than a dozen ; and you need 
not fear unravelling my web. I am a 
sort of spider ; and have little else to do 
but spin it over again, or creep to some 
other place and spin there. Alas I for 
one who has nothing to do but amuse 
himself. I believe my amusements are as 
little amusing as most folks. But no 
matter; it makes the hours pass ; and is 
better than iv dy^aoia, aa) dy.ovioc xciroL- 
'Qioovxi. Adieu. 



LETTER XLVn. 

Mr. West to Mr. Gray. 

To begin with the conclusion of your 
letter, which is Greek, I desire that you 
will quarrel no more with your manner 
of passini^ your time. In my opinion 
it is irreproachable, es})ecially as it pro- 
duces such excellent fruit ; and if I, like 
a Saucy bird, must be pecking at it, you 
ought to consider that it is because I like 
it. No una litura I beg you, no unra- 
velling of your web, dear sir! only 
pursue it a little farther, and then one 
shall be able to pidge of it a little bet- 
ter. You know the crisis of a play is in 
the first act ; its damnation or salvation 
wholly rests there. But till that first 
act is over, every body suspends his vote ; 
so how do you think I can form, as yet, 
any just idea of the speeches in regard 
to their length or shortness? The con- 
nexion and symmetry of such little parts 
with one another must naturally esca})e 
me, as not having the plan of the wliole 
in my head ; neither can I decide about 
the thoughts, whetlier tliey are wrong 
or superfluous ; they may have some 
future tendency which I perceive not. 
The style only was free to me, and there 
I find we are pretty much of the same 

* The lines which he means here are from— 
thus ever grave and undisturbed reflection — to Ru- 
bell'vis lives. For the part of the scene, which 
he sent in his former letter, bepan there. 

•2 B 2 



37-2 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



sentiment : for you say the affectation 
of imitating- Shakspeare may doubtless 
be carried too far ; I say as much and 
no more. For old words we know are 
old gold, provided they are well chosen. 
Whatever Ennius was, I do not consider 
Shakspeare as a dunghill in the least : 
on the contrary, he is a mine of ancient 
ore, where all our great modern poets 
have found their advantage. I do not 
know how it is ; but his old expressions 
have more energy in them than ours, 
and are even more adapted to poetry ; 
certainly, where they are judiciously and 
sparingly inserted, they add a certain 
grace to the composition ; in the same 
manner as Poussin gave a beauty to his 
pictures by his knowledge in the ancient 
proportions : but should he, or any other 
painter, carry the imitation too far, and 
neglect that best of models. Nature, I 
am afraid it would prove a very flat per- 
formance. To finish this long criticism : 
I have this farther notion about old 
words revived (is not this a pretty way 
of finishing?) : I think them of excellent 
use in tales ; they add a certain drollery 
to the comic, and a romantic gravity to 
tlie serious, which are both charming 
in their kind ; and this way of charming 
Dryden understood very well. One need 
only read Milton to acknowledge the 
dignity they give the epic. But now 
comes my opinion, that they ought to be 
used in tragedy more sparingly than in 
most kinds of poetry. Tragedy is de- 
signed for public representation, and 
what is designed for that should be 
certainly most intelligible. I believe half 
the audience that come to Skakspeare's 
plays do not understand the half of what 
they hear. But Jinissons enfin. Yet one 
word more. You think the ten or 
twelve first lines the best, now I am for 
the fourteen last; add, that they contain 
not one word of ancientry. 

1 rejoice you found amusement in 
Joseph Andrews. But then I think 
your conceptions of Paradise a little 
upon the Bergerac. Les Lettres de 
Seraphim R. d Madame la Cherubinesse 
de 2. What a piece of extravagance 
would there be ! 

And now you must know that my 
body continues weak and enervate. And 
for my animal spirits, they are in per- 
petual fluctuation : some whole days I 
have no relish, no attention for any 
thing : at other times I revive, and am 



capable of writing a long letter, as 
you see : and though 1 do not write 
speeches, yet 1 translate them. When 
you understand what speech, you will 
own that it is a bold, and perhaps a dull 
attempt. In three words, it is prose, 
it is from Tacitus, it is of Germanicus. 
Peruse, perpend, pronounce. 



LETTER XLVin. 

Mr. Gray to 31 r. West. 

London, April, ]74'2. 
I SHOULD not have failed to answer 
your letter immediately, but 1 went out 
of town for a little while, which hin- 
dered me. Its length (besides the plea- 
sure naturally accompanying a long let- 
ter from you) affords me a new one, 
when I think it is a symptom of the 
recovery of your health, and flatter my- 
self, that your bodily strength returns 
in proportion. Pray do not forget to 
mention the progress you m.ake conti- 
nually. As to Agrippina, I begin to be 
of your opinion ; and find myself (as 
women are of their children) less ena- 
moured of my productions the older 

they grow. She is laid up to sleep till 

next summer ; so bid her good night. 
I think you have translated Tacitus very 
justly, that is, freely ; and accommo- 
dated his thoughts to the turn and ge- 
nius of our language ; which, though I 
commend your judgment, is no com- 
mendation of the English tongue, which 
is too diffuse, and daily grows more 
and more enervate. One shall never be 
more sensible of this than in turning 
an author like Tacitus. I have been 
trying it in some parts of Thucydides 
(who has a little resemblance of him in 
his conciseness), and endeavoured to do 
it closely, but found it produced mere 
nonsense. If you have any inclination 
to see what figure Tacitus makes in 
Italian, I have a Tuscan translation of 
Davanzati, much esteemed in Italy ; 
and will send you the same speech 
you sent me ; that is, if you care for 
it. In the mean time accept of Pro- 
pertius*. 



* A translation of the first Elegy of the 
second book, in English rhyme. 



Sect. I. 



RECENT. 



373 



LETTER XLIX. 

Mr. West to Mr. Gray. 

Pope's, May 5, 1742. 
Without any preface I come to your 
verses, which I read over and over with 
excessive pleasure, and which are at least 
as g-ood as Propertius. I am only sorry 
you follow the blunders of Broukhusius, 
all whose insertions are nonsense. I 
have some objections to your antiquated 
^ords, and am also an enemy to Alexan- 
drines ; at least I do not like them in 
Eleg-y. But, after all, I admire your 
translation so extremely, that I cannot 
help repeating I long to shew you some 
little errors you are fallen into by fol- 
lowing Broukhusius. Were I with you 
now, and Propertius with your verses 
lay upon the table between us, I could 
discuss this point in a moment; but 
there is nothing so tiresome as spinning 
out a criticism in .a letter ; doubts arise, 
and explanations follow, till there swells 
out at least a volume of undigested 
observations ; aud all because you are 
not with him whom you want to con- 
vince. Read only the letters between 
Pope and Cromwell in proof of this ; they 
dispute -R-ithout end. Are you aware 

now that I have an interest all this while 

in banishing criticism from our corre- 
spondence ? Indeed I have ; for I am 
going to TSTite down a little Ode (if it 
deserves the name) for your perusal, 
which I am afraid will hardly stand that 
test. 

LETTER L. 

Mr. Gray to Mr. West. 

London, May S, 1742. 

You see, by what I send you, that I con- 
verse, as usual, with none but the dead: 
they are my old friends, and almost 
make me long to be with them. You 
will not wonder, therefore, that I Avho 
live only in times past, am able to tell 
you no news of the present. I have 
finished the Peloponnesian war much to 
my honour, and a tight conflict it was, I 
promise you. I have drank and sung 
with Anacreon for the last fortnight, 
and am now feeding sheep with Theo- 
critus. Besides, to quit my figure (be- 
cause it is foolish) , I have run over Pliny's 
Epistles, and Martial £>c itccpepyov : not to 
mention Petrarch, who, by the way, is 



sometimes very tender and natural. I 
must needs tell you three lines in Ana- 
creon, where the expression seems to nie 
inimitable. He is describing hair as he 
would have it painted : 

Guess, too, where this is about a 
dimple : 

Sigilla in mento bnpressa Amoris dighulo 
Vestiglo demonstrant 'inoUiiudinem. 

LETTER LL 

Mr. West to Mr. Gray. 

Pope's, May 11, 1742. 

Your fragment is in Aulus Gellius ; and 
both it and your Greek delicious. But 
why are you thus melancholy ? I am so 
sorry for it, that you see I cannot for- 
bear writing again the very first oppor- 
tunity ; though I have little to say, ex- 
cept to expostulate with you about it. 
I find you converse mucli with the dead, 
and I do not blame - ou for that ; I con- 
verse with them too, though not indeed 
with the Greek. But I must condemn 
you for your longing to be with them. 
\Yhat, are there no joys among the 
living ? I could almost cry out with Ca- 
tullus, " Alphene immemor, atque una- 
nimis false sodalihus!'' But to turn an 
accusation thus upon another is ungene- 
rous ; so 1 will take my leave of you for 
the present with a " Vale, et vive paulis- 
per cum vivis." 

LETTER LIL 

Mr. Gray to Mr. West. 

London, May 27, 1742. 

Mine, you are to know, is a white me- 
lancholy, or rather leucocholy for the 
most part •,^ which, though it seldom 
laughs or dances, nor ever amounts to 
what one calls joy or pleasure, yet is a 
good easy sort of a state, and ca ne lause 
que de s'amuser. The only fault of it is 
insipidity, which is apt now and then to 
give c sort of ennui, which makes one 
form certain little wishes that signify no- 
thing. But there is another sort, black 
indeed, which I have now and then felt, 
that has somewhat in it like Tertullian's 
rule of faith, Credo, quia impossibile est; 
for it believes, nay, is sure of every thing 



374 



ELEGANT K P i S T L E S. 



Book IV. 



that is unlikely, so it be but frightful ; 
and, on the other hand, excludes and 
shuts its eyes to the most possible hopes, 
and every thing- that is pleasurable ; from 
this the Lord deliver us ! for none but he 
and sunshiny weather can do it. In hopes 
of enjoying- this kind of weather, I am 
going into the country for a few weeks, 
but shall be never the nearer any society : 
so, if you have any charity, you will 
continue to write. My life is like Harry 
the Fourth's supper of hens: " Poulets 
a la broche, poulets en ragout, poulets 

en hdchis, poulets en fricasees.'* 

Reading here, reading there ; nothing 
but books with different sauces. Do not 
let me lose my dessert then ; for though 
that be reading too, yet it has a very dif- 
ferent flavour. The May seems to be 
come since your invitation ; and I pro- 
pose to bask in her beams and dress me 
in her roses. 

El cap ;t in verna semper habere rosa. 

I shall see Mr. and his wife, nay, 

and his child too, for he lias got a boy. 
Is it not odd to consider one's contempo- 
raries in the grave light of husband and 

father ? There are my lords and 

, they are statesmen ; do not you 

remember them dirty boy 9 playing^ at 
cricket? As for me, I am never a bit the 
older, nor the bigger, nor the wiser than 
I was then ; no, not for having been be- 
yond sea. Pray how are you ? 



LETTER LIIL 

Mr. Gray to Dr. Wharton"^. 

Cambridge, Dec. 27, 1742, 
I OUGHT to have returned you my thanks 
a long time ago, for the pleasure, I 
should say prodigy, of your letter ; for 
such a thing has not happened above 
twice within this last age to mortal 
man, and no one here can conceive what 
it may portend. You have heard, I sup- 
pose, how I have been employed a part 
of the time ; how, by my own indefati- 
gable application for these ten years past, 

* Of Old Park, near Durham. With this 
gentleman I\]r. Gray contracted an acquaint- 
ance very early ; and though they were not 
educated together at Eton, yet afterwards at 
Cambridge, when the doctor was fellow of 
Pembroke Hall, they became intimate friends, 
and continued so to the time of Mr. Gray's 
death. 



and by the care and vigilance of that 
worthy magistrate the man in bluei" 
(who, I assure you, has not spared his- 
labour, nor could have done more for hm 
own son), I am got half way to the top 
of jurisprudence J, and bid as fair as an- 
other body to open a case of impotency 
with all decency and circumspection. 
You see my ambition. I do not doubt 
but some thirty years hence I shall con- 
vince the world and you that I am a very 
pretty young fellow ; and may come to 
shine in a profession, perhaps the noblest 
of all except man-midwifery. As for you, 
if your distemper and you can but agree 
about going to London, I may reason- 
ably expect in a much shorter time to see 
you in your three-cornered villa, doing 
the honours of a well-furnished table 
with as much dignity, as rich a mien, 
and as capacious a belly, as Dr. Mead. 
Methinks I see Dr. — , at the lower end 
of it, lost in admiration of your goodly 
persou and parts, cramming down his 
envy (for it will rise) with the wing of a 
pheasant, and drowning it in neat Bur- 
gundy. But not to tempt your asthma 
too much with such a prospect, I should 
think you might be almost as happy and 
as great as this even in the country. But 

you know best, and I ebould be sorry tO 
say any thing that might stop you in the 
career of glory ; far be it from me to 
hamper the wheels of your gilded cha- 
riot. Go on, sir Thomas ; and when 
you die (for even physicians must die), 
may the faculty in Warwick Lane erect 
your statue in the very niche of sir John 
Cutler's. 

1 was going to tell you how sorry I am 
for your illness, but I hope it is too late 
now : I can only say that I really was. 
very sorry. May you live a hundred 
Christmasses, and eat as many collars 
of brawn stuck with rosemary. Adieu, 
&c. 

LETTER LIV. 

From the same to the same. 

Peterhouse, April 2C, 1744. 
You write so feelingly to Mr. Brown, 
and represent your abandoned condition 
in terms so touching, that what gra- 

f A servant of the vice-chancellor's for the 
time being, usually known by the name of Blue 
Coat, whose business it is to attend acts for de- 
grees, &c. 

t i. c. Bachelor of civil law. 



Sect. I. 



R E C E N T. 



375 



titiide could not effect in several months, 
compassion lias brought about in a few 
days ; and broke that strong" attachment, 
or rather allegiance, which I and all here 
owe to our sovereign lady and mistress, 
the president of presidents and head of 
heads (if I may be permitted to pro- 
nounce her name, that ineffable Octo- 
grammaton), the power of Laziness. 
You must knovr she had been pleased to 
appoint me (in preference to so many 
old servants of hers, who had spent their 
whole lives in qualifying themselves for 
the office) grand picker of straws and 
push-pin player to her Supinity (for that 
is her title). The first is much in the 
nature of the lord president of the coun- 
cil ; and the other like the groom-porter, 
only without the profit ; but as they are 
both things of very great honour in this 
country, I considered with myself the 
load of envy attending such great 
charges ; and besides (between you and 
me), I found myself unable to support 
the fatigue of keeping up the appearance 
that persons of such dignity must do ; so 
I thought proper to decline it, and ex- 
cused myself as well as J could. How- 
ever, as you see such an affair must take 
up a good deal of time, and it has always 
been the policy of this court to proceed 
slowly, like the Imperial and that of 
Spain, in the dispatch of business, you 
will on this account the easier forgive 
me, if I have not answered your letter 
before. 

You desire to know, it seems, what 
character the poem of your young friend 
bears here-, i wonder that you ask the 
opinion of a nation, where those, who 
pretend to judge, do not judge at all ; 
and the rest (the wiser part) wait to catch 
the judgment of the world immediately 
above them ; that is, Dick's and the 
Rainbow coffee-houses^ Your readier 
way would be to ask the ladies that keep 
the bars in these two theatres of criti- 
cism. However, to shew you that I am 
a judge, as well as my countrymen, I 
will tell you, though I have rather 
turned it over than read it (but no mat- 



* " Pleasures of the Imagination." From 
the posthumous publication of Dr. Akenside's 
Poems, it should seem that the author had very 
much the same opinion afterwards of his own 
work, which Mr. Gray here expresses ; since he 
undertook a reform of it, which musthave given 
him, had he concluded it, as much trouble as if 
he had written it entirely new. 



ter; no more have they), that it seems 
to me above the middling; and now 
and then, for a little while, rises even to 
the best, particularly in description. It 
is often obscure, and even unintelligible; 
and too much infected with the Hutch- 
inson jargon. In short, its great fault is, 
that it Avas published at least nine years 
too early. And so methinks in a few 
words (a la mode du Temple) I have 
very pertly dispatched what perhaps may 
for several years have employed a very 
ingenious man worth fifty of myself. 

You are much in the right to have a 
taste for Socrates ; he was a divine man. 
I must tell you, by way of news of the 
place, that the other day a certain new 
professor made an apology for him an 
hour long in the schools ; and all the 
world brought in Socrates guilty, except 
the people of his own college. 

The Muse is gone, and left me in far 
worse company ; if she returns, you will 
hear of her. i\.s to her child t (since 
you are as good as to inquire after it), it 
is but a puling- chit yet, not a bit grown 
to speak of; I believe, poor thing, it has 
got the worms, that will carry it oft* 
at last. Mr. Trollope and I are in a 
course of tar-water ; he for his present, 
and I for my future distempers. If you 
think it will kill me, send away a man 
and horse directly ; for I drink like a 
fish. Yours, &c. 

LETTER LV. 

From the same to the same. 

Cambridge, Dec. 11, 1746. 

I WOULD make you an excuse (as indeed 
I ought) if they were a sort of thing I 
ever gave any credit to myself in these 
cases ; but I know they are never true. 
Nothing so silly as indolence when it 
hopes to disguise itself : every one knows 
it by its saunter, as they do his majesty 
(God bless him !) at a masquerade, by the 
firmness of his tread and the elevation of 
his chin. However, somewhat I had to 
say that has a little shadow of reason in it. 
I have been in town (I sunpose you know) 
flaunting about at all kind of public 
places with two friends lately returned 
from abroad. The world itself has some 
attractions in it to a solitary of six years 
standing ; and agreeable well-meaning 

f He lifcre mcaiic? hiit puem Dc Pnncipiis 
Cngitandi. 



370 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



people of sense (thank Heaven there are 
so few of them) are my peculiar magnet. 
It is no Avonder then if 1 felt some re- 
luctance at parting with them so soon ; 
or if my spirits, when I returned back to 
my cell, should sink for a time, not in- 
deed to storm and tempest, but a good 
deal below changeable. Besides Seneca 
says (and my pitch of philosophy does not 
pretend to be much above Seneca) ** Nun- 
quam rnoresy quos exiuli, refero. Aliquid 
ex eo quod composui, turbatur: aliquid ex 
Ids qucefugavi, redit." And it will hap- 
pen to such as ns, mere imps of science. 
Well it may, when Wisdom herself is 
forced often 

In sweet retired solitude 
To plume her feathers, and let grow her wings, 
Tliat in the various bustle of resort 
Were all too ruffled, and sometimes impair'd. 

It is a foolish thing that without mo- 
ney one cannot either live as one pleases, 
or where and with whom one pleases. 
Swift somewhere says, that money is li- 
berty ; and I fear money is friendship 
too and society, and almost every exter- 
nal blessing. It is a great, though an 
ill-natured, comfort, to see most of those 
who have it in plenty, without pleasure, 
without liberty, and without friends. 

I am not altogether of your opinion as 
to your historical consolation in time of 
trouble : a cajm melancholy it may pro- 
duce, a stiller sort of despair (and that 
only in some circumstances, and on some 
constitutions) ; but I doubt no real com- 
fort or content can ever arise in the hu- 
man mind, but from hope. 

I take it very ill you should have been 
in the twentieth year of the war*, and 
yet say nothing of the retreat before Sy- 
racuse : is it, or is it not, the finest thing 
you ever read in your life ? And how does 
Xenophon or Plutarch agree with you ? 
For my part, I read Aristotle, his poetics, 
politics, and morals; though I do not 
well know which is which. In the first 
])lace, he is the hardest author by far I 
ever meddled with. Then he has a dry 
conciseness, that makes one imagine one 
is perusing a table of contents rather 
than a book : it tastes for all the world 
like chopped hay, or rather like chopped 
logic ; for he has a violent affection to 
that art, being in some sort his own in- 
vention ; so that he often loses himself 

■■''■ 'llmcydides, lib. vii. 



in little trifling distinctions and verbal 
niceties ; and, what is worse, leaves you 
to extricate him as well as you can. 
Thirdly, he has suffered vastly from the 
transcribblers, as all authors of great bre- 
vity necessarily must. Fourthly and 
lastly, he has abundance of fine uncom- 
mon things, wliich make him well worth 
the pains he gives one. You see what 
you are to expect from him. 

LETTER LVI. 

Mr. Grot; to Mr. Wulpole. 

Cambridge, 1747^ 
I HAD been absent from this place a few 
days, and at my return found Cibber's 
bookf upon my table. I return you my 
thanks for it, and have already run over 
a consideable part ; for who could resist 
Mrs. Letitia Pilkington's recommenda- 
tion ? (By the way, is there any such gen- 
tlewoman;}: ? or has somebody put on the 
style of a scribbling woman's panegyric 
to deceive and laugh at Colley?) He 
seems to me full as pert and as dull as 
usual. There are whole pages of com- 
mon-place stuff, that for stupidity might 
have been wrote by Dr. Waterland, or 
any other g-rave divine, did not the flirting 
saucy phrase give them at a distance an 
air of youth and gaiety ; it is very true, 
he is often in the right with reg'ard to 
Tully's weaknesses ; but was there any 
one that did not see them ? Those, I ima- 
gine, that would find a man after God's 
own heart, are no more likely to trust 
the Doctor's recommendation than the 
Player's ; and as to reason and truth, 
would they know their own faces, do you 
think, if they looked in the glass, and 
saw themselves so bedizened in tattered 
fringe and tarnished lace, in French jewels 
and dirty furbelows, the frippery of a 
stroller's wardrobe ? 

Literature, to take it in its most com- 
prehensive sense, and include everything 
that requires invention or judgment, or 
barely application and industry, seems in- 
deed drawing apace to its dissolution, 
and remarkably since the beginning of 
the war. I remember to have read Mr. 
Spence's pretty book ; though (as he 
then had not been at Rome for the last 

f Entitled " Observations on Cicero's Cha- 
racter." 

X This lady made herself more know i> some 
time after the dat«of' this letter. 



Sect. I, 



RECENT. 



377 



time) it must have Increased greatly since 
that in bulk. If you ask me what I read, 
1 protest I do not recollect one syllable ; 
but only in general, that they were the 
best-bred sort of men in the world, just 
the kind oi frinds one would wish to 
meet in a fine summers evening, if one 
wished to meet any at all. The heads 
and tails of the dialogues, published se- 
parate in 16mo, would make the sweets 
est reading in vatiur for young gentle- 
men of family and fortune, that are learn- 
ing to dance. I rejoice to hear there is 
such a crowd of dramatical perform- 
ances coming upon the stage. Agrip- 
pina can stay very well, she thanks you, 
and be damned at leisure : 1 hope in God 
you have not mentioned, or shewed to 
any body, that scene (for trusting in its 
badness, I forgot to caution you concen>- 
ing it) ; but I heard the other day, that 
I was writing a play, and was told the 
name of it, which nobody here could 
know, I am sure. The employment you 
propose to me much better suits my incli- 
nation ; but 1 much fear our joint-stock 
would hardly compose a small volume ; 
Avhat I have is less considerable than 
you would imagine, and of that little 
we should not be willing to publish 
all. ***t 

This is all I can anywhere find. You, 
I imagine, may have a good deal more. 
I should not care how unwise the ordi- 
nary run of readers might think my af- 
fection for him, provided those few, that 
ever loved any body, or judged of any 
thing rightly, might, from such little re- 
mains, be moved to consider what he 
would have been ; and to wish that Hea- 
ven had granted him a longer life and a 
mind more at ease. 

1 send you a few lines, though Latin, 
which you do not like, for the sake of the 
subject^ ; it makes part of a large de- 
sign, and is the beginning of the fourth 
book, which was intended to treat of the 
passions. Excuse the three first verses ; 
you know vanity, with the Romans, is 
a poetical licence. 

f What is here omitted was a short catalogue 
of Mr. West's Poetry, then in Mr. Gray's hands. 
X The admirable apostrophe to Mr, West. 



LETTER LVn. 

From the same to the same, 

Cambridge, March 1, 1747. 
As one ought to be particularly careful 
to avoid blunders in a compliment of 
condolence, it would be a sensible satis- 
faction to me (before I testify my sor- 
row, and the sincere part I take in your 
misfortune) to know for certain, who it 
\¥, I lament. I knew Zara and Selima 
(Selima, was it ? or Fatima?), or rather 
I knew them both together ; for I can- 
not justly say which was which. Then 
as to your handsome cat, the name you 
distinguish her by, I am no less at a loss, 
as well knowing one's handsome cat is 
always the cat one likes best ; or, if one 
te alire and the other dead, it is usually 
the latter that is the handsomest. Be- 
tides, if the point were never so clear, I 
l^ope f ou do not think me so ill-bred or 
so imprudent as to forfeit all my interest 
in the survivor : Oh no ! I would rather 
ie«m to mistake, and imagine to be sure 
it must be the tabby one that had met 
with this sad accident. Till this affair 
is a little better determined, you will ex- 
cuse me if I do not begin to cry ; 

" Tempus inane peto, requiem, spaiiumque rfo- 
loris.'^ 

Which interval is the more convenient, 
as it gives time to rejoice \vitli you on 
font new honours§. This is only a be- 
ginning; I reckon next week we shall 
heaf you afe a free-mason, or gormogon 
at least. Heigh ho ! I feel (as you to 
be Sure have done long since) that I have 
▼ery little to say, at least in prose. 
Somebody will be the better for it ; I do 
not mean you, but your cat, feue Made* 
moiselle Selime, whom I am about to 
immortalize for one week or fortnight, 
as follows ***** II . There's a poem 
for you, it is rather too long for an epi- 
taph. 



LETTER LVIIL 

Mr. Grai/ to Dr. Wharton, 

Stoke, June 5, 1748. 
Your friendship has interested itself in 
my affairs so naturally, that I cannot 

§ Mr. Wa'pole was about this time elected 
a Fellow of the Royal Society. 

Ij The Reader need haidly be told, that the 
4th Ode in the collection of his Poems was in- 
serted III the place of these asterisks. 



378 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



help troubling you a little with a de- 
tail of them f. ***-H-**-x- And now, my 
dear Wharton, why must I tell you a 
thing- so contrary to my own wishes and 
yours ? I believe it is impossible for me 
to see you in the North, or to enjoy any 
of those agreeable hours I had flattered 
myself with. This business will oblige 
me to be in town several times during 
the summer, particularly in August, 
when half the money is to paid ; be- 
sides, the good people here would think 
me the most careless and ruinous of 
mortals, if I should take such a journey 
at this time. The only satisfaction I can 
pretend to, is that of hearing from you, 
and particularly at the time when I was 
bid to expect the good news of an in- 
crease df your family. Your opinion of 
JJiodorus is doubtless right ; but there 
are things in him very curious, got out 
of better authorities now lost. Do you 
remember the Egyptian history, and 
particularly the account of the gold 
mines? My own readings have been 
cruelly interrupted : what I have been 
highly pleased with, is the new comedy 
from Paris by Gresset, called le Mechant : 
if you have it not, buy his works all to- 
gether in two little volumes ; they are 
collected by the Dutch booksellers, and 
consequently contain some trash? and 
then there are the Ververt, the Epistle to 
P. Bougeant, the Chartreuse, that to his 
Sister, an Ode on his Country, and another 
on Mediocrity, and the Sidnei, another 
comedy, all which have great beauties. 
There is also a poem lately published by 
Thomson, called The Castle of Indolence, 
with some good stanzas in it. Mr. Mason 
is my acquaintance ; I liked that Ode X 
much, but have found no one else that 
did. He has much fancy, little judgment, 
and a good deal of modesty ; I take him 
for a good and well-meaning creature ; 
but then he is really in simplicity a child, 
and loves every body he meets with : he 
reads little or nothing ; writes abundance, 
and that with a design to make his for- 
tune by it. My best compliments to Mrs. 
Wharton and your family : does that name 

f The paragraph here omitted contained an 
account of Mr. Gfray's loss of a house by fire 
in Cornhill, and the expense he should be at 
in rebuilding: it. Though it was insured, he 
could at this time ill bear to lay out the addi- 
tional sum necessary for the purpose. 

J Ode to a Water-Nymph, published about 
this time in Dodsley's Miscellany. 



include any body I am not yet acquainted 

with ? 

LETTER LIX. 

Mr. Gray to Dr. Wharton. 

Stoke, August 19, 1748. 
I AM glad you have had any pleasure in 
Gresset ; he seems to me a truly elegant 
and charming writer ; The Mechant is 
the best comedy I ever read ; his Edward 
I could scarce get through ; it is puerile ; 
though there are good lines, such as this, 
for example : 

" Le jour dhin nouveau regne est le jour ties in- 
grats." 

But good lines will make any thing rather 
than a good play : however, you are to 
consider this a collection made up by the 
Dutch booksellers ; many things unfinish- 
ed, or written in his youth, or designed 
not for the world, but to make his friends 
laugh, as the Lutrin vivant, he. There 
are two noble lines, which, as they are 
in the middle of an Ode to the King, may 
perhaps have escaped you : 

" I.e cri d'lin peuple heureux est lu seule eloquence. 
Qui s^ait parler des Rois : " 

which is very true, and should have been 
a hint to himself not to write Odes to the 
King at all. 

As I have nothing more to say at pre- 
sent, I fill my paper with the beginning 
of an Essay ; what name to give it I 
know not ; but the subject is the Alliance 
of Education and Government : I mean 
to shew that they must both concur to 
produce great and useful men. I desire 
your judgment upon it before I proceed 
any further. 

LETTER LX. 

From the same to the same. 

Cambridge, March 9, 1748. 
You ask for some account of books. The 
principal I can tell you of is a work of 
the president Montesquieu, the labour of 
twenty years ; it is called U Esprit des 
Loix, 2 vols. 4to. printed at Geneva. He 
lays down the principles on which are 
founded the three sorts of government, 
despotism, the limited monarchy, and the 
republican ; and shews how from these 
are reduced the laws and customs by which 
they are guided and maintained ; the edu- 
cation proper to each form ; the influence 
of climate, situation, religion^^ §cc. on the 



Sect. I. 



RECENT. 



379 



minds of particular nations, and on their 
policy. The subject, you see, is as ex- 
tensive as mankind ; the thoughts per- 
fectly new, generally admirable as they 
are just, sometimes a little too refined. 
In short, there are faults, but such as an 
ordinary man could never have commit- 
ted. The style very lively and concise 
(consequently sometimes obscure) ; it is 
the gravity of Tacitus, whom he admires, 
tempered with the gaiety and lire of a 
Frenchman. The time of night will not 
suffer me to go on ; but I will write again 
in a week. 



LETTER LXL 

From the same to the same, 

Cambridge, April 25, 1749. 
I PERCEIVE that second parts are as hard 
to write as they can be to read ; for this, 
which you ought to have had a week after 
the first, has been a full month in coming- 
forth. The spirit of laziness (the spirit 
of the place) begins to possess even me, 
who have so long- declaimed against it ; 
yet has it not so prevailed, but that I feel 
that discontent with myself, that ennui, 
that ever accompanies it in its begin- 
nings. Time will settle my conscience ; 
time will reconcile me to this languid 
companion : we shall smoke, we shall 
tipple, we shall doze together : we shall 
have our little jokes like other people, 
and our old stories : brandy will finish 
what port began ; and a month after the 
time you will see in some corner of a 
London Evening-Post, " Yesterday died 
the reverend Mr. John Gray, Senior 
Fellow of Clare Hall, a facetious compa- 
nion, and well respected by all that knew 
him. His death is supposed to have been 
occasioned by a fit of an apoplexy, being- 
found fallen out of bed with his head in 
the chamber pot." 

In the mean while, to go on with my 
account of new books. Montesquieu's 
work, which I mentioned before, is now 
published anew in 2 vols. 8vo. Have you 
seen old Crebillon's Catalina, a tragedy, 
which has had a prodigious run at Paris ? 
Historical truth is too much perverted 
in it, which is ridiculous in a story so 
generally known ; but if you can get over 
this, the sentiments and versification are 
fine, and most of the characters (parti- 
cularly the principal one) painted with 
great spirit. 



Mr. Birch, the indefatigable, has just 
put out a thick octavo of original papers 
of queen Elizabeth's time : there are 
many curious things in it, particularly 
letters from sir Robert Cecil (Salisbury) 
about his negotiations v»^ith Henry IV* 
of France, the earl of Monmouth's odd 
account of queen Elizabeth's death, se- 
veral peculirtrities of James I. and prince 
Henry, &c. and above all, an excellent 
account of the state of France, with cha- 
racters of the king, his court, and mi- 
nistry, by sir George Carew, ambassador 
there. This, I think, is all new worth 
mentioning, that I have seen or heard 
of ; except A Natural History of Peru, 
in Spanish, printed at London, by Don 

something, a man of learning, 

sent thither by that court on purpose. 

You ask after my Chronology. It was 
begun, as I told you, almost two years 
ago, when I was in the midst of Diogenes 
Laertius and his philosophers, as a prooe- 
mium to their works. My intention in 
forming this table was not so much for 
public events, though these too have a 
column assigned them, but rather in a 
literary way to compare the time of all 
great men, their writings and their trans- 
actions. I have brought it from the 30th 
Olympiad, where it begins, to the 1 1 3th ; 
that is, 332 years ^. My only modern 
assistants were Marsham, Dodwell, and 
Bentley. 

I have since that read Pausanias and 
Athenseus all through, and ^Eschylus 
again. I am now in Pindar and Lysias ; 
for I take verse and prose together, like 
bread and cheese. 

LETTER LXII. 

Mr. Gray to Dr. Warburton. 

Cambridge, Aug, 8, 1749. 
I PROMISED Dr. Keene long since to 
give you an account of our magnificence 
heref; but the newspapers, and he 
himself in person, have got the start of 
my indolence, so that by this time you 
are well acquainted with all the events 

=^ This laborious work was formed much in 
the manner of the president Renault's i7i^/ot>e 
de France Every paa:e consisted of nine co- 
lumns; one of the Olympiad, the next for 
the Archons, the third for the public affairs 
of Greece, the three next for the philosophers, 
and the three last for poets, historians, and 
orators. 

f The duke of Newcastle's installation as 
chancellor of the University. 



380 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



that adorn that week of wonders. Thus 
much I may venture to tell you, because 
it is probable nobody else has done it, 

that our friend 's zeal and eloquence 

surpassed all power of description. Ve- 
suvio in an eruption was not more vio- 
lent than his utterance, nor (since I am 
at my mountains) Pelion, with all its 
pine-trees in a storm of wind, more im- 
petuous than his action ; and yet the Se- 
nate house still stands, and (I thank God) 
we are all safe and well at your service. 
I was ready to sink for him, and scarce 
dared to look about me, when I was sure 
it was all over ; but soon found I might 
have spared my confusion ; all people 
joined to applaud him. Every thing was 
quite right, and I dare swear not three 
people here but think him a model of 
oratory ; for all the duke's little court 
came with a resolution to be pleased ; 
and when the tone was once giren, the 
University, who ever wait for the judg- 
ment of their betters, struck into it with 
an admirable harmony : for the rest of 
the performances, they were just what 
they usually are. Every one, while it 
lasted, was very gay and very busy in the 
morning, and very owlish and very tipsy 
at night ; I make no exceptions from the 
Chancellor to Blue coat. Mason's Ode 
was the only entertainment that had any 
tolerable elegance ; and, for my own part, 
I think it (with some little abatements) 
uncommonly well on such an occasion. 
Pray let me know your sentiments ; for 
doubtless you have seen it. The author 
of it grows apace into my good graces, 
as I know him more ; he is very ingeni- 
ous, with great good-nature and simpli- 
city ; a little vain, but in so harmless and 
so comical a way, that it does not offend 
one at all ; a little ambitious, but withal 
so ignorant in the world and its ways, 
that this does not hurt him in one's opi- 
nion ; so sincere and so undisguised, that 
no mind, with a spark of generosity, 
would ever think of hurting him, he lies 
so open to injury ; but so indolent, that 
if he cannot overcome this habit, all his 
good qualities will signify nothing at all. 
After all, I like him so well, I could wish 
you knew him. 



LETTER LXin. 

Mr. Gray to his Mother. 

Cambridge, Nov, 7,1749. 

The unhappy news I have just received 
from you equally surprises and afflicts 
me*. 1 have lost a person I loved very 
much, and have been used to from my 
infancy ; but am much more concerned 
for your loss, the circumstances of which 
I forbear to dwell upon, as you must be 
too sensible of them yourself; and will, 
I fear, more and more need a consolation 
that no one can give, except He who has 
preserved her to you so many years, and 
at last, when it was his pleasure, has taken 
her from us to himself: and perhaps, if 
we reflect upon what she felt in this life, 
we may look upon this as an instance of 
his goodness both to her and to those 
that loved her. She might have lan- 
guished many years before our eyes in a 
continual increase of pain, and totally 
helpless ; she might have long wis*hed to 
end her misery without being able to at- 
tain it ; or perhaps even lost all sense, 
and yet continued to breathe ; a sad 
spectacle to such as must have felt more 
for her than she could have done for 
herself. However you may deplore your 
own loss, yet think that she is at last 
easy and happy ; and has now more oc- 
casion to pity us than we her. I hope, 
and beg, you will support yourself with 
that resignation we owe to Him who 
gave us our being for our good, and who 
deprives us of it for the same reason. I 
would have come to you directly, but 
you do not say whether you desire I 
should or not ; if you do, I beg I may 
know it, for there is nothing to hinder 
me, and I am in very good health. 

LETTER LXIV. 

Mr. Gray to Dr. Wharton. 

Stoke, August 9, 1750. 
Aristotle says (one may write Greek 
to you without scandal) that 01 roitoi ou 
SiOcXvova-i triv (piXiav dirXcvs, dWa rr^v 
iyspysiOLV id Ss ^pcviog tj ditova-ioc ysvYjToci 

* The death of his aunt, Mrs. Mary Antro- 
bus, who died the 5th of November, and was 
buried in a vault in Stoke Churchyard near 
the chancel door, in which also his mother and 
himself (according to the direction in his will) 
were afterwards buried. 



Sect. I. 



RECENT. 



381 



SlSAVCBrjl. 

]3ut Aristotle may say whatever he 
pleases, I do not find myself at all the 
worse for it. I could indeed wish to re- 
fresh my 'Evspysicc a little at Durham by 
the sight of you ; but when is there a 
probability of my being so happy? It 
concerned me greatly when I heard the 
other day that your asthma continued 
at times to afflict you, and that you 
were often obliged to go into the coun- 
try to breathe ; you cannot oblige me 
more than by giving me an account both 
of the state of your body and mind : 1 
hope the latter is able to keep you cheer- 
ful and easy, in spite of the frailties of its 
companion. As to my own, it can nei- 
ther do one ncr the other ; and I have 
the mortification to find my spiritual 
part the most infirm thing about me. 
You have doubtless heard of the loss I 
have had in Dr. Middleton, whose house 
was the only easy place one could find to 
converse in at Cambridge : for my part, 
I find a friend so uncommon a thing, 
that I cannot help regretting even an 
old acquaintance, which is an indifferent 
likeness of it ; and though I do not ap- 
prove the spirit of his books, methinks 
it is pity the world should lose so rare 
a thing as a good writer. . 

My studies cannot furnish a recom- 
mendation of many new books to you. 
There is a defence de I' Esprit des 
Loix, by Montesquieu himself; it has 
some lively things in it, but is very short, 
and his adversary appears to be so mean 
a bigot that he deserved no answer. 
There are 3 vols, in 4to. of Histoire du 
Cabinet du Roy, by Messrs. Buffon and 
d'Aubenton ; the first is a man of cha- 
racter, but I am told has hurt it by this 
work. It is all a sort of introduction 
to natural history : the weak part of it 
is a love of system which runs through 
it ; the most contrary thing in the world 
to a science entirely grounded upon ex- 
periments, and which has nothing to do 
with vivacity of imagination. However, 
I cannot help commending the general 
view which he gives of the face of the 
earth, followed by a particular one of 
all the known nations, their peculiar 
figure and manners, which is the best 
epitome of geography I ever met Avith, 
and written with sense and elegance : 
in short, these books are well worth 
turniriir over. The Memoirs of the 



Abb6 de Mongon, in 5 vols, are highly 
commended, but I have not seen them. 
He was engaged in several embassies 
to Germany, England, Sec during the 
course of the late war. The president 
Henault's Abrege Chronologique de I' His- 
toire de France, I believe I have be- 
fore mentioned to you as a very good 
book of its kind. 



LETTER LXV. 

Mr. Gray to Mr. JValpole. 

Cambridge, Feb. 11, 1751. 
As you have brought me into a little 
sort of distress, you must assist me, I 
believe, to get out of it as well as I can. 
Yesterday I had the misfortune of re- 
ceiving a letter from certain gentlemen 
(as their bookseller expresses it), who 
have taken the Mazazine of Magazines 
into their hand : they tell me that an 
ingenious poem, called Reflections in a 
Country Churchyard, has been commu- 
nicated to them, which they are print- 
ing forthwith ; that they are informed 
that the excellent author of it is I by 
name, and that they beg not only his in- 
dulgence, but the honour of his cor- 
respondence, &c. As I am not at all 
disposed to be either so indulgent, or so 
correspondent, as they desire, I have but 
one bad way left to escape the honour 
they would inflict upon me ; and there- 
fore am obliged to desire you would 
make Dodsley print it immediately 
(which may be done in less than a week's 
time) from your copy, but without my 
name, in what form is most convenient 
for him, but on his best paper and cha- 
racter ; he must correct the press him- 
self, and print it without any interval 
between the stanzas, because the sense 
is in some places continued beyond them ; 
and the title must be. Elegy, written 
in a Country Churchyard. If he would 
add a line or two to say it came into his 
hands by accident, I should like it better. 
If you behold the Mazagine of Magazines 
in the light that I do, you will not re- 
fuse to give yourself this trouble on my 
account, which you have taken of your 
own accord before now. If Dodsley do 
not do this immediately, he may as well 
let it alone. 



382 ELEGANT EPISTLES. Book IV. 

LETTER LXVI. LETTER LXVII. 



Mr. Gray to Dr. Wharton. 

Dec. 19, 1732. 

Have you read Madame de Maintenon's 
Letters ? They are undoubtedly g-enuine ; 
they beg"m very early in her life, before 
she married Scarron, and continue after 
the king's death to within a little while 
of her own ; they bear all the marks of 
a noble spirit (in her adversity par- 
ticularly), of virtue, and unaffected de- 
votion ; insomuch, that I am almost per- 
suaded she was actually married to Lewis 
the XlVth, and never his mistress ; and 
this not out of any policy or ambition, 
but conscience ; for she was what we 
should call a bigot, yet with great good 
sense : in short, she was too good for a 
court. Misfortunes in the beginning of 
her life had formed her mind (naturally 
lively and impatient) to reflection and 
a habit of piety. She was always miser- 
able while she had the care of Madame 
de Montespan's children ; timid and very 
cautious of making use of that unlimited 
power she rose to afterwards, for fear of 
trespassing on the king's friendship for 
her ; and after his death not at all afraid 
of meeting her own. 

I do not know what to say to you with 
regard to Racine ; it sounds to me as 
if any body should fall upon Shakspeare, 
who indeed lies infinitely more open to 
criticism of all kinds ; but I should not 
care to be the person that undertook it. 
If you do not like Athaliah or Britanni- 
cus, there is no more to be said. I have 
done. 

Bishop's Hall's satires, called Virgide- 
mise, are lately republished. They are 
full of spirit and poetry ; as much of the 
first as Dr. Donne, and far more of the 
latter : they were written at the univer- 
sity when he was about twenty-three 
years old, and in queen Elizabeth's 
time. 

You do not say whether you have read 
the Crito*. I only recommend the dra- 
matic part of the Phsedo to you, not the 
argumentative. The subject of the Eras- 
tse is good ; it treats of that peculiar 
character and turn of mind which belongs 
to a true philosopher, but it is shorter 
than one would wish. The Euthyphro 
I would not read at all. 

* Of Plato. 



Mr. Gray to Mr. Walpole. 

Stoke, Jan. 1752. 
I AM at present at Stoke, to which place 
I came at half an hour's warning upon 
the news I received of my mother's ill- 
ness, and did not expect to have found 
her alive ; but when I arrived she was 
much better, and continues so. I shall 
therefore be very glad to make you a visit 
at Strawberry-Hill, whenever you give 
me notice of a convenient time. I am 
surprised at the print, which far sur- 
passes my idea of London graving : the 
drawing itself was so finished, that I 
suppose it did not require all the art I 
had imagined to copy it tolerably. My 
aunts seeing me open your letter, took 
it to be a burying ticket, and asked whe- 
ther any body had left me a ring ; and 
so they still conceive it to be, even with 
all their spectacles on. Heaven forbid 
they should suspect it to belong to any 
verses of mine, they would burn me for 
a poet. On my own part I am satisfied, 
if this design of yours succeed so well as 
you intend it ; and yet I know it will 
be accompanied with something not at 
all agreeable to me. While I write this, 
I receive your second letter. Sure, you 
are not out of your wits I This I know, 
if you suffer my head to be printed, you 
will infallibly put me out of mine. I 
conjure you immediately to put a stop 
to any such design. Who is at the ex- 
pense of engraving it I know not ; but 
if it be Dodsley, 1 will make up the loss 
to him. The thing, as it was, I know, 
will make me ridiculous enough ; but 
to appear in proper person, at the head 
of my works, consisting of half a dozen 
ballads in thirty pages, would be worse 
than the pillory. I do assure you, if I 
had received such a book, with such a 
frontispiece, without any warning, I be- 
lieve it would have given me a palsy ; 
therefore I rejoice to have received this 
notice, and shall not be easy till you tell 
me all thoughts of it are laid aside. I 
am extremely in earnest, and cannot 
bear even the idea. 

I had written to Dodsley, if I had not 
received yours, to tell him how little I 
liked the title which he meant to prefix ; 
but your letter has put all that out of 
my head. If you think it necessary to 
print these explanations for the use ojf 



Sect. I. 



R E C E N T. 



383 



people that have no eyes, I should be 
glad they were a little altered. 1 am, 
to my shame, in your debt for a long 
letter ; but 1 cannot think of any thing 
else till you have set me at ease on this 
matter. 

LETEER LXVIII. 

Mr. Gray to Mr. Mason. 

Durham, Dec. 26, 1753. 
A LITTLE while before I received your 
melancholy letter, 1 had been informed 
by Mr. Charles Avison of one of the sad 
events you mention*. I know what it 
is to lose persons that one's eyes and 
heart have long been used to ; and I 
never desire to part with the remem- 
brance of that loss, nor would wish you 
should. It is something that you had 
a little time to acquaint yourself with 
the idea beforehand ; and that your 
father suffered but little pain, the only 
thing that makes death terrible. After 
I have said this, I cannot help expressing 
my surprise at the disposition he has 
made of his affairs. I must (if you will 
suffer me to say so) call it great weak- 
ness ; and yet perhaps your affliction for 
him is heightened by that very weak- 
ness ; for I know it is impossible to feel 
an additional sorrow for the faults of 
those we have loved, even where that 
fault has been greatly injurious to our- 
selves. Let me desire you not to ex- 
pose yourself to any further danger in 
the midst of that scene of sickness and 
death ; but withdraw as soon as possible 
to some place at a little distance in the 
country ; for I do not, in the least, like 
the situation you are in. I do not at- 
tempt to console you on the situation 
your fortune is left in ; if it were far 
worse, the good opinion I have of you 
tells me, you will never the sooner do 
any thing mean or unworthy of your- 
seK; and consequently I cannot pity 
you on this account ; but I sincerely do 
on the new loss you have had of a good 
and friendly man, whose memory I ho- 
nour. I have seen the scene you de- 
scribe, and know how dreadful it is : I 
know too I am the better for it. We 
are all idle and thoughtless things, and 

* The death of Mr. Mason's father, and of Dr. 
Martnaduke Pricket, a young physician of his 
own age, with whom he was brought up from 
infancy, who died of the same infectious fever. 



have no sense, no use in the world any 
longer than that sad impression lasts : 
the deeper it is engraved the better. 

LETTER LXIX. 

Mr. Gray to Dr. Wharton. 

Stoke, Sept. 18, 1754. 
I A3I glad you enter into the spirit of 
Strawberry Castle ; it has a purity and 
propriety of Gothicism in it (with very 
few exceptions) that I have not seen else- 
where. My lord Radnor's vagaries I 
see did not keep you from doing justice 
to his situation, which far surpasses 
every thing near it ; and I do not know 
a more laughing scene than that about 
Twickenham and Richmond. Dr. Aken- 
side, I perceive, is no conjuror in archi- 
tecture ; especially when he talks of the 
ruins of Persepolis, which are no more 
Gothic than they are Chinese. The 
Egyptian style (see Dr. Pocock, not his 
discourses, but his prints) was apparently^ 
the mother of the Greek ; and there is 
such a similitude between the Egyptian 
and those Persian ruins, as gave Dio- 
dorus room to affirm, that the old build -^ 
ings of Persia were certainly performed 
by Egyptian artists. As to the other 
part of your friend's opinion, that the 
Gothic manner is the Saracen or Moor- 
ish, he has a great authority to support 
him, that of sir Christopher Wren ; and 
yet I cannot help thinking it undoubt- 
edly wrong. The palaces in Spain I never 
saw but in description, which gives us 
little or no idea of things ; but the 
Doge's palace at Venice I have seen, 
which is in the Arabesque manner : and 
the houses of Barbary you may see in 
Dr. Shaw's book, not to mention abun- 
dance of other Eastern buildings in 
Turkey, Persia, &c. that we have views 
of ; and they seem plainly to be corrup- 
tions of the Greek architecture, broke 
into little parts indeed, and covered with 
little ornaments, but in a taste very dis- 
tinguishable from that which we call 
Gothic. There is one thing that runs 
through the Moorish buildings, that an 
imitator would certainly have been first 
struck with, and would have tried to 
copy ; and that is the cupolas which 
cover every thing, baths, apartments, and 
even kitchens ; yet who ever saw a Go- 
thic cupola ? It is a thing plainly of Greek 
original. I do not see any thing but the 



384 



ELEGANT E P J S T L E S. 



Book IV. 



slender spires that serve for steeples, 
which may perhaps be borrowed from the 
Saracen minarets on their mosques. 

I take it ill you should say any things 
against the Mole ; it is a relSiection I see 
cast at the Thames. Do you think that 
rivers, which have lived in London and 
its neighbourhood all their days, will run 
roaring and tumbling about like your 
tramontane torrents in the North? No, 
they only glide and whisper. 

LETTER LXX. 

Mr. Gray to Dr. Wharton. 

Cambridge, March 9, 1755. 
I DO not pretend to humble any one's 
pride ; I love my own too well to at- 
tempt it. As to mortifying their vanity, 
it is too easy and too mean a task for me 
to delight in. You are very good in 
shewing so much sensibility on my ac- 
count ; but be assured my taste for praise 
is not like that of children for fruit ; if 
there were nothing but medlars and 
blackberries in the world, I would be 
very well content to go without any at 
all. I dare say that Mason, though 
some years younger than I, was as little 

elevated with the approbation of lord 

and lord , as I am mortified by their 

silence. 

With regard to publishing, I am not 
so much against the thing itself, as of 
publishing this Ode alone*. 1 have two 
or three ideas more in my head. What 
is to come of them ? Must they come too 
out in the shape of little sixpenny flams, 
dropping one after another till Mr. Dods- 
ley thinks fit to collect them with Mr. 
This's song, and Mr. T'other's epigram, 
into a pretty volume ? 1 am sure Mason 
must be sensible of this, and therefore 
cannot mean what he says. Neither am 
I quite of your opinion with regard to 
strophe and antistrophe : setting aside 
the difficulty of execution, methinks it 
has little or no effect on the ear, which 
scarce perceives the regular return of 
metres at so great a distance from one 
another : to make it succeed, 1 am per- 
suaded the stanzas must not consist of 
above nine lines each at the most. Pin- 
dar has several such odes. 

* His Ode on the Progress of Poetry. 



LETTER LXXL 

From the same to the sa^ie. 

Pembroke Hall, March 25, 1756. 
Though I had no reasonable excuse for 
myself before I received your last letter, 
yet since that time I have had a pretty 
good one, having been taken up in quar- 
relling with Peter-house t, and in re- 
moving myself from thence to Pembroke. 
This may be looked upon as a sort of aera 
in a life so barren of events as mine ; 
yet I shall treat it in Voltaire's manner, 
and only tell you that T left my lodgings 
because the rooms were noisy, and the 
people of the house uncivil. This is all 
I would choose to have said about it ; 
but if you in private should be curious 
enough to enter into a particular detail 
of facts and minute circumstances, the 
bearer, who was witness to them, will 
probably satisfy you. All I shall say more 
is, that I am for the present extremely 
well lodged here, and as quiet as in the 
Grand Chartreuse ; and that every body 
(even Dr. Long himself) are as civil as 
they could be to Mary of Valens I in 
person. 

With regard to any advice I can give 
you about your being physician to the 
Hospital, I frankly own it ought to give 
way to a much better judge, especially so 
disinterested a one as Dr. Heberden. I 
love refusals no more than you do. But 
as to your fears of effluvia, I maintain 
that one sick rich patient has more of 
pestilence and putrefaction about him 
than a whole ward of sick poor. 

The similitude between the Italian re- 
publics and those of ancient Greece has 
often struck me, as it does you. I do 
not wonder that Sully's Memoirs have 
highly entertained you ; but cannot 

f The reason of Mr, Gray's changing his 
college, which is here only glanced at, was in 
few words this: Two or three young men of 
fortune, who lived in the same staircase, had 
for some time intentionally disturbed him with 
their riots, and carried their ill behaviour so 
far as frequently to awaken him at midnight. 
After having borne with their insults longer 
-than might reasonably have been exfjected 
even from a man of less warmth of temper, 
Mr. Gray complained to the governing part of 
the Society, and not thinking that his remon- 
strance was sufficiently attended to, quitted 
the college. The slight manner in which he 
mentions this affair, when writing to one of his 
most intimate friends, certainly does honour 
to the placability of his disposition. 

X Foundress of the college. 



Sect. I, 



R E C E N T. 



385 



agree Avitli you in thinking him or his 
master two of the best men in the world. 
The king was indeed one of the best-na- 
tured men that ever lived; but it is 
owing only to chance that his intended 
marriage with madame d'Estrees, or with 
the marquise de Verneuil, did not in- 
volve him and the kingdom in the most 
inextricable confusion ; and his design 
upon the princess of Cond6 (in his old 
age) was worse still. As to the minister, 
his base application to Concini, after the 
murder of Henry, has quite ruined him 
in my esteem, and destroyed all the 
merit of that honest, surly pride for 
which I honoured him before ; yet I 
own that, as kings and ministers go, 
they were both extraordinary men. Pray 
look at the end of Birch's State Papers 
of sir J. Edmonds, for the character of 
the French court at that time ; it is 
written by sir George Carew. 

You should have received Mason's pre- 
sent* last Saturday. I desire you to tell 
me your critical opinion of the new Odes, 
and also whether you have found out 
two lines which he has inserted in his 
third to a friend, which are superlativef. 
We do not expect the world, which is 
just going to be invaded, will bestow 
much attention to them ; if you hear 
any thing, you will tell us. 



truth, and contains some very few extra- 
ordinary facts relating to Anne of Aus- 
tria and cardinal Mazarine. The other 
is in two small volumes, Memoires de 
Madcune StaaL The facts are no great 
matter, but the manner and vivacity 
make them interesting. She was a sort 
of confidante to the late duchess of Maine, 
and imprisoned a long time on her ac- 
count during the regency. 

I ought before now to have thanked 
you for your kind offer, which I mean 
soon to accept, for a reason which, to be 
sure, can be none to you and Mrs. Whar- 
ton ; and therefore I tiiink it my duty 
to give you notice of it. I have told 
you already of my mental ailments ; and 
it is a very possible thing also that I may 
be bodijy ill again in town, which I 
would not choose to be in a dirty in- 
convenient lodging, where, perhaps, my 
nurse might stifle me with a pillow ; and 
therefore it is no wonder if I prefer your 
house : but I tell you of this in time, 
that if either of you are frightened at 
the thoughts of a sick body, you may 
make a handsome excuse and save your- 
selves this trouble. You are not, how- 
ever, to imagine my illness is in esse; 
no, it is only in posse ; otherwise I should 
be scrupulous of bringing it home to 
you. I think I shall be with you 114 
about a fortnight. 



LETTER LXXII. 

Mr. Gray to Dr. Wharton. 

June 14, 1156. 
Though I allow abundance for your 
kindness and partiality to me, I am yet 
much pleased with the good opinion 
you seem to have of The Bard ; I have 
not, however, done a word more than 
the little you have seen, having been in 
a very listless, unpleasant, and inutile 
state of mind for this long time, for 
which I shall beg you to prescribe me 
somewhat strengthening and aggluti- 
nant, lest it turn to a confirmed pthisis. 

1 recommend two little French booHs 
to you, one called Memoires de M. de la 
Porte ; it has all the air of simplicity and 

* The four Odes which Mr. Mason had just 
published separately. 

f While through the west, where sinks the 
crimson day, 
Meek Twilight slowly sails, and waves her 
banners gray. . 



LETTER LXXin. 

Mr. Gray to Mr. Mason. 

Stoke, July '15, 1156, 
I FEEL a contrition for my long silence ; 
and yet perhaps it is the last thing you 
trouble your head about. Nevertheless, 
I will be as sorry as if you took it ill. [ 
am sorry too to see you so punctilious 
as to stand upon answers, and never to 
come near me till I have regularly left 
my name at your door, like a mercer's 
wife that imitates people who go a- visit- 
ing. I would forgive you tiiis, if you could 
possibly suspect I were doing any thing 
that I liked better ; for then your for- 
mality might look like being piqued at 
my negligence, which has somewhat in 
it like kindness : but you know 1 am at 
Stoke, hearing, seeing, doing absolutely 
nothing. Not such a notliing as you do 
at Tunbridge, chequered and diversified 
with a succession of fleeting colours ; 



386 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV 



but heavy, lifeless, without form and 
void ; sometimes almost as black as the 
moral of Voltaire's Lisbon *, which angers 
you so. I have had no more muscular 
inflations, and am only troubled with this 
depression of mind. You will not ex- 
pect, thm*efore, I should give you any 
account of my Verve, which is at best 
(you know) of so delicate a constitution, 
and has such weak nerves as not to stir 
-^ut of its chamber above three days in a 
year. But I shall inquire after yours, 
and why it is off again ? It has certainly 
worse nerves than mine, if your Re- 
viewers have frighted it. Sure I (not to 
mention a score of your other critics) am 
something a better judge than all the 
men-midwives and presbyterian par- 
sons t that ever were born. Pray give me 
leave to ask you, do you find yourself 
tickled with the commendations of such 
people ? (for you have your share of these 
too :) I dare say not ; your vanity has 
certainly a better taste. And can then 
the censure of such critics move you ? I 
own it is an impertinence in these 
gentry to talk of one at all, either in 
good or in bad; but this we must all 
swallow : I mean not only we that write, 
but all the tve*s that ever did any thing 
to be talked of. 

While I am writing I receive yours, 
and rejoice to find that the genial influ- 
ences of this fine season, which produce 
nothing in me, have hatched high and 
unimaginable fantasies in you|. I see, 
methinks, as I sit on Snowdon, some 
glimpse of Mona and her haunted shades, 
and hope we shall be very good neigh- 
bours. Any Druidical anecdotes that I 
can meet with, I will be sure to send you 
when I return to Cambridge ; but I can- 
npt pretend to be learned without books, 
or to know the Druids from modern 
bishops at this distance. I can only tell 
you not to go and take Mona for the Isle 
of Man : it is Anglesey, a tract of plain 
country, very fertile, but picturesque 
only from the view it has of Caernar- 
vonshire, from which it is separated by 
the Menai, a narrow arm of the sea. 
Forgive me for supposing in you such a 
want of erudition. 

* His poem Sur la Destruction de Lisbon, 
published about that time. 

f The reviewers, at the time, were supposed 
to be of t4iese professions. 

X Mr. Mason had sent him his first idea of 
Caractacus, drawn out in a short argument. 



I congratulate you on our glorious 
successes in the Mediterranean. Shall 
we go in time, and hire a house together 
in Switzerland ? It is a fine poetical 
country to look at, and nobody there 
will understand a word we say or write. 



LETTER LXXIV. 

Mr. Gray to Mr. Mason, 

Cambridge, May, 1757. 
You are so forgetful of me that I should 
not forgive it, but that I suppose Ca- 
ractacus may be the better for it. Yet I 
hear nothing from him neither, in spite 
of his promises : there is no faith in man, 
no not in a Welchman ; and yet Mr. 
Parry § has been here, and scratched out 
such ravishing blind harmony, such tunes 
of a thousand years old, with names 
enough to choak you, as have set all this 
learned body a-dancing, and inspired 
them with due reverence for my old 
Bard his countryman, whenever he shall 
appear. Mr. Parry, you must know, has 
put my Ode in motion again, and has 
brought it at last to a conclusion. It is 
to him, therefore, that you owe the 
treat which I send you inclosed ; namely, 
the breast and merry-thought, and rump 
too of the chicken which I have been 
chewing so long, that I would give the 
world for neck -beef or cow-heel. 

You will observe, in the beginning of 
this thing, some alteration of a few 
words, partly for improvement, and partly 
to avoid repetitions of like words and 
rhymes ; yet I have not got rid of them 
all ; the six last lines of the fifth stanza 
are new ; tell me whether they will do. 
I am well aware of many weakly things 
towards the conclusion, but I hope the 
end itself will do ; give me your full and 
true opinion, and that not upon delibera- 
tion, but forthwith. Mr. Hurd himself 
allows that lion port is not too bold for 
queen Elizabeth. 

I have got the old Scotch ballad on 
which Douglas was founded ; it is di- 
vine, and as long as from hence to Aston. 
Have you never seen it? Aristotle's best 
rules are observed in it, in a manner that 
shews the author had never read Aristotle. 
It begins in the fifth act of the play : you 

§ A capital performer on the Welch harp, 
and who was either born blind, or had been so 
from his infancy. 



Sect. I. 



R E C E N T. 



387 



may read it two-thirds through without 
guessing what it is about : and yet, when 
you come to the end, it is impossible not 
to understand the whole story. I send 
you the two first stanzas, 
•jt -x- * * 



LETTER LXXV. 

Mr. Grai/ to Mr. Hurd*. 

Stoke, Aug. 25, 17o7. 
I DO not know why you should thank me 
for what you had a right and title to f ; 
but attribute it to the excess of your po- 
liteness : and the more so, because almost 
no one else has made me the same com- 
pliment. As your acquaintance in the 
University (you say) do me the honour 
to admire, it would be ungenerous in me 
not to give them notice, that they are 
doing a very unfashionable thing ; for all 
people of condition are agreed not to ad- 
mire, nor even to understand. One very 
great man, writing to an acquaintance 
of his and mine, says that he had read 
them seven or eight times ; and that now, 
when he next sees him, he shall not have 
above thirti/ questions to ask. Another 
(a peer) believes that the last stanza of 
the second Ode relates to king Charles 
the First and Oliver Cromwell. Even 
my friends tell me they do not succeed, 
and write me moving topics of consola- 
tion on that head. In short, I have heard 
of nobody but an actor and a doctor of 
divinity that profess their esteem for 
them. Oh yes, a lady of quality (a friend 
of Mason's), who is a great reader. She 
knew there was a compliment to Dry den, 
bat never suspected there was any thing 
said about Shakspeare or Milton, till it 
was explained to her ; and wishes that 
there had been titles prefixed to tell 
what they were about. 

From this mention of Mason's name 
you may think, perhaps, we are great 
correspondents. No such thing ; I have 
not heard from him these two months. I 
will be sure to scold in my own name, as 
well as in yours. I rejoice to hear you 
are so ripe for the press, and so volumi- 
nous ; not for my own sake only, whom 
you flatter with the hopes of seeing your 
labours both public and private, but for 
yours too ; for to be employed is to be 
* Aftevwards bishop of Worcester. 

f A present of his two Pindaric Odes, just 
then published. 



happy. This principle of mine (and I 
am convinced of its truth) has, as usual, 
no influence on my practice. I am alone, 
and ennuye to the last degree, yet do no- 
thing : indeed I have one excuse ; my 
health (which you have so kindly in- 
quired after) is not extraordinary, ever 
since I came hither. It is no great ma- 
lady, but several little ones, that seem 
brewing no good to me. It will be a 
particular pleasure to me to hear whe- 
ther Content dwells in Leicestershire, 
and how she entertains herself there. 
Only do not be too happy, nor forget en- 
tirely the quiet ugliness of Cambridge. 

LETTER LXXVI. 

Mr. Gray to Mr, Mason, 

Cambridge, Dec. 12, 17.57. 
A LIFE spent out of the world has its 
hours of despondence, its inconveniences, 
its sufferings, as numerous and as real, 
though not quite of the same sort, as 
a life spent in the midst of it. The power 
we have, when we will exert it over our 
own minds, joined to a little strength 
and consolation, nay, a little pride we 
catch from those that seem to love us, is 
our only support in either of these con- 
ditions. I am sensible I cannot return 
you more of this assistance than I have 
received from you ; and can only tell 
you, that one, who has far more reason 
than you, I hope, ever will have to look 
on life with something worse than indif- 
ference, is yet no enemy to it ; but can 
look backward on many bitter moments, 
partly with satisfaction, and partly with 
patience ; and forward too on a scene 
not very promising, with some hope, and 
some expectations of a better day. The 
cause, however, which occasioned your 
reflection (though I can judge but very 
imperfectly of it), does not seem, at pre- 
sent, to be weighty enough to make you 
take any such resolution as you meditate. 
Use it in its season, as a relief from what 
is tiresome to you, but not as if it was in 
consequence of any thing you take ill ; 
on the contrary, if such a thing had hap- 
pened at the time of your transmigra- 
tion, I would defer it merely to avoid 
that appearance. 

As to myself, I cannot boast, at pre- 
sent, either of my spirits, my situation, 
my employments, or fertility. The days 
and the nights pass, and I am never the 
2 C 2 



^88 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



nearer to any thing, but that one to which 
we are all tending ; yet I love people that 
leave some traces of their journey behind 
them, and have strength enough to ad- 
vise you to do so while you can. I ex- 
pect to see Caractacus completed, and 
therefore I send you the books you 
wanted. I do not know whether they 
will furnish you with any new matter ; 
but they are well enough written, and 
easily read. I told you beforcj that (in 
a time of dearth) I would borrow from 
the Edda, without entering too minutely 
on particulars ; but if I did so, I would 
make each image so clear, that it might 
be fully understood by itself ; for in this 
obscure mythology we must not hint at 
things, as we do with the Greek fables, 
that every body is supposed to know at 
school. However, on second thoughts, 
I think it would be still better to graft 
any wild picturesque fable, absolutely of 
one's own invention, on the Druid stock ; 
I mean on those half dozen of old fancies 
that are known to be a part of their sys- 
tem. This will give you more freedom 
and latitude, and will leave no hold for 
the critics to fasten on. 

I send you back the elegy*, as you de- 
sired me to do. My advices are always 
at your service to take or to refuse, there- 
fore you should not call them severe. 
You know I do not love, much less pique 
myself on criticism ; and think even a 
bad verse as good a thing or better than 
the best observation that ever was made 
upon it. I like greatly the spirit and 
sentiment of it (much of which you per- 
haps owe to your present train of think- 
ing) : the disposition of the whole too is 
natural and elegiac ; as to the expression, 
I would venture to say (did not you for- 
bid me) that it is sometimes too easy. 
The last line I protest against (this, you 
will say, is worse than blotting out 
rhymes) ; the descriptive part is ex- 
cellent. 

Pray, when did I pretend to finish, or 
even insert passages into other people's 
works, as if it were equally easy to pick 
holes and to mend them ? All I can say 
is, that your elegy must not end with 
the worst line in it. It is flat ; it is 
prose ; whereas that, above all, ought to 
sparkle, or at least to shine. If the sen- 
timent must stand, twirl it into an apo- 
phthegm ; stick a flower in it ; gild it 

f Elegy in the Garden of a Friend. 



with a costly expression ; let it strike 
the fancy, the ear, or the heart, and I 
am satisfied. 

The other particular expressions which 
I object to, I mark on the manuscript. 
Now, I desire you would neither think 
me severe, nor at all regard what I say 
further than as it coincides with your own 
judgment : for the child deserves your 
partiality ; it is a healthy well-made boy, 
with an ingenuous countenance, and pro- 
mises to live long. I would only wash 
its face, dress it a little, make it walk 
upright and strong, and keep it from 
learning paiv words. 

I hope you couched my refusal f to 
lord John Cavendish in as respectful 
terms as possible, and with all due ac- 
knowledgments to the duke. If you hear 
who it is to be given to, pray let me 
know ; for I interest myself a little in 
the history of it, and rather wish some- 
body may accept it that will retrieve the 
credit of the thing, if it be retrievable, 
or ever had any credit. Rowe was, I 
think, the last man of character that 
had it ; Eusden was a person of great 
hopes in his youth, though at last he 
turned out a drunken parson ; Dryden 
was as disgraceful to the office, from his 
character, as the poorest scribbler could 
have been from his verses. 



LETTER LXXVII. 

Mr. Gray to Dr. Wharton. 

February 21, 1758. 
Would you know what I am doing ? I 
doubt you have been told already, and 
hold my employments cheap enough ; but 
every one must judge of his own capabi- 
lity, and cut his amusements according 
to his disposition. The drift of my pre- 
sent studies is to know, wherever I am, 
what lies within reach that may be worth 
seeing, whether it be building, ruin, park, 
garden, prospect, picture, or monument; 
to whom it doth or has belonged, and 
what has been the characteristic and taste 
of different ages. You will say this is the 

f Of being poet-laureat on the death of 
Cibber, which place the late duke of Devon- 
shire (then lord chamberlain) desired his bro- 
ther to offer to Mr. Gray ; and his lordship 
had commissioned Mr. Mason (then in town) 
to write to him concerning it. 



Sect. 1. 



RECENT. 



389 



object of all antiquaries ; but pray what 
antiquary ever saw these objects in the 
same light, or desired to know them for 
a like reason ? In short, say what you 
please, I am persuaded whenever my list 
is finished you will approve it, and think 
it of no small use. My spirits are very 
near the freezing point ; and for some 
hours of the day this exercise, by its 
warmth and gentle motion, serves to 
raise them a few degrees higher. 

I hope the misfortune that has befallen 
Mrs. Gibber's canary bird will not be the 
ruin of Agis : it is probable you will have 
curiosity enough to see it, as it is by the 
author of Douglas. 



LETTER LXXVIII. 

From the same to the same. 

Cambridge, March 8, 1758. 

It is indeed for want of spirits, as you 
suspect, that my studies lie among the 
cathedrals, and the tombs, and the ruins. 
To think, though to little purpose, has 
been the chief amusement of my days ; 
and when I would not, or cannot think, 
I dream. At present I feel myself able 
to write a catalogue, or to read the Peer- 
age book, or Miller's Gardening Dic- 
tionary, and am thankful that there are 
such employments and such authors in 
the world. Some people, who hold me 
cheap for this, are doing perhaps what is 
not half so well worth while. As to pos- 
terity, I may ask (with somebody whom 
I have forgot), what has it ever done to 
oblige me ? 

To make a transition from myself to 
as poor a subject, the tragedy of Agis : 
I cry to think that it should be by the 
author of Douglas : why, it is all modern 
Greek ; the story is an antique statue 
painted white and red, frizzed, and dressed 
in a negligee made by a Yorkshire man- 
tua-maker. Then here is the Miscellany 
(Mr. Dodsley has sent me the whole set 
gilt and lettered ; I thank him). Why, 
the two last volumes are worse than the 
four first ; particularly Dr. Akenside is 
in a deplorable way. What signifies 
learning and the ancients (Mason will 
say triumphantly) ; why should people 
read Greek to lose their imagination, 
their ear, and their mother tongue ? But 
then there is Mr. Shenstone, who trusts 
to nature and simple sentiment, why 



does he do no better? He goes hopping 
along his own gravel walks, and never 
deviates from the beaten paths for fear 
of being lost. 

I have read Dr. Swift, and am disap- 
pointed*. There is nothing of the ne- 
gotiations that I have not seen better in 
M . de Torcy before. The manner is care- 
less, and has little to distinguish it from 
common writers. I meet with nothing 
to please me but the spiteful characters 
of the opposite party and its leaders. I 
expected much more secret history. 



LETTER LXXIX. 

Mr. Gray to Mr. Stonehewer. 

Cambridge, August 13, 1758. 
I AM as sorry as you seem to be, that 
our acquaintance harped so much on the 
subject of materialism, when I saw him 
with you in town, because it was plain to 
which side of the long-debated question 
he inclined. That we are indeed me- 
chanical and dependent beings, I need 
no other proof than my own feelings ; 
and from the same feelings I learn, with 
equal conviction, that we are not merely 
such ; that there is a power within that 
struggles against the force and bias of 
that mechanism, commands its motion, 
and, by frequent practice, reduces it to 
that ready obedience which we call habit ; 
and all this in conformity to a precon- 
ceived opinion (no matter whether right 
or wrong), to that least material of all 
agents, a thought. I have known many 
in his case, who, while they thought they 
were conquering an old prejudice, did 
not perceive they were under the influ- 
ence of one far more dangerous ; one 
that furnishes us with a ready apology 
for all our worst actions, and opens to 
us a full license for doing whatever we 
please ; and yet these very people were 
not at all the more indulgent to other 
men (as they naturally should have been) : 
their indignation to such as offended 
them, their desire of revenge on any 
body that hurt them, was nothing miti- 
gated : in short, the truth is, they wished 
to be persuaded of that opinion for the 
sake of its convenience, but were not so 
in their heart ; and thev would have been 



* His History of the four last years of Queen 
Anne. 



390 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV 



glad (as they ought in common pru- 
dence), that nohody else should think the 
same, for fear of the mischief that might 
ensue to themselves. His French author 
I never saw, but have read fifty in the 
same strain, and shall read no more. I 
can be wretched enough without them. 
They put me in mind of the Greek sophist, 
that got immortal honour by discoursing 
so feelingly on the miseries of our con- 
dition, that fifty of his audience went 
home and hanged themselves ; yet he 
lived himself (I suppose) many years after 
in very good plight. 

You say you cannot conceive how 
lord Shaftesbury came to be a philoso- 
pher in vogue ; I will teU you : 1st, he 
was a lord ; 2dly, he was as vain as any 
of his readers ; 3dly, men are very prone 
to believe what they do not understand ; 
4thly, they will believe any thing at all, 
provided they are under no obligation to 
believe it ; 5thly, they love to take a new 
road, even when that road leads no- 
where ; 6thly, he was reckoned a fine 
writer, and seemed always to mean more 
than he said. Would you have anymore 
reasons ? An interval of above forty years 
has pretty well destroyed the charm. A 
dead lord ranks but with commoners : 
vanity is no longer interested in the mat- 
ter, for the new road is become an old 
one. The mode of free-thinking is like 
that of ruffs and farthingales, and has 
given place to the mode of not thinking 
at all ; once it was reckoned graceful, 
half to discover and half conceal the mind, 
but now we have been long accustomed 
to see it quite naked : primness and af- 
fectation of style, like the good-breeding 
of queen Anne's court, has turned to 
hoydening and rude familiarity. 



LETTER LXXX. 

Mr. Gray to Mr. Wharton. 

Sunday, April 9, 1758. 
I AM equally sensible of your affliction*, 
and of your kindness, that made you 
think of me at such a moment : would 
to God I could lessen the one, or requite 
the other with that consolation which I 
have often received from you when I most 
wanted it ! but your grief is too just, and 



* Occasioned by the death of his eldest (and 
at that time his only) son. 



the cause of it too fresh to admit of any 
such endeavour : what, indeed, is all hu- 
man consolation ? Can it efface every 
little amiable word or action of an object 
we loved, from our memory? Can it 
convince us, that all the hopes we had 
entertained, the plans of future satisfac- 
tion we had formed, were ill-grounded 
and vain, only because we have lost 
them ? The only comfort (I am afraid) 
that belongs to our condition, is to re- 
flect (when time has given us leisure for 
reflection) that others have suffered 
worse ; or that we ourselves might have 
sufi^ered the same misfortune at times 
and in circumstances that would proba- 
bly have aggravated our sorrow. You 
might have seen this poor child arrived 
at an age to fulfil all your hopes, to at- 
tach you more strongly to him by long 
habit, by esteem, as well as natural af- 
fection, and that towards the decline of 
your life, when we most stand in need of 
support, and when he might chance to 
have been your only support ; and then 
by some unforeseen and deplorable ac- 
cident, or some painful lingering dis- 
temper, you might have lost him. Such 
has been the fate of many an unhappy 
father. I know there is a sort of tender- 
ness which infancy and innocence alone 
produce ; but I think you must own the 
other to be a stronger and a more over- 
whelming sorrow. Let me then beseech 
you to try, by every method of avocation 
and amusement, Avhether you cannot, by 
degrees, get the better of that dejection 
of spirits, which inclines you to see every 
thing in the worst light possible, and 
throws a sort of a voluntary gloom, not 
only over your present, but future days ; 
as if even your situation now were not 
preferable to that of thousands round 
you ; and as if your prospect hereafter 
might not open as much of happiness to 
you as to any person you know : the con- 
dition of our life perpetually instructs us 
to be rather slow to hope, as well as to 
despair; and (I know you will forgive 
me, if I tell you) you are often a little too 
hasty in both, perhaps from constitution. 
It is sure we have great power over our 
own minds, when we choose to exert it ; 
and though it be difficult to resist the 
mechanic impulse and bias of our own 
temper, it is yet possible, and still more 
so, to delay those resolutions it inclines 
us to take, which we almost always have 
cause to repent. 



ECT. I, 



RECENT. 



391 



You tell me nothing of Mrs. Whar- 
ton's or your own state of health : I will 
not talk to you more upon this subject till 
I hear you are both well ; for that is the 
grand point, and without it we may as 
well not think at all. You flatter me in 
thinking that any thing I can do * could 
at all alleviate the just concern your loss 
has given you ; but I cannot flatter my- 
self so far, and know how little qualified 
I am at present to give any satisfaction 
to myself on this head, and in this way, 
much less to you. 1 by no means pre- 
tend to inspiration; but yet I affirm, 
that the faculty in question is by no 
means voluntary ; it is the result (I sup- 
pose) of a certain disposition of mind, 
which does not depend on one's self, and 
which I have not felt this long time. 
You, that are a witness how seldom this 
spirit has moved me in my life, may 
easily give credit to what I say. 

LETTER LXXXI. 

Mr. Gray to Mr. Palgrave f. 

Stoke, Sept. 6, 1 758. 
I DO not know how to make you amends, 
having neither rock, ruin, nor precipice, 
near me to send you ; they do not grow 
in the south ; but only say the word, if 
you would have a compact neat box of 
red brick with sash windows, or a grotto 
made of flints and shell work, or a wal- 
nut tree with three mole hills under it, 
stuck with honeysuckles round a bason 
of gold fishes, and you shall be satisfied ; 
they shall come by the Edinburgh coach. 
In the mean time I congratulate you 
on your new acquaintance with the sa- 
vage, the rude, and the tremendous. 
Pray tell me, is it any thing like what 
you had read in your book, or seen in 
two shilling prints ? Do not you think 
a man may be the wiser (I had almost 
said the better) for going a hundred or 
two of miles ; and that the mind has 
more room in it than most people seem 
to think, if you will but furnish the 
apartments? I almost envy your last 
month, being in a very insipid situation 
myself : and desire you would not fail to 
send me some furniture for my Gothic 

* His friend had requested him to write an 
epitaph on the child. 

f Rector of Palgrave and Thrandeston in 
Suffolk. He was making a tour in Scotland 
when this letter was written to him. 



apartment, which is very cold at present. 
It will be the easier task, as you have 
nothing to do but transcribe your little 
red books, if they are not rubbed out ; 
for I conclude you have not trusted every 
thing to memory, which is ten times 
worse than a lead pencil : half a word 
fixed upon or near a spot, is worth a 
cart load of recollection. When we trust 
to the picture that objects draw of them- 
selves on our minds, we deceive ourselves 5 
without accurate and particular observa- 
tion, it is but ill-drawn at first, the out- 
lines are soon blurred, the colours every 
day grow fainter ; and at last, when we 
would produce it to any body, we are 
forced to supply its defects with a few^ 
strokes of our own imagination. God 
forgive me, I suppose I have done so 
myself before now, and misled many a 
good body that put their trust in me. 
Pray, tell me (but with permission, and 
without any breach of hospitality), is it 
so much warmer on the other side of the 
Swale (as some people of honour say) 
than it is here ? Has the singing of birds, 
the bleating of sheep, the lowing of 
herds, deafened you at Rainton ? Did the 
vast old oaks and thick groves in Nor- 
thumberland keep off the sun too much 
from you ? I am too civil to extend my 
inquiries beyond Berwick. Every thing, 
doubtless, must improve upon you as you 
advance northward. You must tell me, 
though, about Melross, Rosslin Chapel, 
and Arbroath. In short, jour portfeuille 
must be so full, that I only desire a loose 
chapter or two, and will wait for the 
rest till it comes out. 



LETTER LXXXII. 

From the same to the same, 

London, July 24, 1739. 
I AM now settled in my new territories, 
commanding Bedford gardens, and all 
the fields as far as Highgate and Hamp- 
stead, with such a concourse of moving 
pictures as would astonish you ; so rus-in- 
urbe-ish, that I believe I shall stay here, 
except little excursions and vagaries, for 
a year to come. What though I am se- 
parated from the fashionable world by 
Broad St. Giles's, and many a dirty court 
and alley, yet here is air, and sunshine, 
and quiet, however, to comfort you : I 
shall confess that I am basking with heat 
all the summer, and I suppose shall be 



392 



ELEGANT EPISTLES, 



Book IV. 



blown down all the winter, besides being 
robbed every night; I trust, however, 
that the Musseum, with all its manu- 
scripts and rarities by the cart-load, will 
make ample amends for all the aforesaid 
inconveniencies. 

I this day passed through the jaws of 
a great leviathan into the den of Dr. 
Templeman, superintendant of the read- 
ing-room, who congratulated himself on 
the sight of so much good company. We 
were, 1st, a man that writes for lord 
Royston; 2dly, a man that writes for 
Dr. Burton, of York ; 3dly, a man that 
writes for the emperor of Germany, or 
Dr. Pocock, for he speaks the worst 
English I ever heard ; 4thly, Dr. Stukely , 
who writes for himself, the very worst 
person he could write for; and lastly, I, 
wko only read to know if there be any 
thing worth writing, and that not with- 
out some difficulty. I find that they 
printed 1000 copies of the Harleian Ca- 
talogue, and have sold only fourscore ; 
that they have 900/. a-year income, and 
spend 1 300/. and are building apartments 
for the under-keepers ; so I expect in 
vidnter to see the collection advertised 
and set to auction. 

Have you read lord Clarendon's Con- 
tinuation of his History ? Do you remem- 
ber Mr. * ^ 's account of it before it came 
out? How well he recollected all the 
faults, and how utterly he forgot all the 
beauties : surely the grossest taste is bet- 
ter than such a sort of delicacy. 

LETTER LXXXIIL 

Mr. Gray to Dr. Wharton. 

London, June 22, 1760. 

1 AM not sorry to hear you are exceed- 
ing busy, except as it has deprived me of 
the pleasure I should have of hearing 
often from you ; and as it has been oc- 
casioned by a little vexation and disap- 
pointment. To find one's self business, 
I am persuaded, is the great art of life ; 
I am never so angry as when I hear my 
acquaintance wishing they had been bred 
to some poking profession, or employed 
in some office of drudgery, as if it were 
pleasanter to be at the command of other 
people than at one's own ; and as if they 
could not go unless they were wound up : 
yet I know and feel what they mean by 
this complaint ; it proves that some spi- 
rit, something of genius (more than 



common) is required to teach a man how 
to employ himself : I say a man ; for wo- 
men, commonly speaking, never feel this 
distemper, they have always something 
to do ; time hangs not on their hands 
(unless they be fine ladies) ; a variety of 
small inventions and occupations fill up 
the void, and their eyes are never open 
in vain. 

As to myself, 1 have again found rest 
for the sole of my gouty foot in your old 
dining-room*, and hope that you will 
find at least an equal satisfaction at Old 
Park ; if your bog prove as comfortable 
ag my oven, I shall see no occasion to 
pity you, and only wish you may brew 
no worse than I bake. 

You totally mistake my talents, when 
you impute to me any magical skill in. 
planting roses : I know I am no conju- 
rer in these things ; when they are done 
1 can find fault, and that is all. Now 
this is the very reverse of genius, and I 
feel my own littleness. Reasonable peo- 
ple know themselves better than is com- 
monly imagined ; and therefore (though 
I never saw any instance of it) I believe 
Mason when he tells me that he under- 
stands these things. The prophetic eye 
of taste (as Mr. Pitt called it) sees all the 
beauties that a place is susceptible of, 
long before they are born ; and when it 
plants a seedling, already sits under the 
shadow of it, and enjoys the effect it 
will have from every point of view that 
lies in prospect. You must therefore in- 
voke Caractacus, and he will send his 
spirits from the top of Snowdon to Cross- 
fall or Warden-lav/. 

I am much obliged to you for your an- 
tique news. Froissard is a favourite book 
of mine (though I have not attentively 
read him, but only dipped here and 
there) ; and it is strange to me that peo- 
ple, who would give thousands for a 
dozen portraits (originals of that time) 
to furnish a gallery, should never cast an 
eye on so many moving pictures of the 
life, actions, manners, and thoughts of 
their ancestors, done on the spot, and in 
strong, though simple colours. In the 
succeeding century Froissard, 1 find, was 
read with great satisfaction by every 
body that could read ; and on the same 

* The house in Southampton Row, where Mr. 
Gray lodged, had been tenanted by Dr. Whar- 
ton j who, on account of his ill health, left Lon- 
don the year before, and was removed to his 
paternal estate at Old Park, near Durham. 



Sect. I. 



RECENT. 



393 



footing with kitig Arthur, sir Tristram, 
and archbishop Turpin ; not because 
they thought him a fabulous writer, but 
because they took them all for true and 
authentic historians ; to so little purpose 
was it in that age for a man to be at the 
pains of writing truth. Pray, are you 
come to the four Irish kings, that went 
to school to king Richard the Second's 
master of the ceremonies, and the man 
who informed Froissard of all he had 
seen in St. Patrick's purgatory ? 

The town are reading the king of 
Prussia's poetry (La Fhilosophe sans 
Souci), and I have done like the town; 
they do not seem so sick of it as I am ; 
it is all the scum of Voltaire and lord 
Bolingbroke, the crambe-recocta of our 
worst freethinkers, tossed up in German- 
French rhyme. Tristram Shandy is still 
a greater object of admiration, the man 
as well as the book : one is invited to 
dinner, where he dined a fortnight be- 
fore. As to the volumes yet published, 
there is much good fun in them, and 
humour sometimes hit and sometimes 
missed. Have you read his Sermons, 
with his own comic figure, from a paint- 
ing by Reynolds, at the head of them? 
They are in the style I think most proper 
for the pulpit, and shew a strong imagi- 
nation and a sensible heart ; but you see 
him often tottering on the verge of 
laughter, and ready to throw his peri- 
wig in the face of the audience. 



LETTER LXXXIV. 

Mr. Gray to Mr. Stnnehewer. 

London, June 29, 1760 
Though you have had but a melancholy 
employment, it is worthy of envy, and 
(I hope) *will have all the success it de- 
serves*. It was the best and most na- 
tural method of cure, and such as could 
not have been administered by any but 
your gentle hand. 1 thank you for com- 
municating to me what must give you 
so much satisfaction. 

1 too was reading M. D'Alembert, and 
(like you) am totally disappointed in his 
Elements. I could only taste a little of 
the first course : it was dry as a stick, 
hard as a stone, and cold as a cucumber. 

* Mr. Stonehewer was now at HoughtOn-le- 
Spring, in the bishoprick of Durham, attending 
«n his sick father, rector of that parish. 



But then the letter to Rousseau is like 
himself: and the discourses on elocution, 
and on the liberty of music, are divine. 
He has added to his translations from 
Tacitus ; and (what is remarkable) though 
that author's manner more nearly re- 
sembles the best French writers of the 
present age, than any thing, he totally 
fails in the attempt. Is it his fault, or 
that of the language ? 

I have received another Scotch packet 
with a third specimen, inferior in kind 
(because it is merely description), but yet 
full of nature and noble wild imagina- 
tion. Five bards pass the night at the 
castle of a chief (himself a principal 
bard) ; each goes in his turn to observe 
the face of things, and returns with an 
extempore picture of the changes he has 
seen (it is an October night, the harvest 
month of the Highlands). This is the 
whole plan ; yet there is a contrivance, 
and a preparation of ideas, that you 
would not expect. The oddest thing is, 
that every one of them sees ghosts (more 
or less). The idea that struck and sur- 
prised me most, is the following. One of 
them, (describing a storm of wind and 
rain) says 

Ghosts ride on the tempest to-night! 

Sweet is their voice between the gusts of windj 

Their songs are of other worlds! 

Did you never observe (while rocking 
winds are piping loud) that pause, as the 
gust is recollecting itself, and rising upon 
the ear in a shrill and plaintive note, like 
the swell of an ^olian harp ? I do assure 
you there is nothing in the world so like 
the voice of a spirit. Thomson had an 
ear sometimes : he was not deaf to this ; 
and has described it gloriously, but given 
it another different turn, and of more 
horror. I cannot repeat the lines : it is 
in his Winter. There is another very fine 
picture in one of them. It describes the 
breaking of the clouds after the storm, 
before it is settled into a calm, and when 
the moon is seen by short intervals. 

The waves are tumbling on the lake, 

And lash the rocky sides: 

The boat is brimful in the cove. 

The oars on the rocking tide. 

Sad sits a maid beneath a cliff. 

And eyes the rolling stream: 

Her lover promised to come : 

She saw his boat (when it was evening) on the 

lake; 
Are these his groans in the gale? 
Is this his broken boat on the shore? 



394 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



LETTER LXXXV. 

Mr. Gray to Dr. Clarke*. 

Pembroke Hall, Aug. 12, 1760. 
Not knowing whether you are yet re- 
turned from your sea water, I write at 
random to you. For me, I am come to 
my resting place, and find it very neces- 
sary, after living for a month in a house 
with three women that laughed from 
morning to night, and would allow no- 
thing to the sulkiness of my disposition. 
Company and cards at home, parties hy 
land and water abroad, and (what they 
call) doing something, that is, racket- 
ing about from morning to night, are 
occupations, I find, that wear out my 
spirits, especially in a situation where 
one might sit still, and be alone with 
pleasure ; for the place was a hillf like 
Clifden, opening to a very extensive and 
diversified landscape, with the Thames, 
which is navigable, running at its foot. 

I would wish to continue here (in a 
very different scene, it must be confessed) 
till Michaelmas ; but I fear I must come 
to town much sooner. Cambridge is a 
delight of a place, now there is nobody 
in it. I do believe you would like it, if 
you knew what it was without inha- 
bitants. It is they, I assure you, that get 
it an ill name and spoil all. Our friend 
Dr. — (one of its nuisances) is not ex- 
pected here again in a hurry. He is gone 
to his grave with five fine mackarel 
(large and full of roe) in his belly. He 
ate them all at one dinner : but his fare 
was a turbot on Trinity Sunday, of which 
he left little for the company besides 
bones. He had not been hearty all the 
week ! but after this sixth fish he never 
held up his head more, and a violent 
looseness carried him off. They say he 
made a very good end. 

Have you seen the Erse fragments since 
they were printed ? I am more puzzled 
than ever about their antiquity, though 
I still incline (against every body's opi- 
nion) to believe them old. Those you 
have already seen are the best ; though 
there are some others that are excellent 
too. 



* Physician at Epsom. With this gentle- 
man Mr. Gray commenced an early acquaint- 
ance at College. 

f Near Henley. 



LETTER LXXXVI. 

Mr. Gray to Mr. Mason. 

Cambridge, Aug. 20, 17G0. 
I HAVE sent Musseus back as you desired 
me, scratched here and there ; and with 
it also a bloody satire, written against 
no less persons than you and I by name. 
I concluded at first it was Mr. * *, be- 
cause he is your friend and my humble 
servant ; but then I thought he knew the 
world too well to call us the favourite 
minions of taste and fashion, especially 
as to odes. For to them his ridicule is 
confined; so it is not he, but Mr. Col- 
man, nephew to lady Bath, author of 
the Connoisseur, a member of one of the 
inns of court, and a particular acquaint- 
ance of Mr. Garrick. What have you 
done to him ? for I never heard his name 
before ;'he makes very tolerable fun with 
me where I understand him (which is not 
everywhere) ; but seems more angry 
with you. Lest people should not under- 
stand the humour of the thing (which in- 
deed to do they must have our lyricisms 
at their finger-ends), letters come out in 
Lloyd's Evening Post to tell them who 
and what it was that he meant, and says 
it is like to produce a great combustion 
in the literary world. So if you have any 
mind to comhustle about it, well and 
good ; for me, I am neither so literary 
nor so combustible. The Monthly Re- 
view, I see, just now has much stuff 
about us on this occasion. It says one of 
us at least has always borne his faculties 
meekly. I leave you to guess which of 
us that is ; I think 1 know. You simple- 
ton you ! you must be meek, must you ? 
and see what you get by it. 



LETTER LXXXVII. 

Mr. Gray to Dr. Wharton. 

London, 17()1. 
I REJOICE to find that you not only grow 
reconciled to your northern scene, but 
discover beauties round you that once 
were deformities : I am persuaded the 
whole matter is to have always some- 
thing going forward. Happy they that 
can create a rose tree, or erect a honey- 
suckle ; that can watch the brood of a 
hen, or see a fleet of their own ducklings 
launch into the water : it is with a sen- 
timent of envy I speak it, who never shall 



Sect. I, 



RECENT. 



395 



have even a thatched roof of my own, 
nor gather a strawberry but in Covent- 
Garden. I will not, however, believe in 
the vocality of Old-Park till next sum- 
mer, when perhaps I may trust to my 
own ears. 

The Nouvelle Heloise cruelly disap- 
pointed me ; but it has its partisans, 
amongst which are Mason and Mr. 
Hurd : for me, I admire nothing but 
Fingal (I conclude you have seen it, if 
not Stonehewer can lend it you) ; yet I 
remain still in doubt about the authen- 
ticity of these poems, though inclining 
rather to believe them genuine in spite 
of the world ; whether they are the in- 
ventions of antiquity, or of a modern 
Scotchman, either case is to me alike 
unaccountable ; je m*y perd. 

I send you a Swedish and English ca- 
lendar ; the first column is by Berger, a 
disciple of Linnaeus ; the second by Mr. 
Stillingfleet ; the third (very imperfect 
indeed) by me. You are to observe, as 
you tend your plantations and take your 
walks, how the spring advances in the 
north, and whether Old Park most re- 
sembles Upsal or Stratton. The latter 
has on one side a barren black heath, on 
the other a light sandy loam ; all the 
country about is a dead flat : you see it 
is necessary you should know the situa- 
tion (I do not mean any reflection upon 
any body's place) ; and this is the de- 
scription Mr. Stillingfleet gives of his 
friend Mr. Marsham's seat, to which he 
retires in the summer, and botanizes. I 
have lately made an acquaintance with 
this philosopher, who lives in a garret 
here in the winter, that he may support 
some near relations who depend upon 
him ; he is always employed, conse- 
quently (according to my old maxim) al- 
ways happy, always cheerful, and Seems 
to me a very worthy honest man : his 
present scheme is to send some persons 
properly qualified to reside a year or two 
in Attica, to make themselves acquainted 
with the climate, productions, and na- 
tural history of the country, that we may 
understand Aristotle, Theophrastus, &c. 
who have been Heathen Greek to us for 
so many ages ; and this he has got pro- 
posed to lord Bute, no unlikely person 
to put it into execution, as he is himself 
a botanist. 



LETTER LXXXVIIL 

Mr. Gray to Mr. Mason. 

August, 1761. 
Be assured your York canon never will 
die ; so the better the thing is in value, 
the worse for you*. The true way to 
immortality is to get you nominated 
one's successor : age and diseases vanish 
at your name ; fevers turn to radical 
heat, and fistulas to issues : it is a judg- 
ment that waits on your insatiable ava- 
rice. You could not let the poor old 
man die at his ease, when he was about 
it ; and all his family (I suppose) are 
cursing you for it. 

I wrote to lord on his recovery ; 

and he answers me very cheerfully, as if 
his illness had been but slight, and the 
pleurisy were no more than a hole in 
one's stocking. He got it (he says) not 
by scampering, racketing, and riding 
post, as I had supposed ; but by going 
with ladies to Vauxhall. He is the pic- 
ture (and pray so tell him, if you see 
him) of an old alderman that I knew, 
who, after living forty years on the fat 
of the land (not milk and honey, but 
arrack, punch, and venison), and losing 
his great toe with a mortification, said 
to the last, that he owed it to two 
grapes, which he ate one day after din- 
ner. He felt them lie cold at his sto- 
mach, the minute they were down. 

Mr. Montagu (a9 I guess, at your in- 
stigation) has earnestly desired me to 
write some lines to be put on a monu- 
ment, which he means to erect at Bell- 
isle. It is a task I do not love, knowing 
sir William Williams so slightly as I did : 
but he is so friendly a person, and his 
affliction seemed to me so real, that I 
could not refuse him. I have sent him 
the following verses, which I neither like 
myself, nor will he, I doubt ; however, 
I have shewed him that I wished to 
oblige him. Tell me your real opinion. 

LETTER LXXXIX. 

Mr, Gray to Dr. Wharton, 

Cambridge, Dec. 4, 1762. 
I FEEL very ungrateful every day that I 
continue silent ; and yet now that I take 

* This was written at a time, when, by the 
favour of Dr. Fountayne, dean of York, Mr. 
Mason expected to be made a residentiary in 
his cathedral. 



396 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



my pen in hand, I have only time to tell 
you, that of all the places which I 
saw in my return from you, Hardwicke 
pleased me the most*. One would 
think that Mary Queen of Scots was but 
just walked down into the park with 
her guard for half an hour : her gallery, 
her room of audience, her ante-cham- 
ber, with the very canopies, chair of 
state, foot-stool, lit de repos, oratory, 
carpets, and hangings, just as she left 
them ; a little tattered indeed, but the 
more venerable ; and all preserved with 
religious care, and papered up in win- 
ter. 

When I arrived in London, I found 
professor Turner f had been dead above 
a fortnight; and being cockered and 
spirited up by some friends (though it 
was rather the latest) 1 got my name 
suggested to lord Bute. You may ea- 
sily imagine who undertook it, and in- 
deed he did it with zeal J. I received 
my answer very soon, which was what 
you may easily imagine, but joined with 
great professions of his desire to serve 
me on future occasions, and many more 
fine words that I pass over, not out of 
modesty, but for another reason : so 
you see I have made my fortune like 
sir Francis Wronghead. This nothing 
is a profound secret, and no one here 
suspects it even now. To-day I hear 
Mr. E. Delaval§ has got it, but we are 
not yet certain ; next to myself I wished 
for him. 

You see we have made a peace. I 
shall be silent about it, because if I say 
any thing anti-ministerial, you will tell 
me you know the reason ; and if I ap- 
prove it, you will think I have my ex- 
pectations still. All I know is, that the 
duke of Newcastle and lord Hardwicke 
both say it is an excellent peace, and 
only Mr. Pitt calls it inglorious and 
insidious. 

* A seat of the duke of Devonshire, in Der- 
byshire. 

f Professor of modern languages in the uni- 
versity of Cambridge. 

X This person was the late sir Henry Ers- 
kine. The place in question was given to the 
tutor of sir James Lowther. 

§ Fellow of Pembroke-Hall, and of the 
Royal Society. 



LETTER XC. 

Mr. Gray to Dr. Wharton. 

Pembroke-Hall, Aug 26, 1766. 
Whatever my pen may do, I am sure 
my thoughts expatiate nowhere oftener, 
or with more pleasure, than to Old- 
Park. I hope you have made my peace 
with the angry little lady. It is certain, 
whether her name were in my letter or 
not, she was as present to my memory 
as the rest of the whole family ; and I 
desire you would present her with two 
kisses in my name, and one apiece to all 
the others ; for I shall take the liberty 
to kiss them all (great and small), as you 
are to be my proxy. 

In spite of the rain, which I think 
continued, with very short intervals, till 
the beginning of this month, and quite 
effaced the summer from the year, I 
made a shift to pass May and June not 
disagreeably in Kent. I was surprised 
at the beauty of the road to Canterbury, 
which (I know not why) had not struck 
me before. The whole country is a rich 
and well-cultivated garden ; orchards, 
cherry grounds, hop gardens, intermixed 
with corn and frequent villages ; gentle 
risings covered vrith wood, and every- 
where the Thames and Medway breaking 
in upon the landscape with all their navi- 
gation. It was indeed owing to the bad 
weather that the whole scene was dressed 
in that tender emerald green, which one 
usually sees only for a fortnight in the 
opening of the spring ; and this continued 
till I left the country. My residence 
was eight miles east of Canterbury, in a 
little quiet valley on the skirts of Barham 
Down II . In these parts the whole soil 
is chalk ; and whenever it holds up, in 
half an hour it is dry enough to walk out. 
I took the opportunity of three or four 
days fine weather to go into the Isle of 
Thanet; saw Margate (which is Bar- 
tholomew-fair by the sea-side). Rams- 
gate, and other places there ; and so came 
by Sandwich, Deal, Dover, Folkstone, 
and Hithe, back again. The coast is not 
like Hartlepool ; there are no rocks, but 
only chalky cliffs of no great height till 
you come to Dover ; there indeed they 
are noble and picturesque, and the oppo- 
site coasts of France begin to bound your 
view, which was left before to range 

II At Denton, where his friend the rev. Wil- 
liam Robinson, brother to Matthew Robinson, 
«sq-. late member for Canterbury, then resided. 



Sect. i. 



RECENT. 



m 



unlimited by any thing but the horizon ; 
yet it is by no means a shipless sea, but 
everywhere peopled with white sails, and 
vessels of all sizes in motion : and take 
notice (except in the Isle, which is all 
corn-fields, and has very little inclosure) 
there are in all places hedge-rows, and 
tall trees even within a few yards of the 
beach. Particularly, Hithe stands on 
an eminence covered with wood. I sliall 
confess we had fires at night (ay and at 
day too) several times in June ; but do 
not go and take advantage in the north 
at this, for it was the most untoward 
year that ever I remember. 

My compliments to Mrs. ^Vharton and 
all your family : I will not name them, 
lest I should afi'ront any body. 



LETTER XCI. 

Mr, Gray to Mr. Mason. 

March 28, 17G7. 
I BREAK in upon you at a moment, when 
we least of all are permitted to disturb 
our fi-iends, only to say, that you are daily 
and hourly present to my thoughts. If 
the worst be not yet past, you will neglect 
and pardon me : but if the last struggle 
be over ; if the poor object of your long 
anxieties be no longer sensible to your 
kindness, or to her own sufferings, allow 
me (at least in idea, for what could I do, 
were I present, more than this ?) to sit 
by you in silence, and pity from my heart 
not her, who is at rest, but you, who 
lose her. May He, who made us, the 
Master of our pleasures and of our pains, 
preserve and support you ! Adieu. 

I have long understood how little you 
had to hope. 



LETTER XCIL 

Mr. Gray to Mr. Beattie. 

Old Park, near Darlington, Durham, 
August 12, 1767. 

I RECEIVED from Mr. Williamson that 
very obliging mark you were pleased to 
give me of your remembrance : had I 
not entertained some slight hopes of re- 
visiting Scotland this summer, and con- 
sequently of seeing you at Aberdeen, I 
had sooner acknowledged, by letter, the 
favour you have done me. Those hopes 
are now at an end : but I do not there* 



fore despair of seeing again a country 
that has given me so much pleasure ; nor 
of telling you, in person, how much I 
esteem you and (as you choose to call 
them) your amusements : the specimen 
of them, which you were so good as to 
send me, I think excellent ; the senti- 
ments are such as a melancholy imagina- 
tion naturally suggests in solitude and 
silence, and that (though light and busi- 
ness may suspend or banish them at 
times) return with but so much the 
greater force upon a feeling heart ; the 
diction is elegant and unconstrained : not 
loaded with epithets and figures, nor flag- 
ging into prose : tlie versification is easy 
and harmonions. My only objection 
is 

You see, sir, I take the liberty youin^ 
dulged me in, when I first saw you ; and 
therefore I make no excuses for it, but 
desire you would take your revenge on 
me in kind. 

I have read over (but too hastily) Mr. 
Ferguson's book. There are uncommon 
strains of eloquence in it ; and I was sur- 
prised to find not one single idiom of his 
country (1 think) in the whole work. 
He has not the fault you mention : his 
application to the heart is frequent, and 
often successful. His love of Montesquieu 
and Tacitus has led him into a manner 
of writing too short-winded and senten- 
tious ; which those great men, had they 
lived in better times, and under a better 
government, would have avoided. 

I know no pretence that I have to the 
honour lord Gray is pleased to do me* : 
but if his lordship chooses to own me, it 
certainly is not my business to deny it. I 
say not this merely on account of his 
quality, but because he is a very worthy 
and accomplished person. I am truly 
sorry for the great loss he has had since I 
left Scotland. If you should chance to see 
him , I will beg you to present my respect- 
ful humble service to his lordship. 

I gave Mr. Williamson all the infor- 
mation I was able in the short time he 
staid with me. He seemed to answer 
well the character you gave me of him : 
but what I chiefly envied in him, was 
his ability of walking all the way from 
Aberdeen to Cambridge, and back again ; 
which if I possessed, you would soon see 
youi' obliged, &c. 

* Lord Gray had said that Mr., Gray was re- 
lated to his family. 



398 ELEGANT 

LETTER XCIIL 

Mr, Grai/ to the Duke of Grafton. 

Cambridge, July, 1768. 
My lord, 
Your grace has dealt nobly with me ; 
and the same delicacy of mind that in- 
duced you to confer this favour on me, 
unsolicited and unexpected, may perhaps 
make you averse to receive my sincerest 
thanks and grateful acknowledgments. 
Yet your grace must excuse me, they 
will have their way : they are indeed but 
words ; yet I know and feel they come 
from my heart, and therefore are not 
wholly unworthy of your grace's accept- 
ance. I even flatter myself (such is my 
pride) that you have some little satisfac- 
tion in your own work. If I did not de- 
ceive myself in this, it would complete 
the happiness of, my lord, your grace's 
most obliged and devoted servant. 

LETTER XCIV. 

Mr, Gray to Mr. Nicholls*. 

Jermj'ii-street, Aug. 3, 1768. 
That Mr. Brockett has broken his neck, 
by a fall from his horse, you will have 
seen in the newspapers ; and also, that I, 
your humble servant, have kissed the 
king's hand for his succession : they are 
both true, but the manner how you know 
not ; only I can assure you that I had no 
hand at all in his fall, and almost as lit- 
tle in the second event. He died on the 
Sunday ; on Wednesday following, his 
grace the duke of Grafton wrote me a 
very polite letter to say, that his majesty 
had commanded him to oflFer me the va- 
cant professorship, not only as a reward 
of, &c. but as a credit to, &c. with much 
more, too high for me to transcribe : so 
on Thursday the king signed the war- 
rant, and next day, at his levee, I kissed 
his hand ; he made me several gracious 
speeches, which I shall not repeat, be- 
cause every body that goes to court, does 
so ; besides, the day was so hot, and the 
ceremony so embarrassing to me, that I 
hardly knew what he said. 

Adieu ! I am to perish here with heat 
this fortnight yet, and then to Cambridge ; 

• Rectorof Loundc and Bradwell, in Suffolk. 
His acquaintance with Mr. Gray commenced a 
few years before the date of this, when he was 
a student of Trinity-Hall, Cambridge. 



EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



to be sure my dignity is a little the worse 
for wear, but mended and washed, it will 
do for me. 



LETTER XCV. 

Mr. Gray to Mr. Beattie. 

Pembroke-Hall, Oct. 31, 1768. 
It is some time since I received^from Mr. 
Foulis two copies of my poems,'? one by 
the hands of Mr. T. Pitt, the other by 
Mr. Merrill, a bookseller of this town ; it 
is indeed a most beautiful edition, '[and 
must certainly do credit both to him and 
to me : but I fear it will be of no other 
advantage to him, as Dodsley has con- 
trived to glut the town already with two 
editions beforehand, one of fifteen thou- 
sand, and the other seven hundred and 
fifty, both indeed far inferior to that of 
Glasgow, but sold at half the price. I 
must repeat my thanks, sir, for the trou- 
ble you have been pleased to give your- 
self on my account; and through you 
I must desire leave to convey my ac- 
knowledgments to Mr. Foulis, for the 
pains and expense he has been at in this 
publication. 

We live at so great a distance, that, 
perhaps, you may not yet have learned, 
what, I flatter myself, you will not be 
displeased to hear: the middle of last 
summer his majesty was pleased to ap- 
point me regius professor of modern 
history in this university : it is the best 
thing the crown has to bestow (on a lay- 
man) here ; the salary is 400/. per ann. ; 
but what enhances the value of it to me 
is, that it was bestowed without being 
asked. The person who held it before 
me, died on the Sunday ; and on Wed- 
nesday following the duke of Grafton 
wrote me a letter to say, that the king 
oflFered me this ofiice, with many addi 
tional expressions of kindness on his 
grace's part, to whom I am but little 
known, and whom I have not seen either 
before or since he did me this favour. 
Instances of'a benefit so nobly conferred, 
I believe, are rare ; and therefore I tell 
you of it as a thing that does honour, not 
only to me, but to the minister. 

As I lived here before from choice, I 
shall now continue to do so from obliga- 
tion : if business or curiosity should call 
you southwards, you will find few friends 
that will see you with more cordial satis-* 
faction than, dear sir, &c. 



Sect. I. 



RECENT. 



399 



LETTER XCVI. 

Mr, Gray to Mr. Nicholls. 

I WAS absent from College, and did not 
receive your melancholy letter till my 
return hither yesterday ; so you must not 
attribute this delay tome, but to accident : 
to sympathize with you in such a loss* is 
an easy task for me, but to comfort you 
not so easy : can I wish to see you unaf- 
fected with the sad scene now before your 
eyes, or with the loss of a person that, 
through a great part of your life, has 
proved himself so kind a friend to you ? 
He who best knows our nature (for he 
made us what we are), by such afflictions 
recalls us from our wandering thoughts 
and idle merriment ; from the insolence 
of youth and prosperity, to serious reflec- 
tion, to our duty, and to himself; nor 
need we hasten to get rid of these im- 
pressions ; time (by appointment of the 
same Power) will cure the smart, and in 
some hearts soon blot out all the traces 
of sorrow : but such as preserve them 
longest (for it is partly left in our own 
power) do perhaps best acquiesce in the 
will of the chastiser. 

For the consequences of this sudden 
loss, I see them well, and I think, in a 
like situation, could fortify my mind, so 
as to support them with cheerfulness and 
good hopes, though not naturally inclined 
to see things in their best aspect. When 
you have time to turn yourself round, 
you must think seriously of your profes- 
sion ; you know I would have wished to 
see you wear the livery of it long ago : 
but I will not dwell on this subject at 
present. To be obliged to those we love 
and esteem is a pleasure ; but to serve 
and oblige them is still greater ; and 
this, with independence (no vulgar bless- 
ing), are what a profession at your age 
may reasonably promise : without it they 
are hardly attainable. Remember I speak 
from experience. 

In the mean time, while your present 
situation lasts, which I hope will not be 
long, continue your kindness and confi- 
dence in me, by trusting me with the 
whole of it ; and surely you hazard no- 
thing by so doing : that situation does 
not appear so new to me as it does to 
you. You well know the tenor of my 
conversation (urged at times perhai)s a 

* The death of his uncle, jjoveruor Floyer. 



little farther than you liked) has been 
intended to prepare you for this event, 
and to familiarise your mind with this 
spectre, which you call by its worse name : 
but remember that " Honesta res est lata 
paupertas." I see it with respect, and so 
will every one, whose poverty is not 
seated in their mind. There is but one 
real evil in it (take my word, who know 
it well), and that is, that you have less 
the power of assisting others, who have 
not the same resources to support them. 
You have youth : you have many kind, 
well-intentioned people belonging to 
you ; many acquaintances of your own, 
or families that will wish to serve you. 
Consider how many have had the same, 
or greater cause for dejection, with none 
of these resources before their eyes. 
Adieu ! I sincerely wish your happiness. 

P. S. I have just heard that a friend 
of mine is struck with a paralytic dis- 
order, in which state it is likely he may 
live incapable of assisting himself, in the 
hands of servants or relations that only 
gape after his spoils, perhaps for years to 
come : think how many things may befal 
a man far worse than poverty or death. 

LETTER XCVn. 

Fi'Oiu the same to the same. 

Pembroke-College, June 24, 1769. 
And so you have a garden of your own, 
and you plant and transplant, and are 
dirty and amused ? Are you not ashamed 
of yourself? Why, I have no such thing, 
you monster, nor ever shall be either 
dirty or amused as long as 1 live. My 
gardens are in the windows, like those 
of a lodger up three pair of stairs in 
Petticoat-lane, or Camomile-street, and 
they go to bed regularly under the same 
roof that I do. Dear, how charming it 
must be to walk out in one's owngarding, 
and sit on a bench in the open air, with 
a fountain and leaden statue, and a roll- 
ing-stone, and an arbour : have a care 
of sore throats though, and the ogoe. 

However, be it known to you, though 
I have no garden, I have sold my estate*, 
and got a thousand guineas, and four- 

* Consisting of houses on the west side of 
Hand-Alley, London. Mrs. OlliflFe was the aunt 
here mentioned, who had a share in this estate, 
and for whom he procured this annuity. She 
died in 17T1, a few months before her nephew. 



400 



fi LEG ANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



score pounds a year for my old aunt, and 
a twenty pound prize in the lottery, and 
Lord knows what arrears in the Trea- 
sury, and am a rich fellow enough, go 
to ; and a fellow that hath had losses, 
and one that hath two gowns, and every 
thing handsome about him, and in a few 
days shall have new window-curtains : 
are you advised of that ? Ay, and a new 
mattrass to lie upon. 

My Ode has been rehearsed again and 
again*, and the scholars have got scraps 
by heart : I expect to see it torn piece- 
meal in the North-Briton before it is 
born. If you will come you shall see it, 
and sing in it amidst a chorus from Sa- 
lisbury and Gloucester music-meeting, 
great names there, and all well versed in 
Judas Maccabseus. I wish it were once 
over ; for then I immediately go for a few 
days to London, and so with Mr. Brown 
to Aston, though I fear it will rain the 
whole summer, and Skiddaw will be in- 
visible and inaccessible to mortals. 

I have got De la Lande's Voyage 
through Italy, in eight volumes ; he is a 
member of the Academy of Sciences, and 
pretty good to read. I have read too 
an octavo volume of Shenstone's Letters . 
Poor man ! he was always wishing for 
money, for fame, and other distinctions ; 
and his whole philosophy consisted in liv- 
ing against his will in retirement, and in 
a place which his taste had adorned ; but 
which he only enjoyed when people of 
note came to see and commend it ; his 
correspondence is about nothing else but 
this place and his own writings, with two 
or three neighbouring clergymen who 
wrote verses too. 

I have just found the beginning of a 
letter, which somebody had dropped,: I 
should rather call it first thoughts for 
the beginning of a letter ; for there are 
many scratches and corrections. As I 
cannot use it myself (having got a be- 
ginning already of my own), I send it for 
your use on some great occasion. 

" Dear sir, 
*' After so long silence, the hopes of 
pardon, and prospect of forgiveness, 
might seem entirely extinct, or at least 
very remote, was I not truly sensible of 
your goodness and candour, which is the 
only asylum that my negligence can fly 



f Ode for Music on the Duke of Grafton's 
Installation. 



to, since every apology would prove in- 
sufficient to counterbalance it, or alle- 
viate my fault : how then shall my de- 
ficiency presume to make so bold an at- 
tempt, or be able to suffer the hardships 
of so rough a campaign?" &c. &c. &c. 



LETTER XCVIII. 

Mr. Gray to Mr. NichoUs. 

Nov. 19, ]7f>9. 
I RECEIVED your letter at Southampton ; 
and as I would wish to treat every body 
according to their own rule and measure 
of good-breeding, have, against my in- 
clination, waited till now before I an- 
swered it, purely out of fear and respect, 
and an ingenuous diffidence of my own 
abilities. If you will not take this as an 
excuse, accept it at least as a well-turned 
period, which is always my principal 
concern. 

So I proceed to tell you that my health 
is much improved by the sea ; not that I 
drank it or bathed in it, as the common 
people do : no ! I only walked by it, and 
looked upon it. The climate is remark- 
ably mild, even in October and Novem- 
ber ; no snow has been seen to lie there 
for these thirty years past ; the myrtles 
grow in the ground against the houses, 
and Guernsey-lilies bloom in every win- 
dow ; the town, clean and well-built, 
surrounded by its old stone walls with 
their towers and gateways, stands at the 
point of a peninsula, and opens full south 
to an arm of the sea, which, having 
formed two beautifiil bays on each hand 
of it, stretches away in direct view till 
it joins the British Channel ; it is skirted 
on either side with gently-rising grounds, 
clothed with thick wood, and directly 
cross its mouth rise the high lands of the 
Isle of Wight at distance, but distinctly 
seen. In the bosom of the woods (con- 
cealed from profane eyes) lie hid the 
ruins of Nettley abbey ; there may be 
richer and greater houses of religion, but 
the abbot is content with his situation. 
See there, at the top of that hanging 
meadow, under the shade of those old 
trees that bend into a half circle about 
it, he is walking slowly (good man !) 
and bidding his beads for the souls of 
his benefactors, interred in that venera- 
ble pile that lies beneath him. Beyond 
it (the meadow still descending) nods a 



Sect. I. 



RECENT. 



401 



thicket of oaks tliat mask the building', 
and have excluded a view too garish 
and luxuriant for a holy eye : only on 
either hand tliey leave an opening to 
the blue glittering sea. Did you not 
observe how, as that white sail shot by 
and was lost, he turned and crossed 
himself, to drive the tempter from him 
that had throv\^l that distraction in his 
way ? I should tell you, that the ferry- 
man who rowed me, a lusty young fel- 
low, told me that he would not for all 
the world pass a night at the abbey 
(there were such things seen near it), 
though there was a power of money hid 
there. From thence 1 went to Salis- 
bury, Wilton, and Stoneheuge : but of 
these things I say no more, they v/ill 
be published at the University press. 

P. S. 1 must not close my letter with- 
out giving you one principal event of my 
history ; which was, that (in the course 
of my late tour) I set out one morning 
before five o'clock, the moon shining 
through a dark and misty autumnal air, 
and got to the sea-coast time enough to 
be at the sun's levee. I saw the clouds 
and dark vapours open gradually to right 
and left, rolling over one another in 
great smoky wreathes, and the tide (as 
it flowed gently in upon the sands) first 
whitenmg, then slightly tinged with gold 
and blue ; and all at once a little line of 
insufferable brightness that (before I 
can write these five words) was grown 
to half an orb, and now to a whole one, 
too glorious to be distinctly seen. It is 
very odd it makes no figure on paper ; 
yet 1 shall remember it as long as the 
sun, or at least as long as I endure. 1 
wonder whether any body ever saw it 
before. I hardly believe it. 



LETTER XCIX. 

Mr. Gray to Mr. Beattie. 

Pembroke Hall, July 2, 1770. 
I REJOICE to hear that you are restored 
to better state of health, to your books, 
and to your Muse once again. That 
forced dissipation and exercise we are 
obliged to fly to as a remedy, when this 
frail machine goes Vvrong, is often almost 
as bad as the distemper we would cure ; 
yet I too have been constrained of late to 
pursue a like regimen, on account of cer- 



tain pains ill the head (a sensation im- 
known to me before) and of great dejec- 
tion of spirits. This, sir, is the only ex- 
cuse 1 have to make you for my long si- 
lence, and not (as perhaps you may have 
figured to yourself) any secret reluctance 
1 had to tell you my mind concerning the 
specimen you so kindly sent me of your 
new poem'^ : on the contrary, if I had 
seen any thing of importance to disap- 
prove, 1 should have hastened to inform 
you, and never doubted of being for- 
given. The truth is, I greatly like all I 
have seen, and w^ish to see more. The 
design is simple, and pregnant with po- 
etical ideas of various kinds, yet seems 
somehow imperfect at the end. Why 
may not young Edwin, when necessity 
has driven him to take up the harp and 
assume the profession of a minstrel, do 
some great and singular service to his 
country ? (what service I must leave to 
your invention) such as no general, no 
statesman, no moralist, could do without 
the aid of music, inspiration, and poetry. 
This will not appear an improbability in 
those early times, and in a character 
then held sacred, and respected by all 
nations : besides, it will be a full an- 
swer to all the hermit has said, when he 
dissuaded him from cultivating these 
pleasing arts ; it will shew their use, 
and make the best panegyric of our fa- 
vourite and celestial science. And lastly 
(what weighs most with me), it will 
throw more of action, pathos, and in- 
terest, into your design, which already 
abounds in reflection and sentiment. As 
to description, I have always thought 
that it made the most graceful ornament 
of poetry, but never ought to make the 
subject. Your ideas are new, and bor- 
rowed from a mountainous country, the 
only one that can furnish truly pictu- 
resque scenery. Some trifles in the lan- 
guage or versification you will permit 
me to remark. * * * 

I will not enter at present into the 
merits of your E^say on Truth, because I 
have not yet given it all the attention it 
deserves, though I have read it through 
with pleasure; besides, 1 am partial; 
for I have always thought David Hume 
a pernicious writer, and believe he has 
done as much mischief here as he has in 
his own country. A turbid and shallow 
stream often appears to our apprehen- 

* The Minstrel. 
2 D 



402 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



B( 



IV. 



sions very deep. A professed sceptic can 
be guided by nothing but his present 
passions (if he has any) and interests ; 
and to be masters of his philosophy we 
need not his books or advice ; for every 
child is capable of the same thing, with- 
out any study at all. Is not that naivete, 
and good humour, which his admirers 
celebrate in him, owing to this, that he 
has continued all his days an infant, but 
one that unhappily has been taught to 
read and write? That childish nation, 
the French, have given him vogue and 
fashion, and we, as usual, have learned 
from them to admire him at second 
hand. 

LETTER C. 

Mr. Gray to Mr. Nicholh. 

It is long since that I heard you were 
gone in haste into Yorkshire on account 
of your mother's illness ; and the same 
letter informed me that she was reco- 
vered, otherwise I had then wrote to you 
only to beg you would take care of her, 
and to inform you that I had discovered 
a thing very little known, which is, that 
in one's whole life one can never have 
any more than a single mother. You 
may think this is obvious, and (what 
you call) a trite observation. You are 
a green gosling ! I was at the same age 
(very near) as wise as you, and yet I 
never discovered this (with full evidence 
and conviction I mean) till it was too late. 
It is thirteen years ago, and seems but 
as yesterday, and every day I live it sinks 
deeper into my heart*. Many a co- 
rollary could I draw from this axiom for 
your use (not for my own), but I will 
leave you the merit of doing it for your- 
self. Pray tell me how your health is : I 
conclude it perfect, as I hear you offered 
yourself as a guide to Mr. Palgrave into 
the Sierra Mqrena of Yorkshire. For 
me, I passed the end of May and all June 
in Kent, not disagreeably. In the west 
part of it, from every eminence the eye 
catches some long reach of the Thames 
and Medway, with all their shipping : in 

* He seldom mentioned his mother without 
a sigh. yVfter his death her gowns and wear- 
ing apparel were found in a trunk in his apart- 
ments just as she had left them : it seemed as 
if he could never take the resolution to open 
it, in order to distribute them to his female 
relations, to whom, by his will, he bequeathed 
them. 



the east the sea breaks in upon you, and 
mixes its white transient sails and glit- 
tering blue expanse with the deeper and 
brighter greens of the woods and corn. 
This sentence is so fine, I am quite 
ashamed ; but no matter ; you must 
translate it into prose. Palgrave, if he 
heard it, would cover his face with his 
pudden sleeve. I do not tell you of the 
great and small beasts, and creeping 
things innumerable, that I met with, 
because you do not suspect that this 
world is inhabited by any thing but men, 
and women, and clergy, and such two- 
legged cattle. Now I am here again 
very disconsolate, and all alone, for Mr. 
Brown is gone, and the cares of this 
world are coming thick upon me : you, I 
hope, are better off, riding and walking 
in the woods of Studley, 8cc. &c. I must 
not wish for you here ; besides I am go- 
ing to town at Michaelmas, by no means 
for amusement. 



LETTER CI. 

Mr. Gray to Dr. Wharton. 

May 24, 1771. 
My last summer's tour was through 
Worcestershire, Gloucestershire, Mon- 
mouthshire, Herefordshire, and Shrop- 
shire, five of the most beautiful counties 
in the kingdom. The very principal light 
and capital feature of my journey was the 
river Wye, which I descended in a boat 
for near forty miles from Ross to Chep- 
stow. Its l3anks are a succession of 
nameless beauties ; one out of many you 
may see not ill described by Mr. Whately, 
in his Observations on Gardening, under 
the name of the New- Weir : he has also 
touched upon two others, Tinterne Ab- 
bey and Persfield, both of them famous 
scenes, and both on the Wye. Mon- 
mouth, a town I never heard mentioned, 
lies on the same river, in a vale that is 
the delight of my eyes, and the very seat 
of pleasure. The vale of Abergavenny,. 
Ragland and Chepstow castles ; Ludlow, 
Malyern-Hills, Hampton- Court, near 
Lemster ; the Leasowes, Hagley, the 
three cities and their cathedrals ; and 
lastly Oxford (where I passed two days 
on my return with great satisfaction), 
were the rest of my acquisitions ; and no 
bad harvest in my opinion : but I made 
no journal myself, else you should have 



Sect. I. RECENT. 403 

had it : I have indeed a short one written tinent ; but I have now dropped that in- 

by the companion of my travels'*, that tention, and believe my expeditions will 

serves to recal and fix the fleeting images terminate in Old Park ; but I make no 

of these things. promise, and can answer for nothing ; 

I have had a cough upon me these my own employment so sticks in my 

three months, which is incurable. The stomach, and troubles my conscience ; 

approaching summer I have sometimes and yet travel I must, or cease to exist, 

had thoughts of spending on the con- Till this year I hardly knew what (me- 
chanical) low spirits were, but now I 

* Mr. Nieholls^ even tremble at an east wind. 



2 D 2 



BOOK THE FOURTH. 



RECENT LETTERS. 



SECTION H. 



FROM THE LETTERS OF LAURENCE STERNE, AND OTHERS. 



LETTER L 

Mr, Sterne to Miss L . 

I HAVE offended her whom I so tenderly 
love ! — what could tempt me to it ! but, 
if a beggar was to knock at thy gate, 
wouldst thou not open the door, and be 

melted with compassion ? 1 know 

thou wouldst, for Pity has erected a tem- 
ple in thy bosom. — Sweetest, and best 
of all human passions ! let thy web of 
tenderness cover the pensive form of Af- 
fliction, and soften the darkest shades of 
Misery ! I have re-considered this apo- 
logy, and, alas ! what will it accomplish ? 
Arguments, however finely spun, can 
never change the nature of things — very 
true — so a truce with them. 

I have lost a very valuable friend by a 
sad accident ; and what is worse, he has 
left a widow and five young children to 
lament this sudden stroke. — If real use- 
fulness and integrity of heart could have 
secured him from this, his friends would 
not now be mourning his untimely fate. 
— These dark and seemingly cruel dis- 
pensations of Providence often make the 
best of human hearts complain. — Who 
can paint the distress of an affectionate 
mother, made a widow in a moment, 
weeping in bitterness over a numerous, 

helpless, and fatherless offspring ! 

God ! these are thy chastisements, and re- 
quire (hard task !) a pious acquiescence. 
Forgive me this digression, and allow 
me to droj) a tear over a departed friend ; 
and, what is more excellent, an honest 
man. Mv L. ! titou wilt feel all that 



kindness can inspire in the death of . 

The event was sudden, and thy gentle 
spirit would be more alarmed on that ac- 
count. — But, my L., thou hast less to 
lament, as old age was creeping on, and 
her period of doing good, and being use- 
ful, was nearly over. — ^At sixty years of 
age the tenement gets fast out of repair, 
and the lodger with anxiety thinks of a 
discharge, — In such a situation the poet 
might well saj , 

" The soul uneasy," &c. 

My L. talks of leaving the country — 
may a kind angel guide thy steps hither ! 
— Solitude at length grows tiresome. — 
Thou sayest thou wilt quit the place with 
regret — I think so too. — Does not some- 
thing uneasy mingle with the very reflec- 
tion of leaving it ? It is like parting with 
an old friend, whose temper and company 
one has long been acquainted with — I 
think I see you looking twenty times a 
day at the house — almost counting every 
brick and pane of glass, and telling them 
at the same time with a sigh, you are go- 
ing to leave them. — Oh happy modifica- 
tion of matter ! they will remain insen- 
sible of thy loss. — But how wilt thou be 
able to part with thy garden ? — The re- 
collection of so many pleasing walks must 
have endeared it to you. The trees, 
the shrubs, the flowers, v/hich thou 
hast reared with thy own hands — will 
they not droop and fade away sooner 
upon thy departure ? — Who will be the 
successor to nurse them in thy absence ? 
— Thou wilt leave thy name upon the 
myrtle-tree. — If trees, and shrubs, and 
flowers, could compose an elegy, I 



Sect. II. 



RECENT. 



405 



should expect a very plaintive one upon 
this subject. 

Adieu, adieu ! Believe me ever, ever 
thine. 

LETTER II. 

Mr. Sterne to Mrs. F . 



York, Tuosdaj^ Nov. 19, 1759. 
Dear madam, 
YcuR kind inquiries after my health de- 
serve my best thanks. — -What can give 
one more pleasure than the good wishes 
of those we value ? — I am sorry you give 
so bad an account of your own health, 
but hope you will find benefit from tar- 
water — it has been of infinite service to 
me. — I suppose my good lady, by v/hat 
you say in your letter, " that I am busy 
writing an extraordinary book," that 
your intelligence comes from York — the 
fountain-head of all chit-chat news — and 
— no matter. — Now for your desire of 
knowing the reason of my turning au- 
thor ? why truly I am tired of employing 
my brains for other people's advantage. 
— 'Tis a foolish sacrifice I have made for 
some years to an ungrateful person. — t 
depend much upon the candour of the 
public, but I shall not pick out a jury to 

try the m^erit of my book amongst , 

and — till you read my Tristram, do not, 
like some people, condemn it. — Laugh 
I am sure you will at some passages. — I 
have hired a small house in the Minster 
Yard for my wife and daughter — the lat- 
ter is to begin dancing, &c. : if I cannot 
leave her a fortune, I will at least give 
her an education. — As I shall publish 
my works very soon, I shall be in town 
by IMarch, and shall have the pleasure of 
meeting with you. — All your friends are 
well, and ever hold you in the same es- 
timation that your sincere friend does. 

Adieu, dear lady ; believe me, with 
every wish for your happiness, your 
most faithful, &c. 

LETTER III. 

Mr, Sterne to J— H~ S—, Esq. 

Coxwould, July 28, 1761. 

Dear H , 



I SYMPATHIZED for, or with you, on the 
detail you gave me of your late agitations 
— and would willingly have taken my 
horse, and trotted to the oracle to have 
inquired into the etymology of all your 
sufferings, had I not been assured that 



all that evacuation of bilious matter, 
with all that abdominal motion attend- 
ing it (both which are equal to a month's 
purgation and exercise), v/iil have left 
you better than it found you. — Need one 
go to D — , to be told that all kind of 
mild (mark, I am going to talk more 
foolishly than your apothecary), opening, 
saponaceous, dirty-shirt, sud-washing 
liquors are proper for you, and conse- 
quently all styptical potations death and 
destruction? — if you had not shut up 
your gall-ducts by these, the glauber 
salts could not have hurt — as it was, 
'twas like a match to the gimpowder, by 
raising a fresh combustion, as all physic 
does at first, so that you have been let off 
— nitre, brimstone, and charcoal (which 
is blackness itself), all at one blast-^'twas 
well the piece did not burst, for I think it 
underwent great violence ; and, as it is 
proof, will, I hope, do much service in 
this militating world. — Panty"^ is mis- 
taken, I quarrel with no one. — There 

was the coxcomb of in the house, 

v/lio lost temper with me for no reason 
upon earth but that I could not fall down 
and worship a brazen image of learning 
and eloquence, Avhich he set up, to the 
persecution of all true believers — I sat 
down upon his altar, and whistled in the 
time of his divine service — and broke 
down his carved work, and kicked his in- 
cense-pot to the d ; so he retreated, 

sed non sine felle in corde suo. — I have 
wrote a clerum, whether I shall take my 
doctor's degrees or no — I am much in 
doubt, but I trow not. — I go on with 
Tristram — I have bought seven hundred 
books at a purchase dog-cheap — and 
many good— and I have been a week get- 
ting them set up in my best room here — 
why do not you transport yours to town ? 
but I talk like a fool. — This will just 
catch you at your spaw — I wish you iii- 
columem apud Londinutn — do you go 
there for good and all — or ill? — I am, 
dear cousin, yours affectionately. 

LETTER IV. 

From the same to the same. 

Coxwould [about August], 1761. 
Dear H , 



I REJOICE you are in London — rest you 
there in peace ; here 'tis the devil. — You 
was a good prophet. — I wish myself back 



* The reverend Mr. K- 



466 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



iioOK IV. 



again, as you told me I should — but not 
because a thin, death-doing, pestiferous, 
north-east wind blows in a line directly 
from Crazy-castle turret full upon me in 
this cuckoldy retreat (for I value the 
north-east wind and all its powers not a 
straw), — but the transition from rapid 
motion to absolute rest was too violent. 

— I should have walked about the streets 
of York ten days, as a proper medium 
to have passed through, before I entered 
upon my rest. — I staid but a moment, 
and I have been here but a few, to sa- 
tisfy me I have not managed my miseries 
like a wise man — and if God, for my 
consolation under them, had not poured 
forth the spirit of Shandeism into me, 
which will not suffer me to think two 
moments upon any grave subject, I 
would else just now lie down and die — 
die — and yet, in half an hour's time, I'll 
lay a guinea 1 shall be as merry as a 
monkey — and as mischievous too, and 
forget it all — so that this is but a copy 
of the present train running' across my 
brain. — And so you think this cursed 
stupid — but that, my dear H. depends 
much upon the qaotd hord of your shabby 
clock, if the pointer of it is in any quar- 
ter between ten in the morning or four 
in the afternoon — I give it up — or if 
the day is obscured by dark engendering 
clouds of either wet or dry weather, I 
am still lost — but who knows but it may 
be five — and the, day as fine a day as 
ever shone upon the earth since the de- 
struction of Sodom — and peradventure 
your honour may have got a good hearty 
dinner to-day, and eat and drank your 
intellectuals into a placidulish and a blan- 
dulish amalgama — to bear nonsense. — 
So much for that. 

"Tis as cold and churlish just now, as 
(if God had not pleased it to be so) it 
ought to have been in bleak December, 
and therefore I am glad you are where 
you are, and where (I repeat it again) I 
wish I was also.— Curse of poverty, and 
absence from those we love ! — they are 
two great evils, which embitter all 
things — and yet with the first I am not 
haunted much. — As to matrimony, I 
should be a beast to rail at it, for my 
wife is easy — but the world is not — and 
had I staid from her a second longer it 
would have been a burning shame — else 
she declares herself happier without me 

— but not in anger is this declaration 
made — but in pure sober good sense, 



built on sound experience — she hopes 
you will be able to strike a bargain for 
me before this time twelvemonth, to lead 
a bear round Europe : and from this 
hope from you, I verily believe it is, that 
you are so high in her favour at present 

— she swears you are a fellow of wit, 
though humorous ; a funny, jolly soul, 
though somewhat splenetic ; and (bating 
the love of women) as honest as gold — 
how do you like the simile? — Oh, Lord \ 
now you are going to Ranelagh to-night, 
and I am sitting, sorrowful as the pro- 
phet was when the voice cried out to 
him and said, " What dost thou here, 
Elijah?" — "Tis well the spirit does not 
make the same at Coxwould — for un- 
less for the few sheep left me to take 
care of, in this wilderness, I might as 
well, nay better, be at Mecca.— When 
we find we can, by a shifting of places, 
run away from ourselves, what think you 
of a jaunt there, before we finally pay a 
visit to the vale of Jthoshaphat? — As ill 
a fame as we have I trust I shall one day 
or other see you face to face — so tell the 
two colonels, if they love good company, 
to live righteously and soberly as you do, 
and then they will have no doubts or dan- 
gers within or without them — Present 
my best and warmest wishes to them, 
and advise the eldest to prop up his 
spirits, and get a rich dowager before 
the conclusion of the peace — Why will 
not the advice suit both, par nobile fra- 
trum ? 

To-morrow morning (if Heaven per 
mit) I begin the fifth volume of Shandy 

— I care not a curse for the critics — I'll 
load my vehicle with what goods he sends 
me, and they may take 'em off my hands, 
or let them alone — I am very valorous — 
and 'tis in proportion as we retire from 
the world, and see it in its true dimen- 
sions, that we despise it — no bad rant ! 

— God above bless you ! You know I 
am your affectionate cousin. 

What few remain of the Demoniacs, 

greet and write me a letter, if you 

are able, as foolish as this. 

LETTER V. 

Mr. Sterne to Lady D . 

Coxwuuld, Sept. 21, 1761. 
I RETURN to my new habitation, fully 
determined to write as hard as can be, 
and thank you most cordially, my dear 



Sect. II. 



RECENT. 



407 



lady, for your letter of congratulation 
upon my lord Fauconberg's having pre- 
sented me with the curacy of this place 

— though your congratulation comes 
somewhat of the latest, as I have been 
possessed of it some time. — I hope I 
have been of some service to his lord- 
ship, and he has sufficiently requited 

me. 'Tis seventy guineas a year in 

my pocket, though worth a hundred — 
but it obliges me to have a curate to of- 
ficiate at Sutton and Stillington. — 'Tis 
within a mile of his lordship's seat and 
park. 'Tis a very agreeable ride out in 
the chaise I purchased for my wife. — 
Lyd"^ has a poney which she delights in. 
Whilst they take these diversions, I am 
scribbling away at my Tristram. — These 
two volumes are, I think, the best — -I 
shall write as long as I live ; 'tis in fact 
my hobby-horse : and so much am I de- 
lighted with my uncle Toby's imaginary 
character, that I am become an enthu- 
siast. — My Lydia helps to copy for me 

— and my wife knits, and listens as I 
read her chapters. — The coronation of 
his majesty (whom God preserve !) has 
cost me the value of an ox, which is to 
be roasted whole in the middle of the 
town, and my parishioners will, I sup- 
pose, be very merry upon the occasion. 

— You will then be in town — and feast 
your eyes with a sight, which 'tis to be 
hoped will not be in either of our powers 

to see again for in point of age we 

have about twenty years the start of his 
majesty. — And how, my dear friend, I 
must finish this — and with every wish 
for your happiness, conclude myself your 
most sincere well-wisher and friend. 

LETTER VI. 

Mr. Sterne to David Garrick, Esq. 

Paris, Jan. 31, 1762. 
My dear friend, 
Think not, because I have been a fort- 
night in this metropolis without writing 
to you, that therefore I have not had 
you and Mrs. Garrick a hundred times 
in my head and heart — heart ! yes, yes, 
say you — but I must not waste paper in 
badinage this post, whatever I do the 
next. Well ! here I am, my friend, as 
much improved in my health, for the 
time, as ever your friendship could wish, 

* His daushter. 



or at least your faith give credit to — by 
the bye I am somewhat worse in my in- 
tellectuals, for my head is turned round 
with what I see, and the unexpected ho- 
nours I have met with here. Tristram 
was almost as much known here as in 
London, at least among your men of con- 
dition and learning, and has got me in- 
troduced into so many circles ('tis covime 
a Londres). I have just now a fortnight's 
dinners and suppers upon my hands. — 
My application to the count de Choiseul 
goes on swimmingly, for not only Mr. 
Pelletiere (who, by the bye, sends ten 
thousand civilities to you and Mrs. Gar- 
rick) has undertaken my affair, but the 
count de Limbourgh — the baron d'Hol- 
bach has offered any security for the in- 
offensiveness of my behaviour in France 
— 'tis more, you rogue, than you will do. 
— This baron is one of the most learned 
noblemen here, the great protector of 
wits, and the Scavans who are no wits — 
keeps open house three days a week — 
his house is now, as yours was to me, 
my own — he lives at great expense. — 
'Twas an odd incident when I was in- 
troduced to the count de Bissie, which I 
was at his desire — I found him reading" 
Tristram. This grandee does me great 
honours, and gives me leave to go a pri- 
vate way through his apartments into the 
Palais Royal, to view the duke of Or- 
leans' collections, every day I have time. 
I have been at the doctors of Sorbonne — 
I hope in a fortnight to break through, 
or rather from, the delights of this place, 
which, in the sgavoir-vivre, exceed all 
the places, I believe, in this section of 
the globe 

I am going, when this letter is wrote, 
with Mr. Fox and Mr. Maccartney to 
Versailles — the next morning I wait 
upon Mons. Titon, in company with 
Mr. Maccartney, who is known to him, 
to deliver your commands. I have 
bought you the pamphlet, upon theatri-. 
cal, or rather tragical declamation. I 
have bought another in verse, .worth 
reading, and you will receive them, with 
what I can pick up this week, by a ser- 
vant of Mr. Hodges, whom he is send- 
ing back to England. 

I was last night with Mr. Fox to see 
Mademoiselle Claron, in Iphigene — she 
is extremely great — would to God you 
had one or two like her — what a luxury, 
to see you with one of such powers in the 
same interesting scene —but 'tis too much 



408 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



—All ! Preville ! thou art Mercury him- 
self. — By virtue of taking- a couple of 
hoxes, we have bespoke this week Tlie 
Frenchman in London, in which Preville 
is to send us home to supper all happy — 
I mean about fifteen or sixteen English 
of distinction, who are now here, and 
live well with each other. 

I am under great obligations to Mr. 
Pitt, who has behaved in every respect 
to me like a man of good-breeding and 
good-nature — iti a post or two, I will 
write again — Foley is an honest soul — I 
could write stx volumes of what has 
passed comically in this great scene, since 
these last fourteen days — but more of 
this hereafter. ^^ — -We are all going into 
mourning ; nor you, nor Mrs. Garrick, 
would know me, if you met me in my 
remise — bless you both ! Service to 
Mrs. Denis. Adieu, adieu ! 

LETTER VIL 

Mr. Sterne to Lady D . 

London*, Feb. 1, 1762. 
Your ladyship's kind inquiries after my 
health are indeed kind and of a piece 
with the rest of your character. Indeed 
I am very ill, having broke a vessel in 
my lungs - hard writing in the summer, 
together with preaching, which I have 
not strength for, is ever fatal to me — 
but I cannot avoid the latter yet, and the 
former is too pleasurable to be given up 
— I believe I shall try if the south of 
France will not be of service to me — his 
G. of Y. has most humanely given me 
the permission for a year or two — I shall 
set off with great hopes of its efficacy, 
and shall write to my v/ife and daughter 
to come and join me at Paris, else my 
stay could not be so long. — " Le Fevre's 
story has beguiled your ladyship of your 
tears," and the thought of the accusing 
spirit flying up to heaven's chancery with 
the oath you are kind enough to say is 
sublime — my friend Mr. Garrick thinks 
so too, and I am most vain of his appro- 
bation — your ladyship's opinion adds not 
a little to my vanity. 

I wish I had time to take a little ex- 
cursion to Bath, were it only to thank 
you for all the obliging things you say in 
your letter — but 'tis impossible —accept 
at least my warmest thanks — If I could 

* This letter, though dated from London, 
was evid(3ntly written at Paris. 



tempt my friend Mr. H. to come to 
France, I should be truly happy — If I 
can be of any service to you at Paris, 
command him who is, and ever will be, 
your ladyship's faithful, &c. 



LETTER VIII. 

Mr. Sterne to Mrs. Sterne, York. 

Paris, May 17, 1762. 
My dear, 
It is a thousand to one that this reaches 
you before you have set out — 'however, 
I take the chance — you will receive one 
wrote last night, the moment you get to 
Mr. E. and to wish you joy of your ar- 
rival in town — to that letter, which you 
will find in town, I have nothing to add 
that I can think on — for I have almost 
drain'd my brains dry upon the subject. — 
For God's sake rise early and gallop away 
in the cool— and always see that you have 
not forgot your baggage in changing 
post chaises. — You will find good tea 
upon the road from York to Dover — 
only bring a little to carry you from Ca- 
lais to Paris — give the Custom-house 
officers what I told you — at Calais give 
more, if you have much Scotch snuff — 
but as tobacco is good here, you had be&t 
bring a Scotch mill and make it yourself, 
that is, order your valet to manufacture 
it — 'twill keep him out of mischief. — I 
would advise you to take three days in 
coming up, for fear of heating your- 
selves — See that they do not give you a 
bad vehicle, when a better is in the yard : 
but you will look sharp — drink small 
Rhenish to keep you cool (that is if you 
like it.) Live well, and deny yourselves 
nothing your hearts wish. So God in 
heaven prosper and go along with you — 
kiss my Lydia, and believe me both af- 
fectionately yours. 

LETTER IX. 
From the same to the sa?ne. 

Paris, May 31, 1762. 
My dear, 
There have no mails arrived here till 
this morning, for three posts ; so I ex- 
pected with great impatience a letter 
from you and Lydia— and lo ! it is ar- 
rived. You are as busy as Throp's wife, 
and by the time you receive this, you 
will be busier still. I have exhausted all 
my ideas about your journey — and what 



Sect. II. 



^R E C E N T. 



409 



is needful for you to do before and during 
it — so I write only to tell you I am 
well — Mr. Colebrooks, tlie minister of 
Swisserland's secretary, I got this morn- 
ing to write a letter for you to tlie go- 
vernor of the Custom-house office at 
Calais — it shall be sent you next post. 
You must be cautious about Scotch snuff 

— take half a pound in your pocket, and 
make Lyd do the same. 'Tis well I 
bought you a chaise — there is no get- 
ting one in Paris now, but at an enor- 
mous price — for they are all sent to the 
army, and such a one as yours we have 
not been able to match for forty guineas, 
for a friend of mine who is going from 
hence to Italy — the weather was never 
known to set in so hot, as it has done 
the latter end of this month, so he and 
his party are to get into his chaises by 
four in the morning, and travel till nine 

— and not stir out again till six ; — but I 
hope this severe heat will abate by the 
time you come here — however, I beg of 
you once more to take special care of 
heating your blood in travelling, and 
come tout doucement, v/hen you find the 
heat too much — I shall look impatiently 
for intelligence from you, and hope to 
hear all goes well ; that you conquer all 
difficulties, that you have received your 
passport, my picture, &c. Write and 
tell me something of every thing*. I 
long to see you both, you may be as- 
sured, my dear wife and child, after so 

long a separation and write me a 

line directly, that I may have all the no- 
tice you can give me, that I may have 
apartments ready and fit for you when 
you arrive. — For my own part I shall 
continue writing to you a fortnight longer 

— present my respects to all friends — 
you have bid Mr. C. get my visitations 
at P. done for me. Sec. &c. If any offers 
are made about the inclosure at Rascal, 
they must be inclosed to me — nothing 
that is fairly proposed shall stand still 
on my score. Do all for the best, as 
He who guides all things will I hope do 
for us — so Heaven preserve you both — 
believe me your affectionate, &c. 

Love to my Lydia — I have bought her 
a gold watch to present to her when she 
comes. 



LETTER X. 



Mr. Sterne to Lady D . 

Paris, July 9, 1762. 

I v/iLL not send your ladyship the trifles 
you bid me purchase v/ithout a line. I 
am very v/ell pleased with Paris — indeed 
I meet with so many civilities amongst 
the people here, that I must sing their 
praises— the French have a great deal of 
urbanity in their composition, and to stay 
a little time amongst them will be agree- 
able. — I splutter French so as to be un- 
derstood — but I have had a droll adven- 
ture here, in which my Latin was of 
some service to me — I had hired a chaise 
and a horse to go about seven miles into 
the country, but, Shandean like, did not 
take notice that the horse was almost 
dead when I took him. — Before I got 
half-way, the poor animal dropped down 
dead — so I was forced to appear before 
the police, and began to tell my story in 
French, which was, that the poor beast 
had to do with a worse beast than him- 
self, namely, his master, who had driven 
him all the day before (Jehu like), and 
that it had neither had corn, nor hay, 
therefore I was not to pay for the horse — 
but I might as well have whistled as have 
spoke French, and I believe my Latin was 
equal to my uncle Toby's Lilabulero — 
being not understood because of its pu- 
rity ; but by dint of words I forced my 
judge to do me justice — no common 
thing, by the way, in France. — My wife 
and daughter are arrived — ^the latter does 
nothing but look out of the window, and 
complain of the torment of being friz- 
zled. — I wish she may ever remain a 
child of nature — I hate children of art. 

I hope this will find your ladyship 
well — and that you will be kind enough 
to direct to me at Toulouse, which place 
I shall set out for very soon. I am, 
with truth and sincerity, your ladyship's 
most faithful, &c. 

LETTER XI. 

Mr. Sterne to Mr. E. 

Paris, July V2, 176?. 

Dear sir, 
My wife and daughter arrived here safe 
and sound on Thursday, and are in high 
raptures with the speed and ])leasant- 
nesa of their journey, and particularly 
of all they see and meet with here. 



410 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



But in their journey from York to Paris 
nothing- has given them a more sensible 
and lasting pleasure than the marks of 
kindness they received from you and 
Mrs. E. The friendship, good-will, and 
politeness of my two friends I never 
doubted to me, or mine, and I return 
you both ail a grateful man is capable of, 
which is merely my thanks. I have 
taken, however, the liberty of sending 
an Indian taffety, which Mrs. E. must 
do me the honour to wear for my wife's 
sake, who would have got it made up, 
but that Mr. Stanhope, the consul of 
Algiers, who sets off to-morrow morn- 
ing for London, has been so kind (1 mean 
his lady) as to take charge of it ; and 
we had but just time to procure it ; and 
had we missed that opportunity, as we 
should have been obliged to have left it 
behind us at Paris, we knew not when 
or how to get it to our friend — I wish 
it had been better worth a paragraph. If 
there is any thing we can buy or procure 
for you here (intelligence included), you 
have a right to command me — for I am 
yours, with my wife and girl's kind love 
to you and Mrs. E. 



LETTER XII. 

Mr. Sterne to Mr. Foley, at Paris. 

Toulouse, August 14, 1762. 
My dear Foley, 
After many turnings (alias digres- 
sions), to say nothing" of downright 
overthrows, stops, and delays, we have 
arrived in three weeks at Toulouse, and 
are now settled in our houses with ser- 
vants, &c. about us, and look as com- 
posed as if we had been here seven 
years. In our journey we suffered so 
much from the heats, it gives me pain to 
remember it. I never saw a cloud from 
Paris to Nismes, half as broad as a 
twenty-four sols piece. Good God ! we 
were toasted, roasted, grill'd, stew'd, and 
carbonaded on one side or other all the 
way — and being all done enough (assez 
cutis) in the day, we were eat up at 
night by bugs, and other unswept-out 
vermin, the legal inhabitants (if length of 
possession gives right) of every inn we 
lay at — Can you conceive a worse ac- 
cident than that in such a journey, in the 
hottest day and hour of it, four miles 
from either tree or shrub, which could 



cast a shade of the size of one of Eve's 
fig-leaves — that we should break a hind 
wheel in ten thousand pieces, and be 
obliged in consequence to sit five hours 
on a gravelly road, without one drop of 
water, or possibility of getting any? — 
To mend the matter, my two postillions 
were two dough -hearted fools, and fell a 
crying — Nothing was to be done ! By 
Heaven, quoth 1, pulling off my coat and 
waistcoat, something shall be done, for 
I'll thrash you both within an inch of 
your lives — and then make you take 
each of you a horse, and ride like two 
devils to the next post, for a cart to carry 
my baggage, and a wheel to carry our- 
selves — Our luggage weighed ten quin- 
tals — 'twas the fair of Baucaire — all the 
world was going or returning — we were 
asked by every soul who passed by us, if 
we were going to the fair of Baucaire — 
No wonder, quoth I, we have goods 
enough ! Vous avez raison, mes ajnis. 

Well ! here we are after all, my dear 
friend — and most deliciously placed at 
the extremity of the town, in an excel- 
lent house well furnished, and elegant 
beyond any thing I looked for — 'tis 
built in the form of a hotel, with a pretty 
court towards the town— and behind, the 
best garden in Toulouse, laid out in ser- 
pentine walks, and so large that the com- 
pany in our quarter usually come to walk 
there in the evenings, for which they 
have my consent — " the more the mer- 
rier." — The house consists of a good salle 
a manger above-stairs, joining to the very 
great salle a compagnie as large as the 
baron d'Holbach's ; three handsome bed- 
chambers with dressing-rooms to them — 
below-stairs two very good rooms for my- 
self, one to study in, the other to see 
company. — I have moreover cellars 
round the court, and all other offices — 
Of the same landlord I have bargained 
to have the use of a country-house which 
he has two miles out of town ; so that 
myself and all my family have nothing 
more to do than to take our hats and re- 
move from the one to the other. — My 
landlord is moreover to keep the gardens 
in order — and what do you think I am to 
pay for all this ? neither more nor less 
than thirty pounds a year — all things are 
cheap in proportion — so we shall live for 
very very little. — I dined yesterday with 
Mr. H ; he is m.ost pleasantly si- 
tuated, and they all are well. — As for the 
books you have received for D- , the 



Sect. II, 



RECENT. 



411 



bookseller was a fool not to send the bill 
along with them. I will write to him 
about it.— I wish you was with me for 
two months ; it would cure you of all 
evils ghostly and bodily — but this, like 
many other Avishes both for you and my- 
self, must have its completion elsewhere 
— Adieu, my kind friend, and believe 
that I love you as much from inclination 
as reason, for I am most truly yours. 

My wife and girl join in compliments 
to you — My best respects to my v/orthy 
baron d'HoIbach and all that society — 
remember me to my friend Mr. Pan- 
chaud. 



LETTER XIII. 

Mr. Sterne to J— H— S~, Esq, 

Toulouse, Oct. 19, 1762. 
My dear H. 
I RECEIVED your letter yesterday — so it 
has been travelling from Crazy Castle to 
Toulouse full eighteen days — If 1 had 
nothing to stop me, I would engage to 
set out this morning, and knock at Crazy- 
Castle gates in three days less time—by 
which time I should find you and the 
colonel, Panty, &c. all alone — the sea- 
son I most like and wish to be with you 
— I rejoice from my heart, down to my 
reins, that you have snatched so many 
happy and sunshiny days out of the hands 
of the blue devils — If we live to meet and 
join our forces as heretofore, we will give 
these gentry a drubbing — and turn them 
for ever out of their usurped citadel — 
some legions of them have been put to 
flight already by your operations this last 
campaign — and I hope to have a hand in 
dispersing the remainder the first time 
my dear cousin sets up his banners again 

under the square tower But what 

art thou meditating with axes and ham- 
mers ? — "I know the pride and the 
naughtiness of thy heart," and thou 
lovest the sweet visions of architraves, 
friezes, and pediments with their tym- 
panums, and thou hast found out a pre- 
tence, a raison de cinq cent livres sterling 
to be laid out in four years, &c. &c. (so 
as not to be felt, which is always added 
by the d 1 as a bait) to justify thy- 
self unto thyself — It may be very wise to 
do this — but it is wiser to keep one's 
money in one's pocket, whilst there are 
wars without and rumours of wars with- 



in. St. — advises his disciples to sell 
both coat and waistcoat — and go rather 
without shirt or sword, than leave no 
money in their scrip to go to Jerusalem 
with — Now those qiiatre cms consecutifs, 
my dear Anthony, are the most precious 
morsels of thy life to come (in this 
world), and thou wilt do well to enjoy 
that morsel without cares, calculations, 
and curses, and damns, and debts — for 
as sure as stone is stone, and mortar is 
mortar, &c. it will be one of the many 
works of thy repentance — But after aU, 
if the fates have decreed it, as you and 
I have some time supposed it on account 
of your generosity, " that you are never 
to be a monied man," the decree will 
be fulfilled, whether you adorn your 
castle and line it with cedar, and paint 
it within side and without side with, ver- 
milion, or not — et cela etant (having a 
bottle of Frontiniac and glass at my right 
hand) I drink, dear Anthony, to thy 
health and happiness, and to the final 
accomplishments of all thy lunary and 
sub-lunary projects. — For six weeks to- 
gether, after I wrote ray last letter to 
you, my projects were many stories 
higher, for I was all that time, as I 
thought, journeying on to the other 
world — I fell ill of an epidemic vile fever 
which killed hundreds about me — The 
physicians here are the arrantest charla- 
tans in Europe, or the most ignorant of 
all pretending fools — I withdrew what 
was left of me out of their hands, and 
recommended my affairs entirely to Dame 
Nature — She (dear goddess) has saved 
me in fifty different pinching bouts, and 
I begin to have a kind of enthusiasm now 
in her favour, and in my own, that one 
or two more escapes will make me be- 
lieve I shall leave you all at last by trans- 
lation, and not by fair death. I am now 
as stout and foolish again as a happy man 
can wish to be — and am busy playing 
the fool with my uncle Toby, whom I 
have got soused over head and ears in 
love. — I have many hints and projects 
for other works ; all will go on I trust as 
I wisli in this matter. — Wlien I have 
reaped the benefit of this winter at Tou- 
louse — I cannot see I have any thing 
more to do with it; therefore, after hav- 
ing gone with my wife and girl to Bag- 
nieres, I shall return from whence I came 

Now my wife wants to stay another 

year to save money ; and this opposition 
of wishes, though it will not be as sour 



412 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



as lemon, yet it will not be as sweet as 
sugarcandy. — I wish T — : would lead sir 
Charles to Toulouse ; 'tis as gfood as any 
town in the south of France — for my own 
part, 'tis not to my taste— but I believe 
the ground-work of my ennui is more to 
the eternal platitude of the French cha- 
racter—little variety, no originality in it 
at all — tha.n to any other cause— for 
they are very civil — but civility itself, in 
that uniform, wearies and bodders one to 
death — If I do not mind, I shall grow 
most stupid and sententious — Miss 
Shandy is hard at it with music, dancing, 
and French-speaking, in the last of which 
she does a merveille, and speaks it with 
an excellent accent, considering she prac- 
tises within sight of the Pyrenean moun- 
tains. — If the snows will suffer me, I 
propose to spend two or three months at 
Barege, or Bagnieres, but my dear wife 
is against all schemes of additional ex- 
penses—which wicked propensity (though 
not of despotic power) yet I cannot suf- 
fer — though by the bye laudable enough 
— But she may talk — I will do my own 
way, and she will acquiesce without a 
word of debate on the subject. — Who can 
say so much in praise of his wife ? Few I 

trow. — M is out of town vintaging 

— so write to me. Monsieur Sterne, gentil- 
liomme Anglois — it will find me — We are 
as much out of the road of all intelli- 
gence here as at the Cape of Good Hope — 
so write a long nonsensical letter like 
this, now and then, to me — in which say 
nothing but what may be shewn (though 
I love every paragraph and spirited stroke 
of your pen, others might not), for you 
must know, a lettei* no sooner arrives 
from England, but Curiosity is upon her 
knees to know the contents. — Adieu, dear 
H. believe me your affectionate, &c. 

We have had bitter cold weather here 
these fourteen days— which has obliged 
us to sit with whole pagells of wood 
lighted up to our noses — it is a dear ar- 
ticle—but every thing else being ex- 
tremely cheap, Madame keeps an excel- 
lent good house, with soupe, bouilli, roti 
— &c. &c. for two hundred and fifty 
pounds a year. 



LETTER XIV. 

Mr> Sterne to Mr. Foley, at Paris. 

Toulouse, Nov. 9, 1762. 

My dear Foley, 
I HAVE had this week your letter on my 
table, and hope you will forgive my not 
answering it sooner — and even to-day I 
can but write you ten lines, being en- 
gaged at Mrs. M — 's. I would not omit 
one post more acknowledging the favour 
— In a few posts I will write you a long 
one gratis, that is for love — Thank you 
for having done what I desired you — 
and for the future direct to me under 
cover at Monsieur Brousse's — I receive 
all letters through him, more punctual 
and sooner than when left at the post- 
house. 

H 's family greet you with mine 

— we are much together, and never for- 
get you — forget me not to the baron — 
and all the circle — nor to your domestic 
circle. 

I am got pretty well, and sport much 
with my uncle Toby in the volume I am 
now fabricating for the laughing part of 
the world — for the melancholy part of it, 
I have nothing but my prayers— so God 
help them. — 1 shall hear from you in a 
post or two at least after you receive this 
— in the mean time, dear Foley, adieu, 
and believe no man wishes or esteems 
you more than your, &c. 



LETTER XV. 

From the same to the same. 

Toulouse, Wednesday, 
Dec. 3, 17G2. 

Dear Foley, 
I HAVE for the last fortnight every post- 
day gone to Messrs. B and sons, in 

expectation of the pleasure of a letter 
from you with the remittance I desired 
you to send me here. — When a man has 
no more than half a dozen guineas in his 
pocket —and a thousand miles from home 
— and in a country where he can as soon 
raise the d — 1 as a six-livre piece to go 
to market with, in case he has changed 
his last guinea — you will not envy my 
situation — God bless you — remit me the 
balance due upon the receipt of this. — 
We are all at H — 's, practising a play we 
arc to act here this Christmas Holidays 



S&cT. IL 



RECENT. 



413 



— all the Dramcais Persons are of the 
English, of which we have a happy so- 
ciety living together like brothers and 
sisters — Your hanker here has just sent 
me word the tea Mr. H. wrote for is to 
be delivered into my hands — 'tis all one 
into whose hands the treasure falls — we 
shall pay Brousse for it the day we get 
it — we join in our most friendly re- 
spects, and believe me, dear Foley, truly 
yours. 



LETTER XVI. 

From the same to the same. 

Toulouse, Dec. 17, 1762. 
My dear Foley, 
The post after I wrote last, I received 
yours with the inclosed draught upon 
the receiver, for which I return you all 
thanks— I have received this day likewise 
the box and tea all safe and sound — so we 
shall all of us be in our cups this Christ- 
mas, and drink without fear or stint. — 
We begin to live extremely happy, and 
are all together every night — fiddling, 
laughing, and singing, and cracking 
jokes. You will scarce believe the news 
I tell you — there are a company of Eng- 
lish strollers arrived here, who are to act 
comedies all the Christmas, and are now 
busy in making dresses and preparing 
some of our best comedies — Your wonder 
will cease, when I inform you these 
strollers are your friends, with the rest of 
our society, to whom I proposed this 
scheme soulagement — and I assure you we 
do well. — The next week, with a grand 
orchestra, we play the Busy Body — and 
The Journey to London the week after ; 
but I have some thoughts of adapting it 
to your situation — and making it The 
Journey to Toulouse, which with the 
change of half a dozen scenes, may be 
easily done. — Thus, my dear F. for want 
of something better we have recourse to 
ourselves, and strike out the best amuse- 
ments we can from such materials. — My 
kind love and friendship to all my true 
friends — My service to the rest. H — 's 
family have just left me, having been this 
last week with us — they will be with me 
all the holidays. In summer we shall 
visit them, and so balance hospitalities. 
Adieu, yours most truly. 



LETTER XVII. 

Fro?}i the same to the same. 

Toulouse, March 29, 1763. 
Dear Foley, 
— Though that's a mistake I I mean 
the date of the place, for I write at Mr. 
H — 's in the country, and have been 
there with my people all the week — 
" How does Tristram do?" you say in 
yours to him — 'Faith, but so so — the 
worst of human maladies is poverty — 
though that is a second lie — for poverty 
of spirit is worse than poverty of purse 
by ten thousand per cent, — I inclose you 
a remedy for the one, a draught of a hun- 
dred-and-thirty pounds, for which I in- 
sist upon a rescription by the very return 
— or I will send you and all your com- 
missaries to the d 1. — I do not heai* 

they have tasted of one fleshy banquet 
all this Lent — you will make an excellent 
grille. P — they can make nothing of him, 
but bouillon — I mean my other two friends 
no ill — so shall send them a reprieve, as 
they acted out of necessity — not choice. 
— My kind respects to baron d'Holbach, 
and all his household — say all that is kind 
for me to my other friends — you know 
how much, dear Foley, I am yours. 

I have not five louis to vapour with in 
this land of coxcombs - My wife's com- 
pliments. 



LETTER XVIII. 

Froin the same to the same. 

Toulouse, April 18, 1763. 
Dear Foley, 
I THANK you for your punctuality in 
sending me the rescription, and for your 
box by the courier, which came safe by 
last post. — I was not surprised much 
with your account of lord * * * * x- being 
obliged to give way — and for the rest, all 
follows in course. — I suppose you will 
endeavour to fish and catch something 
for yourself in these troubled waters — at 
least I wish you all a reasonable man can 
wish for himself — which is wishing 
enough for you — all the rest is in the 
brain —Mr. Woodhouse (whom you know) 
is also here — he is a most amiable wor- 
thy man, and I have the pleasure of hav- 
ing him much with me~in a short time 
he proceeds to Italy.— The first week in 



414 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



June, I decamp like a patriarch with my 
whole household, to pitch our tents for 
three months at the foot of the Pyrenean 
hills at Bagnieres, where I expect much 
health and much amusement from the 
concourse of adventurers from all corners 

of the earth. — Mrs. M sets out, at 

the same time, for another part of the 
Pyrenean hills, at Courtray — fromwhence 
to Italy — this is the general plan of ope- 
ration here — except that I have some 
thoughts of spending the winter at Flo- 
rence, and crossing over with my family 
to Leghorn by water — and in April of 
returning by way of Paris home — but 
this is a sketch only, for in all things I 
am governed by circumstances — so that 
what is fit to be done on Monday, may be 
very unwise on Saturday— On all days of 
the week believe me yours, with unfeign- 
ed truth. 

P. S. All compliments to my Parisian 
friends. 



LETTER XIX. 

Mr. Sterne to Mr. Foley ^ at Paris. 

Toulouse, May 21, 1763. 
I TOOK the liberty, three weeks ago, to 
desire you would be so kind as to send 
me fourscore pounds, having received a 
letter the same post from my agent, that 
he would order the money to be paid to 
your correspondent in London in a fort- 
night. — It is some disappointment to me 
that you have taken no notice of my let- 
ter, especially as I told you we waited 
for the money before we set out for Bag- 
nieres — and so little distrust had I that 
such a civility would be refused me, that 
we have actually had all our things 
packed up these eight days, in hourly ex- 
pectation of receiving a letter. — Perhaps 
my good friend has waited till he heard 
the money was paid in London. — But you 
might have trusted to my honour— that 
all the cash in your iron box (and all the 
bankers in Europe put together) could 
not have tempted me to say the thing 
that is not. — I hope before this you will 
have received an account of the money 
being paid in London. — But it would 
have been taken kindly, if you had wrote 
me word you would transmit me the 
money when you had received it, but no 
sooner; for Mr. R— of Montpelier, 



though I know him not, yet knows 
enough of me to have given me credit 
for a fortnight for ten times the sum. I 
am, dear F — , your friend and hearty 
well-wisher. 

I saw the family of the H yes- 
terday, and asked them if you was in the 
land of the living. They said Yea— for 
they had just received a letter from you. 
— After all, I heartily forgive you — for 
you have done me a signal service in 
mortifying me, and it is this, I am de- 
termined to grow rich upon it. 

Adieu, and God send you wealth and 

happiness — All compliments to . 

Before April next 1 am obliged to re- 
visit your metropolis in my way to Eng- 
land. 



LETTER XX. 

From the same to the same. 

Toulouse, June 9, 1763. 

My dear Foley, 
I THIS moment received yours— conse- 
quently the moment I got it I sat down 
to answer it — So much for a logical in- 
ference. 

Now believe me I had never wrote 
you so testy a letter, had I not both loved 
and esteemed you — and it was merely in 
vindication of the rights of friendship 
that I wrote in a way as if I was hurt — 
for neglect me in your heart, I knew you 
could not, without cause ; which my 
heart told me I never had— or will ever 
give you : — I was the best friends with 
you that ever I was in my life before my 
letter had got a league, and pleaded the 
true excuse for my friend, " That he 
was oppressed with a multitude of busi- 
ness." Go on, my dear F., and have 
but that excuse (so much do 1 regard 
your interest), that I would be content 
to suffer a real evil without future mur- 
muring — but in truth, my disappoint- 
ment was partly chimerical at the bot- 
tom, having a letter of credit for two 
hundred pounds from a person I never 
saw, by me — but which, out of nicety of 
temper, I would not make any use of — 
I set out in two days for Bagnieres, but 
direct to me to Brousse, who will forward 
all my letters. — Dear F — , aidieu. — Be- 
lieve me yours affectionately. 



Sect. II. 



RECENT. 



415 



LETTER XXI. 

Front the saine to the same. 

Montpellier, Jan. 5, 1764. 

My dear friend, 
You see I cannot pass over the fifth of 
the month without thinking of you and 
writing to you — The last is a periodical 
hahit — The first is from my heart, and I 
do it oftener than I remember — how- 
ever, from both motives together I main- 
tain I have a right to the pleasure of a 
single line — be it only to tell me how 
your watch goes — You know how much 
happier it would make me to know that 
all things belonging to you went on well. 
— You are going to have them all to 

yourself (1 hear), and that Mr. S is 

true to his first intention of leaving busi- 
ness — I hope this will enable you to ac- 
complish yours in a shorter time, that you 
may get to your long-wished-for retreat 
of tranquillity and silence — When you 
have got to your fire- side, and into your 
arm-chair (and, by the bye, have another 
to spare for a friend), and are so much a 
sovereign as to sit in your furred cap, if 
you like it, though I should not (for a 
man's ideas are at least the cleaner for 
being dressed decently), why then it will 
be a miracle if I do not glide in like a 
ghost upon you — and in a very unghost- 
like fashion help you off with a bottle of 
your best wine. 

Jan. 15. — It does not happen every 
day that a letter, begnin in the most per- 
fect health, should be concluded in the 
greatest weakness — I wish the vulgar 
high and low do not say it was a judg- 
ment upon me, for taking all this liberty 
with ghosts — Be it as it may — I took a 
ride, when the first part of this was 
wrote, towards Perenas — and returned 
home in a shivering fit, though I ought to 
have been in a fever, for I had tired my 
beast ; and he was as unmoveable as Don 
Quixote's wooden horse, and my arm 
was half dislocated in whipping him — 
This, quoth I, is inhuman —No, says a 
peasant on foot behind me, I'll drive him 
home — so he laid on his posteriors, but 
'twas needless — as his face was turned 
towards Montpelier, he began to trot. — 
But to retiR-n : this fever has confined me 
ten days in my bed — I have suffered in 
this scufile with death terribly — but un- 
less the spirit of prophecy deceive me — 
I shall not die but live— in the mean 



time, dear F. let us live as merrily, but 
as innocently as we can — It has ever 
been as good, if not better, than a 
bishopric to me — and I desire no other 
— Adieu, my dear friend, and believe me 
yours. 

Please to give the inclosed to Mr. T — , 
and tell him I thank him cordially from 
my heart for his great good-will. 



LETTER XXII. 

Mr. Sterne to Mrs. F. 

Montpellier, Feb. 1, 1764. 
I AM preparing, my dear Mrs. F., to leave 
France, for I am heartily tired of it— 
That insipidity there is in French cha- 
racters has disgusted your friend Yorick. 
— I have been dangerously ill, and can- 
not think that the sharp air of Mont- 
pellier has been of service to me — and so 
my physicians told me when they had 
me under their hands for above a month 
— If you stay any longer here, sir, it will 
be fatal to you — And why, good people, 
were you not kind enough to tell me 
this sooner? — After having discharged 
them, I told Mrs. Sterne that I should 
set out for England very soon ; but as 
she chooses to remain in France for two 
or three years, I have no objection, ex- 
cept that I wish my girl in England. — 
The states of Languedoc are met — 'tis a 
fine raree show, with the usual accom- 
paniments of fiddles, bears, and puppet- 
shows. — I believe I shall step into my 
post-chaise with more alacrity to fly 
from these sights, than a Frenchman 
would fly to them — and except a tear at 
parting with my little slut, I shall be in 
high spirits ; and every step I take that 
brings me nearer England, will, I think, 
help to set this poor frame to rights. 
Now pray write to me, directed to Mr. 
F. at Paris, and tell me what I am to 
bring you over — How do I long to greet 
all my friends ! few do I value more than 
yourself. — My wife chooses to go to 
Montauban, rather than stay here, in 
which I am truly passive — If this should 
not find you at Bath, I hope it will be 
forwarded to you, as I wish to fulfil your 
commissions — and so adieu — Accept 
every warm wish for your health, and be- 
lieve me ever yours. 

P. S. My physicians have almost poi- 
soned me with Avhat they call bouillons ra- 



416 



E L E G A N T E P I S T L E S. 



Book IV. 



fraichissants — 'tis a cock liaycd alive and 
boiled with poppy seeds, tlien pounded in 
a mortar, afterwards passed through a 
sieve — There is to be one crawfish in it, 
and I was gravely told it must be a male 
one — a female would do me more hurt 
than good. 



LETTER XXIII. 

Mr. Sterne to Miss Sterne. 

Paris, May 15, 1764. 
My dear Lydia, ' 
By this time I suppose your mother and 
self are fixed at Montauban, and I there- 
fore direct to your banker, to be deliver- 
ed to you — I acquiesced in your staying 
in France — likewise it was your mother's 
wish — but I must tell you both (that 
unless your health had not been a plea 
made use of) I should have wished you 
both to return with me. — 1 have sent 
you the Spectators, and other books, 
particularly Metastasio ; but I beg my 
girl to read the former, and only make 
the latter her amusement. — I hope you 
have not forgot my last request, to make 
no friendships with the French women — 
not that I think ill of them all, but some- 
times women of the best principles are 
the most insinuating — nay I am so jealous 
of you, that I should be miserable were I 
to see you had the least grain of coquetry 
in your composition. — You have enough 
to do — for I have also sent you a guitar 
— and as you have no genius for drawing 
(though you never could be made to be- 
lieve it), pray waste not your time about 
it — Remember to write to me as to a 
friend — in short, whatever- comes into 
your little head, and then It will be natu- 
ral. — If your mothers rhuematism con- 
tinues, and she chooses to go to Bagnieres 
—tell her not to be stopped for want of 
money, for my purse shall be as open as 
my heart. I have preached at the Am- 
bassador's chapel — Hezekiah — (an odd 
subject your mother will say). There 
was a concourse of all nations, and reli- 
gions too. — I shall leave Paris in a few 
days. — I am lodged in the same hotel 
with Mr. T ; — they are good and ge- 
nerous souls — tell your mother that I 
hope she will write to me, and that when 
she does so, I may also receive a letter 
from my Lydia. 



Kiss your motlier from me, and believe 
me your affectionate, &c. 



LETTER XXIV. 
Mr. Sterne to J~ H~ S- 



■> Esq. 



September 4, 1764. 
Now, my dear dear Anthony — I do not 
think a week or ten days playing the 
good-fellow (at this very time) at Scar- 
borough so abominable a thing — but if 
a man could get there cleverly, and 
every soul in the house in the mind to try 
what could be done in furtherance there- 
of, I have no one to consult in this affair 
— therefore, as a man may do worse 
things, the English of all which is this, 
that I am going to leave a few poor sheep 
here in the wilderness for fourteen days 
— and from pride and naughtiness of 
heart to see what is doing at Scarbo- 
rough — steadfastly meaning afterwards 
to lead a new life, and strengthen my 
faith. — Now some folk say there is much 
company there — and some say not — and 
I believe there is neither the one nor the 
other — but will be both, if the world 
will have but a month's patience or so. 

— No, my dear H , I did not delay 

sending your letter directly to the post^ — 
As there are critical times, or rather 
turns and revolutions in * * * humours, 
1 knew not what the delay of an hour 
might hazard — I will answer for him, he 
has seventy times seven forgiven you — 
and as often v/ished you at the d — ^1. — 
After many oscillations the pendulum. 

will rest firm as ever. 

I send all kind compliments to sir C. 

D and G s. I love them from 

my soul. — If G 1 is with you, him 

also. — I go on, not rapidly, but well 
enough, with my uncle Toby's amours 
— There is no sitting, and cudgelling 
one's brains whilst the sun shines bright 
— 'twill be all over in six or seven weeks, 
and there are dismal months enow after 
to endure suffocation by a brimstone 
fire-side. — If you can get to Scarborough, 
do. — A man who m.akes six tons of alum 
a week, may do any thing — Lord Granby 

is to be there what a temptation ! 

Yours affectionately. Sec. 



Sect. II. 



R E C E N r. 



41 



» 



LETTER XXV. 

Mr. Sterne to Mr. Folei/, at Paris. 

York, Sept. 29, 1754. 
My dear friend, 
I HAVING just had the honour of a let- 
ter from Miss Tuting, full of the ac- 
knowledgments of your attention and 
kind services to her ; I will not believe 

these arose from the D. of A '5 

letters nor mine. Surely she needed no 

recommendation the truest and most 

honest compliment I can pay you, is to 
say they came from your own good heart, 
only you was introduced to the object — 
for the rest followed in course — However, 
let me cast in my mite of thanks to the 
treasury whic-h belongs to good natured 

actions. I have been with lord G y 

these three weeks at Scai-borougli— tlie 
pleasures of which I found somewhat 
more exalted than those of Bagnieres 
last year. — I am now returned to my phi- 
losophical hut to finish Tristram, which 
I calculate will be ready for the vv^orld 
about Christmas, at v/hichtime I decamp 
from hence, and fix my head-quarters at 
London for the winter — unless my cough 
pushes me forwards to your metropolis — 
or that I can persuade some gvos my lord 
to take a trip to you— I'll try if I can 
make him relish the joys of the Tuilleries, 
Opera Cojiiique, &c. 

I had this week a letter from Mrs, 
Sterne from Montauban, in which she 
tells me she has occasion for fifty pounds 
immediately — v,^ll you send an order to 
your correspondent at Montauban to pay 
her so much cash ? — and I will in three 
weeks send as much to Becket — But as 
her purse is low, for God's sake write 
directly. — Now you must do something 
equally essential — to rectify a mistake in 
the mind of your correspondent there, 
who it seems gave her a hint not long 
ago, '' that she was separated from me 
for life." — Now as this is not true m 
the first place, and may give a disadvan- 
tageous impression of her to those she 
lives amongst— 'twould be unmerciful 
to let her, or my daughter, suffer by it ; 
so do be so good as to undeceive him — 
for in a year or two she proposes (and in- 
deed I expect it with impatience from 
her) to rejoin me — and tell them I have 
all the confidence in the world she will 
not spend more than I can afford, and I 
only mentioned two hyndrecj guineas a 



year— l)ecause 'twas right to name some 
certain sum, for which I begged you to 
give her credit. — I write to you all of my 
most intimate concerns, as to a brother; 
so excuse me, dear Foley. God bless 
you. — Believe me., yours affectionately. 

Compliments to M. Panchaud, d'Hol- 
bach, &e. 



LETTER XXVL 



Mr. Sterne to David Garrick, Esq. 



1 SCALP you I 
dear friend !- 
hurts a hair o 
Avas I of that 



r65. 
my 



Bath, April 6, V 

— my dear Garrick ! 

-foul befal the man who 

your head ! — and so full 

very sentiment, that my 



letter had not been put into the post-of- 
fice ten minutes, before my heart smote 
me ; and I sent to recall it — but failed — 
You are sadly to blame, Slmndy ! for 
this, quoth I, leaning with my head on 
my hand, as I recriminated upon my 
false delicacy in the affair — Garrick's 
nerves (if he has any left) are as fine 
and delicately spun as thy own — his sen- 
timents as honest and friendly — thou 
knowest, Shandy, that he loves thee — 
why wilt thou hazard him a moment's 
pain? Puppy, fool, coxcomb, jackass, 
&c. &c.^ — and so I balanced the account 
to your favour, before I received it 
drawn up in yourw;ay — I say your way — 
for it is not stated so much to your ho- 
nour and credit, as I had passed the ac- 
count before — for it was a most lamented 
truth, that I never received one of the 
letters your friendship meant me, except 
whilst in Paris. — O ! how I congratulate 
you for the anxiety the world has, and 
continues to be under, for your return. — 
Return, return to the few who love you, 
and the thousands who admire you. — 
The moment you set your foot upon your 
stage— mark ! I tell it you — by some ma- 
gic, irresisted power, every fibre about 
your heart will vibrate afresh, and as 
strong and feelingly as ever. — Nature, 
with glory at her back, will light up the 
torch within you — and there is enough of 
it left, to heat and enlighten the world 
these many, many, many years. 

Heaven be praised ! (I utter it from 
my soul) that your lady, and my Miner- 
va, is in a condition to walk to Windsor 
-^fuU rapturously will I lead the graceful 
9 E 



418 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Hook IV. 



pilgrim to the temple, where I will sacri- 
fice with the purest incense to her — but 
you may worship with me, or not — 'twill 
make no difference either in the truth or 
warmth of my devotion— still (after all I 
have seen) I still maintain her peerless. 

Powel ! good Heaven ! — give me some 
one with less smoke and more fire— There 
are, who, like the Pharisees, still think 
they shall be heard for much speaking — 
Come — come away, my dear Garrick, 
and teach us another lesson. 

Adieu ! — I love you dearly — and your 
lady better — not hobbihorsically — but 
most sentimentally and aifectionately — 
for I am yours (that is, if you never say 

another word about ) with all the 

sentiments of love and friendship you 
fleserve from me. 



LETTER XXVIL 

Mr. Sterne to Mr. W. 

Coxwould, May 23, 17G5. 
At this moment I am sitting in my 
summer-house with my head and heart 
full, not of my uncle Toby's amours 
with the widow Wadman, bat my ser- 
mons — and your letter has drawn me 
out of a pensive mood — the spirit of it 
pleaseth me — but in this solitude, what 
can I tell or write to you but about my- 
self? — 1 am glad that you are in love — 
'twill cure you at least of the spleen, 
which has a bad effect on both man and 
woman — I myself must ever have some 
Dulcinea in my head — it harmonizes the 
soul — and in those cases I first endeavour 
to make the lady believe so, or rather I 
begin first to make myself believe that I 
am in love — ^but I carry on my affairs 
quite in the French way, sentimental- 
ly — " Vamour (say they) nest rien sans 

sentiment." Now, notwithstanding 

they make such a pother about the word, 
they have no precise idea annexed to it — 
And so much for the same subject called 
love. — I must tell you how I have just 
treated a French gentleman of fortune in 
France, who took a liking to my daughter 
— without any ceremony (having got my 
direction from my wife's banker) he 
wrote me word that he was in love with 
my daughter, and desired to know what 
fortune I would give her at present, and 
how much at my death — by the bye, I 
think there was very little sentiment on his 



side — My answer was, " Sir, I shall give 
her ten thousand pounds the day of mar- 
riage — my calculation is as follows — she 
is not eighteen, you are sixty -two — — 
there goes five thousand pounds — then, 
sir, you at least think her not ugly — 
she has many accomplishments, speaks 
Italian, French, plays upon the guitar, 
and as I fear you play upon no instru- 
ment whatever, I think you will be 
happy to take her at my terms, for here 
finishes the account of the ten thousand 
pounds." — I do not suppose but he will 
take this as I mean — that is, a flat refu- 
sal — I have had a parsonage-house burnt 
down by the carelessness of my curate's 
wife — as soon as I can 1 must rebuild it, 
I trow — but I lack the means at present 
— yet I am never happier than when I 
have not a shilling in my pocket — for 
when I have, I can never call it my own. 
Adieu, my dear friend — may you enjoy 
better health than me, though not better 
spirits, for that is impossible. Yours 
sincerely. 

My compliments to the Col. 



LETTER XXVIII. 

Mr. Sterne to 31iss Sterne. 

Naples, Feb, 3, 1760. 
My dear girl. 
Your letter, my Lydia, has made me 
both laugh and cry. — Sorry am I that 
you are both so afflicted with the ague, 
and by all means I wish you both to fly 
from Tours, because I remember it is 
situated between two rivers, la Loire 
and le Cher — which must occasion fogs, 
and damp unwholesome weather — there- 
fore for the same reason go not to 
Bourges en Bresse — 'tis as vile a place 
for agues. — I find myself infinitely better 
than I was — and hope to have added at 
least ten years to my life by this journey 
to Italy — the climate is heavenly, and I 
find new principles of health in me, 
which I have been long a stranger to — — 
but trust me, my Lydia, I will find you 
out, wherever you are, in May. There- 
fore I beg you to direct to me at Belloni's 
at Rome, that I may have some idea 
where you will be then. — The account 
you give me of Mrs. C is truly ami- 
able, I shall ever honour her — Mr. C. is 
a diverting companion — what he said of 
your little French admirer was truly droll 



Sect. II. 



R E C E N T. 



419 



- — the marquis de 



is an impostor, 



and not worthy of your acquaintance — he 
only pretended to know me, to get in- 
troduced to your mother — I desire you 
will get your mother to write to Mr. C. 
that 1 may discharge every debt, and 
then, my Lydia, if I live, the produce of 
my pen shall be yours — If fate reserves 
me not tliat — the humane and good, part 
for thy father's sake, part for thy own, 
will never abandon thee ! — If your mo- 
ther's health will permit her to return 
with me to England, your summers I will 
render as agreeable as I can at Cox would 
— your winters at York — you know my 
publications call me to London. If Mr. 
and Mrs. C — are still at Tours, thank 
them from me for their cordiality to my 
wife and daughter. I have purchased 
you some little trifles, Avhich I shall give 
you when we meet, as proofs of affection 
from your fond father. 



LETTER XXIX. 



David Hume, Esq. to 



Edinburgh, Au'^. 16, 1760. 



Sir, 



I AM not surprised to find by your letter, 
that Mr. Gray shovild have entertained 
suspicions with regard to the authenticity 
of these fragments of our Highland poe- 
try. The first time I was shewn the 
copies of some of them in manuscript, by 
our friend John Home, I was inclined to 
be a little incredulous on that head ; but 
Mr. Home removed my scruples, by in- 
forming me of the manner in which he 
procured them from Mr. Macpherson, 
the translator. These two gentlemen 
were drinking the waters together at 
Moffat last autumn ; when their conver- 
sation fell upon Highland poetry, which 
Mr. Macpberson extolled very highly. 
Our friend, who knew him to be a good 
scholar and a man of taste, found his 
curiosity excited ; and asked whether he 
had ever translated any of them ? Mr. 
Macpherson replied, that he never had 
attempted any such thing ; and doubted 
whether it was possible to transfuse such 
beauties into our language ; but for Mr. 
Homme's satisfaction, and in order to give 
him a general notion of the strain of that 
wild poetry, he would endeavour to turn 
one of them into English. He accord- 
ingly brought him one next day ; which 



our friend was so mucli pleased with, that 
he never ceased soliciting Mr. Macpher- 
son till he insensibly produced that small 
volume which has been published. 

After this volume was in every body's 
hands, and universally admired, we heard 
every day new reasons, which put the au- 
thenticity, not the great antiquity, which 
the translator ascribes to them, beyond 
all question : for their antiquity is a point 
which must be ascertained by reasoning ; 
though the arguments he employs seem 
very probable and convincing. But cer- 
tain it is, that these poems are in every 
body's mouth in the Highlands, have 
been handed down from father to son, 
and are of an age beyond all memory and 
tradition. 

In the family of every Highland chief- 
tain there was anciently retained a bard, 
whose office was the same with that of 
the Greek rhapsodists ; and the general 
subject of the poems, which they recited, 
was the wars of Fingal ; an epoch no less 
celebrated among them, than the wars 
of Troy among the Greek poets. This 
custom is not even yet altogether abo- 
lished ; the bard and piper are esteemed 
the most honourable offices in a chief- 
tain's family, and these two characters 
are frequently united in the same person. 
Adam Smith, the celebrated professor in 
Glasgow, told me, that the piper of the 
Argyleshire militia repeated to him all 
those poems which Mr. Macpherson has 
translated, and many more of equal 
beauty. Major Mackay, lord Rae's bro- 
ther, also told me, that he remembers 
them perfectly ; as likewise did the laird 
of Macfarlane, the greatest antiquarian 
whom we have in this country, and who 
insists so strongly on the historical truth, 
as well as on the poetical beauty of these 
productions. I could add the laird and 
lady Macleod to these authorities, with 
many more, if these were not sufficient ; 
as they live in different parts of the High- 
lands, very remote from each other, and 
they could only be acquainted with poems 
that had become in a manner national 
works, and had gradually spread them- 
selves into every mouth, and imprinted 
on every memory. 

Every body in Edinburgh is so con- 
vinced of this truth, that we have endea- 
voured to put Mr. Macpherson on a way 
of procuring us more of these wild flowers. 
He is a modest sensible young man, not 
settled in any living, but emploved as a 
2 E 2 



420 



E L E G A N 1^ E P 1 S 1 L E S. 



Book IV. 



private tutor in Mr. Graham of Balgo- 
wan's family, a way of life which he is 
not fond of. We have therefore set about 
a subscription, of a guinea or two guineas 
a-piece, in order to enable him to quit 
that family, and undertake a mission into 
the Highlands, where he hopes to recover 
more of these Fragments. There is, in 
particular, a country surgeon somewhere 
in Lochaber, who, he says, can recite a 
great number of them, but never com- 
mitted them to writing : as indeed the 
orthography of the Highland language is 
not fixed, and the natives have always 
employed more the sword than the pen. 
This surgeon has by heart the epic poem 
mentioned by Mr. Macpherson in his 
preface ; and as he is somewhat old, and 
is the only person living that has it entire, 
we are in the more haste to recover a mo- 
nument, which will certainly be regarded 
as a curiosity in the republic of letters. 

I own, that my first and chief objec- 
tion to the authenticity of these Frag- 
ments, was not on account of the noble 
and even tender strokes which they con- 
tain ; for these are the offspring of Ge- 
nius and Passion in all countries ; I was 
only surprised at the regular plan which 
appears in some of these pieces, and 
which seems to be the work of a more 
cultivated age. None of the specimens 
of barbarous poetry known to us, the He- 
brew, Arabian, or any other, contained 
this species of beauty : and if a regular 
epic poem, or even any thing of that 
kind, nearly regular, should also come 
from that rough climate, or uncivilised 
people, it would appear to me a phseno- 
menon altogether unaccountable. 

I remember, Mr. Macpherson told me, 
that the heroes of this Highland epic 
were not only, like Homer's heroes, their 
own butchers, bakers, and cooks, but al- 
so their own shoemakers, carpenters, 
and smiths. He mentioned an incident, 
which put this matter in a remarkable 
light. A warrior has the head of his 
spear struck off in battle ; upon which 
he immediately retires behind the army, 
where a forge was erected ; makes a new 
one ; hurries back to the action ; pierces 
his enemy, while the iron, which was 
yet red hot, hisses in the wound. This 
imagery you will allow to be singular, 
and so well imagined, that it would have 
been adopted by Homer, had the man- 
ners of the Greeks allowed him to have 
employed it. 



I forgot to mention, as another proof 
of the authenticity of these poems, and 
even of the reality of the adventures con- 
tained in them, that the names of the 
heroes, Fingal, Oscur, Osur, Oscan, 
Dermid, are still given in the Highlands 
to large mastiffs, in the same manner as 
we afiix to them the names of Csesar, 
Pompey, Hector ; or the French that of 
Marlborough. 

It gives me pleasure to find, that a 
person of so fine a taste as Mr. Gray ap- 
proves of these Fragments, as it may 
convince us, that our fondness of them is 
not altogether founded on national pre- 
possessions, which, however, you know 
to be a little strong. The translation is 
elegant ; but I made an objection to the 
author, which I wish you would commu- 
nicate to Mr. Gray, that we may judge 
of the justness of it. There appeared to 
me many verses in his prose, and all of 
them in the same measure with Mr. 
Shenstone's famous ballad, 

"Ye shepherds, so careless and free, 
Whose flocks never carelessly roam," &c. 

Pray ask Mr. Gray whether he made the 
same remark, and whether he thinks it 
a blemish ? Yours most sincerely. 

LETTER XXX. 

David Hume, Esq. to Dr. Campbell. 

Edinburgh, Jan, 7, 1762, 

Dear sir. 
It has so seldom happened that contro- 
versies in philosophy, much more in 
theology, have been carried on without 
producing a personal quarrel between 
the parties, that I must regard my pre- 
sent situation as somewhat extraordi- 
nary, who have reason to give you thanks, 
for the civil and obliging manner in 
which you have conducted the dispute 
against me, on so interesting a subject 
as that of miracles. Any little symp- 
toms of vehemence, of which I formerly 
used the freedom to complain, when you 
favoured me with a sight of the manu- 
script, are either removed or explained 
away, or atoned for by civilities which 
are far beyond what I have any title to 
pretend to. It will be natural for you 
to imagine, that I will fall upon some 
shift to evade the force of your argu- 
ments, and to retain my former opinion 
in the point controverted between us ; 
but it is impossible for m'e not to see the 



Sect. II. 



R E C E N T 



4^1 



ingenuity to your performance, and the 
great learning which you have displayed 
against me. 

I consider myself as very much ho- 
noured in being thought worthy of an 
answer by a person of so much merit ; 
and as I find that the public does you 
justice with regard to the ingenuity and 
good composition of your piece, I hope 
you will have no reason to repent engag- 
ing with an antagonist, whom perhaps 
in strictness you might have ventured to 
neglect. I own to you that I never felt 
so violent an inclination to defend my- 
self as at present, when I am thus fairly 
challenged by you, and I think I could 
find something specious at least to urge 
in my defence ; but as I had fixed a re- 
solution, in the beginning of my life, 
always to leave the public to judge be- 
tween my adversaries and me, without 
making any reply, I must adhere invio- 
lably to this resohition, otherways my 
silence on any future occasion would be 
construed an inability to answer, and 
would be matter of triumph against me. 

It may perhaps amuse you to learn the 
first hint which suggested to me that ar- 
gument which you have so strenuously 
attacked. I was walking in the cloy- 
sters of the Jesuits College of La Fleche, 
a town in which I passed two years of 
my youth, and engaged in a conversation 
with a Jesuit of some parts and learning, 
who was relating to me, and urging 
some nonsensical miracle performed in 
their convent, when I was tempted to 
dispute against him ; and as my head 
was full of the topics of my Treatise of 
Human Nature, which I was at this time 
composing, this argument immediately 
occurred to me, and I thought it very 
much gravelled my companion ; but at 
last he observed to me, that it was im- 
possible for that argument to have any 
solidity, because it operated equally 
against the Gospel as the Catholic mira- 
cles ; which observation I thought pro- 
per to admit as a sufficient answer. I 
believe you will allow, that the freedom 
at least of this reasoning makes it some- 
what extraordinary to have been the 
produce of a convent of Jesuits, though 
perhaps you may think the sophistry of 
it savours plainly of the place of its 
birth. 



LETTER XXXI. 

Dr. Smollett to Daniel Mackercher *, Eaq. 

Chelsea, Feb. 23, 175.'5. 
Dear sir, 
I SHALL take it as a particular favour, 
if you will peruse the inclosed rough 
draught of a letter, which I intend to 
send to Mr. Hume Campbell, provided 
you think it contains nothing actionable. 
I hope you will excuse this trouble, and 
believe me to be with equal sincerity and 
attachment, dear sir, your very humble 
servant. 

Sir, 
I HAVE waited several days in hope of 
receiving from you an acknowledgment 
touching those harsh, unjustifiable (and 
let me add), unmannerly expressions 
which you annexed to my name, in the 
Court of King's Bench, when you open- 
ed the cause depending between me and 
Peter Gordon ; and as I do not find that 
you have discovered the least inclination 
to retract what you said to my preju- 
dice, I have taken this method to refresh 
your memory, and to demand such satis- 
faction as a gentleman injured as 1 am 
has a right to claim. 

The business of a counsellor is, I ap- 
prehend, to investigate the truth in be- 
half of his client ; but surely he has na 
privilege to blacken and asperse the cha- 
racter of the other party, without any re- 
gard to veracity or decorum. That you 
assumed this unwarrantable privilege in 
commenting upon your brief, I believe 
you will not pretend to deny, when I re- 
mind you of those peculiar flowers of 
elocution which you poured forth on that 
notable occasion. First of all, in order 
to inspire the court with horror and con- 
tempt for the defendant, you gave the 
jury to understand that you did not know 
this Dr. SmoUet ; and, indeed, his cha- 
racter appeared in such a light from the 
facts contained in your brief, that you 
never should desire to know him. I 
should be glad to learn of what conse- 
quence it could be to the cause, whetlier 
you did or did not know the defendant, 
or whether you had or had not an incli- 

* This gentleman's name is familiar to the 
public, as well from the account of his life in- 
serted in The Adventures of J'eregrine Pickle, 
as from the part he took in the celebrated 
i\ns:Iesea cauise. 



422 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



nation to be acquainted with him ? Sir, 
this was a pitiful personality, calculated 
to depreciate the character of a gentle- 
man to whom you were a stranger, merely 
to gratify the rancour and malice of an 
abandoned fellow who had fee'd you to 
speak in his cause. Did I ever seek your 
acquaintance, or court your protection? 
I had been informed, indeed, that you 
were a lawyer of some reputation, and, 
when the suit commenced, Avould have 
retained you for that reason, had not I 
been anticipated by the plaintiff; but, 
far from coveting your acquaintance, 1 
never dreamed of exchanging a word 
with you on that or any other subject : 
you might therefore have spared your 
invidious declaration, until I had put it 
in your power to mortify me with a re- 
pulse, which, upon my honour, would 
never have been the case, were you a 
much greater man than you really are. 
Yet this was not the only expedient you 
used to prepossess the jury against me. 
You were hardy enough to represent me 
as a person devoid of all humanity and 
remorse ; as a barbarous ruffian, who in 
a cowardly manner had, with two asso- 
ciates as barbarous as myself, called a 
peaceable gentleman out of his lodgings, 
and assaulted him in the dark, Avith in- 
tent to murder. Such an horrid impu- 
tation, publicly fixed upon a person 
whose innocence you could hardly miss 
to knov/, is an outrage, for which, I be- 
lieve, I might find reparation from the 
law itself, notwithstanding your artful 
manner of qualifying the expression, by 
saying, provided the facts can be proved. 
This low subterfuge may, for aught I 
know, screen you from a prosecution at 
law, but can never acquit you in that 
court which every man of honour holds 
in his own breast. I say, you must have 
known my innocence from the weakness 
of the evidence which you produced, and 
with which you either were or ought to 
have been previously acquainted ; as well 
as from my general character and that 
of my antagonist, v/hich it was your duty 
to have learned. I will venture to say, 
you did know my character, and in your 
heart believed me incapable of such bru- 
tality as you laid to my charge. Surely, 
I do not over-rate my own importance 
in affirming, that I am not so obscure in 
life as to have escaped the notice of 
Mr. Hume Campbell ; and i will be bold 
enough to challenge him and the whole 



v/orld to prove one instance in which my 
integrity was called, or at least left, in 
question. Have not I therefore reason 
to suppose that, in spite of your own 
internal conviction, you undertook the 
cause of a wretch, whose ingratitude, 
villany, and rancour, are, I firmly be- 
lieve, without example in this kingdom ; 
that you magnified a slight correction 
bestowed by his benefactor, in conse- 
quence of the most insolent provocation, 
into a deliberate and malicious scheme 
of assassination ; and endeavoured, with 
all the virulence of defamation, to destroy 
the character, and even the life, of an 
injured person, who, as well as yourself, 
is a gentleman by birth, education, and 
profession ? In favour of whom, and in 
consequence of what, was all this zeal 
manifested, all this slander exhausted, 
and all this scurrility discharged ? Your 
client, whom you dignified with the title 
of Esquire, and endeavoured to raise to 
the same footing with me in point of 
station and character, you knew to be an 
abject miscreant, whom my compassion 
and humanity had lifted from the most 
deplorable scenes of distress ; whom I 
had saved from imprisonment and ruin ; 
whom I had clothed and fed for a series 
of years ; whom I had occasionally assist- 
ed with my purse, credit, and influence. 
You knew, or ought to have known, that, 
after having received a thousand marks 
of my benevolence, and prevailed upon 
me to indorse notes for the support of 
his credit, he withdrew himself into the 
verge of the court, and took up his ha- 
bitation in a paltry alehouse, where he 
not only set me and the rest of his cre- 
ditors at defiance, but provoked me, by 
scurrilous and insolent letters and mes- 
sages, to chastise him in such a manner 
as gave him an handle for this prosecu- 
tion, in which you signalized yourself as 
his champion, for a very honourable con- 
sideration. There is something so pal- 
pably ungrateful, perfidious,*' and indeed 
diabolical, in the conduct of the prose- 
cutor, that, even in these degenerate days, 
I wonder how he could find an attorney 
to appear in his behalf. te?npora ! O 
mores! — After having thus sounded the 
trumpet of obloquy in your preamble, 
and tortured every circumstance of the 
plaintiff's evidence to my detriment and 
dishonour, you attempted to subject me 
to the ridicule of the court, by asking a 
«|uestion of my first witness, which had 



Sect. II 



RECENT. 



423 



you had desired to know the name of his 
grandmother. What title had you to 
ask of a tradesman, if he knew me to he 
an author ? What affinity had this ques- 
tion with the circumstances of the as- 
sault ? Was not this foreign to the pur- 
pose ? Was it not impertinent, and pro- 
posed with a view to put me out of coun- 
tenance, and to raise the laugh of the 
spectators at my expense? There, indeed, 
you v/ere disappointed, as you frequently 
are, in those little digressive efforts by 
which you make yourself remarkable. 
Though 1 do not pretend to possess that 
superlative degree of effrontery by which 
some people make a figure at the bar, I 
have assurance enough to stand the men- 
tion of my Works without blushing, es- 
pecially when I despise the taste, and 
scorn the principles, of him who would 
turn them to my disgrace. You succeed- 
ed, however, in one particular ; I mean, 
in raising the indignation of my witness ; 
of which you took all imaginable advan- 
tage, puzzling, perplexing, and brow- 
beating him with such artifice, eager- 
ness, and insult, as overwhelmed him 
with confusion, and had well nigh de- 
prived me of the benefit of his evidence. 
Luckily for me, the next gentleman who 
was called confirmed what the other 
had swore, and proved to the satisfaction 
of the judge and jury, and even to your 
own con^Action, that this terrible deli- 
berate assassination was no more than a 
simple blow given to a rascal after re- 
peated provocation, and that of the most 
flagrant kind ; that no advantage was 
taken in point of weapons ; and that two 
drabs, whom they had picked up for the 
purpose, had affirmed upon oath a down- 
right falsehood, with a view to blast my 
reputation. You yourself was so con- 
scious of this palpable detection, that 
you endeavoured to excuse them by a 
forced explanation, which, you may de- 
pend upon it, shall not screen them from 
a prosecution for perjury. I will not 
say, that this was like patronizing a 
couple of gypsies who had forsworn 
themselves, consequently forfeited all 
title to the countenance, or indeed for- 
bearance, of the court ; but this I will 
say, that your tenderness for them was of 
a piece with your whole behaviour to 
me, which I think was equally insolent 
and unjust : for, granting that you had 
really supposed me guilty of in intended 



assassination, before the trial began ; you 
saw me in the course.of evidence acquit- 
ted of that suspicion, and heard the judge 
insist upon my innocence in his charge 
to the jury, who brought in their verdict 
accordingly. Then, sir, you ought, in 
common justice, to have owned yourself 
mistaken, or to have taken some other 
opportunity of expressing your concern 
for what you had said to my disadvan- 
tage ; though even such an acknowledg- 
ment would not have been a sufficient 
reparation ; because, before my witnesses 
were called, many persons left the court 
with impressions to my prejudice, con- 
ceived from the calumnies which they 
heard you espouse and encourage. On 
the whole, you opened the trial with 
such hyperbolical impetuosity, and con- 
ducted it with such particular bitterness 
and rancour, that every body perceived 
you were more than ordinarily interested ; 
and I could not divine the mysterious 
bond of union that attached you to Peter 
Gordon, esq. until you furnished me with 
a key to the whole secret, by that strong 
emphasis with which you pronounced 
the words Ferdinand Count Fathom. 
Then I discovered the source of your 
good-will towards me, which is no other 
than the history of a law suit inserted in 
that performance, where the author takes 
occasion to observe, that the counsel be- 
haved like men., of consummate abilities 
in their profession ; exerting themselves 
with equal industry, eloquence, and eru- 
dition, in their endeavours to perplex 
the truth, brow-beat the evidences puz- 
zle the judge, and mislead the jury. Did 
any part of this character come home to 
your own conscience ? or did you resent 
it as a sarcasm levelled at the whole 
bench without distinction? I take it for 
granted, this must have been the origin 
of your enmity to me ; because I' can re- 
collect no other circumstance in my con- 
duct, by which I could incur the displea- 
sure of a man whom I scarce knew by 
sight, and with whom I never had the 
least dispute, or indeed concern. If this 
was the case, you pay a very scurvy com- 
pliment to your own integrity, by father- 
ing a character which is not applicable 
to any honest man, and give the world a 
handle to believe, that our courts of jus- 
tice stand greatly in need of reforma- 
tion. Indeed, tlie petulance, license, and 
buffonery of some lawyers in the exer- 
cise of their function, is a reproach upon 



424 



ELEGAI^T EPISTLES. 



KofoK IV^ 



decency and a scandal to the nation ; and 
it is surprising that the judge, who re- 
presents his majesty's person , should suf- 
fer such insults upon the dignity of the 
place. But, whatever liberties of this 
kind are granted to the counsel, no sort 
of freedom, it seems, must be allowed to 
the evidence, who, by the bye, are of 
much more consequence to the cause. 
You will take upon you to divert the au- 
dience at the expense of a witness, by 
impertinent allusions to some parts of 
his private character and affairs ; but if 
he pretends to retort the joke, you in- 
sult, abuse, and bellow against him as 
a,n impudent fellow who fails in his re- 
spect to the court. It was in this man- 
ner you behaved to my first witness, 
whom you first provoked into a passion 
by injurious insinuations ; then you took 
an advantage of the confusion which you 
had entailed upon him ; and, lastly, you 
insulted him as a person who had shuf- 
fled in his evidence. This might have 
been an irreparable injui-y to the cha- 
racter of a tradesman, had he not been 
luckily known to the whole jury, and 
many other persons in court, as a man 
of unquestionable probity and credit. 
Sir, a witness has as good a title as you 
have to the protection of the court ; and 
ought to have more, because evidence is 
absolutely necessary for the investigation 
of truth ; whereas the aim of a lav/yer is 
often to involve it in doubt and obscu- 
rity. Is it for this purpose you so fre- 
quently deviate from the point, and en- 
deavour to raise the mirth of the audience 
with flat jokes and insipid similes } or, 
have you really so miserably mistaken 
your own talents, as to set up for the 
character of a man of humour ? For my 
own part, were I disposed to be merry, 
I should never desire a more pregnant 
subject of ridicule than your own ap- 
pearance and behaviour ; but, as I am at 
present in a very serious mood, I shall 
content myself with demanding adequate 
reparation for the injurious treatment I 
have received at your hands ; otherwise 
I will in four days put this letter in the 
press, and you shall hear in another man- 
ner — not from a ruflSian and an assassin 
— but from an injured gentleman, who 
is not ashamed of subscribing himself. 

Monday rnorninj. 
Dear sir, 
1 AM much mortified that my rascally 



situation will not at present permit me 
to send more than the trifle enclosed, as 
nothing could give me more pleasure 
than an opportunity of shewing with 
how much friendship and esteem, I am;, 
dear sir, most faithfully, &c. 



LETTER XXXII. 

Dr. Isaac Schomherg to a Lady, on the 

Method of reading for Female Im- 

provef?ient. 
Madam, 
Conformable to your desire, and my 
promise, I present you with a few 
thoughts on the method of reading ; 
v/hich you would have had sooner, only 
that you gave me leave to set them down 
at my leisure hours. I have complied 
with your request in both these particu- 
lars ; so that you see, madam, how abso- 
lute your commands are over me. If my 
remarks should answer your expectations, 
and the purpose for which they were in- 
tended ; if they should in the least con- 
duce to the spending your time in a 
more profitable and agreeable manner 
than most of your sex generally do, it 
will give me a pleasure equal at least to 
that you will receive. 

It were to be wished, that the female 
part of the human creation, on whom 
Nature has poured out so many charms 
with so lavish a hand, would pay some 
regard to the cultivating their mind& and 
improving their understanding. It is 
easily accomplished. Would they bestow 
a fourth jjart of the time they throw 
away on the trifles and gewgaws of dress, 
in reading proper books, it would per- 
fectly answer their purpose. Not that I 
am against the ladies adorning their per- • 
sons ; let them be set off with all the 
ornaments that art and nature can con- 
spire to produce for their embellishment, 
but let it be with reason and good sense, 
not caprice and humour ; for there is 
good sense in dress, as in all things else. 
Strange doctrine to some ! but i am 
sure, madam, you know there is — You 
practise it. 

The first rule to be laid down to any 
one, who reads to improve, is never to 
read but with attention. As the abstruse 
parts of learning are not necessary to the 
accomplishment of one of your sex, a 
small degree of it will suffice. I would 
throw the subjects of which the ladies 



Sect. 1L 



RECENT 



425 



ought not to be wholly ignorant, under 
the following heads : 
History, 
Morality, 
Poetry. 

The first employs the memory, the 
second the judgment, and the third the 
imagination. 

Whenever you undertake to read His- 
tory, make a small abstract of the me- 
morable events, and set down in what 
year they happened. If you entertain 
yourself with the life of a famous per- 
son, do the same by his most remarkable 
actions, with the addition of the year 
and the place he was born at and died. 
You will find these great helps to your 
memory, as they will lead you to re- 
member what you do not write down, 
by a sort of chain that links the whole 
history together. 

Books on Morality deserve an exact 
reading. There are none in our lan- 
guage more useful and entertaining than 
the Spectators, Tatlers, and Guardians. 
They are the standards of the English 
tongue, and as such should be read over 
and over again ; for as we imperceptibly 
slide into the manners and habits of those 
persons with whom we most frequently 
converse, so reading being, as it were, 
a silent conversation, we insensibly write 
and talk in the style of the authors we 
have the most often read, and who have 
left the deepest impressions on our mind. 
Now, in order to retain what you read 
on the various subjects that fall under 
the head of Morality, I would advise you 
to mark with a pencil whatever you find 
worth remembering. If a passage should 
strike you, mark it down in the margin ; 
if an expression, draw a line under it ; if 
a whole paper in the fore-mentioned 
books, or any others which are written 
in the same loose and unconnected man- 
ner, make an asterisk over the first line. 
By these means you will select the most 
valuable, and they will sink deeper in 
your memory than the rest, on repeated 
reading, by being distinguished from 
them. 

The last article is Poetry. The way 
of distinguishing good poetry from bad, 
is to turn it out of verse into prose, and 
see whether the thought is natural, and 
the words adapted to it ; or whether they 
are not too big and sounding, or too low 
and mean for the sense they would con- 
vey. This rule will prevent you from 



being imposed on by bombast and fustian, 
which, with many passes for sublime ; for 
smooth verses, which run off the ear with 
an easy cadence and harmonious turn, 
very often impose nonsense on the world, 
and are like your fine dressed beaux, who 
pass for fine gentlemen. Divest both 
from their outward ornaments, and peo- 
ple are surprised they could have been 
so easily deluded. 

I have now, madam, given a few 
rules, and those such only as are really 
necessary. I could have added more ; 
but these will be sufficient to enable you 
to read without burdening your memory, 
and yet with another view besides that of 
barely killing time, as too many are ac- 
customed to do. 

The task you have imposed on me is 
a strong proof of your knowing the true 
value of time, and always having im- 
proved it to the best advantage, were 
there no other ; and that there are other 
proofs, those who have the pleasure of 
being acquainted with you can tell. 

As for my part, madam, you have 
done me too much honour, by singling 
me out from all your acquaintance on 
this occasion, to say any thing that would 
not look like flattery ; you yourself 
would think it so, were I to do you the 
common justice all your friends allow 
you ; I must therefore be silent on this 
head, and only say, that I should think my- 
self well rewarded in return, if you will 
believe me to be, with the utmost since- 
rity, as I really am, madam, your faith 
ful humble servant. 



LETTER XXXIII. 

To Colonel R s, in Spain. 

Before this can reach the best of hus- 
bands and the fondest lover, those ten- 
der names will be no more of concern 
to me. The indisposition in which you, 
to obey the dictates of your honour and 
duty, left me, has increased upon me ; 
and I am acquainted, by my physicians, 
I cannot live a week longer. At this 
time my spirits fail me ; and it is the ar- 
dent love I have for you that carries me 
beyond my strength, and enables me to 
tell you, the most painful thing in the 
prospect of death is, that I must part with 
you ; but let it be a comfort to you that 
I have no guilt hangs upon me, no un- 
repented folly that retards me ; but I 



426 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



pass away my last hours in reflection 
upon the happiness we have lived in to- 
gether, and in sorrow that it is soon to 
have an end. This is a frailty which I 
hope is so far from being criminal, that 
methinks there is a kind of piety in be- 
ing so unwilling to be separated from a 
state which is the institution of Heaven, 
and in which we have lived according to 
its laws. As we know no more of the 
next life, but that it will be a happy one 
to the good, and miserable to the wicked, 
why may we not please ourselves at least, 
to alleviate the difficulty of resigning 
this being, in imagining that we shall 
have a sense of what passes below, and 
may possibly be employed in guiding the 
steps of those with whom we walked 
with innocence when mortal? Why may 
I not hope to go on in my usual work,, 
and, though unknown to you, be assistant 
in all the conflicts of your mind ? Give 
me leave to say to you, O best of men ! 
that I cannot figure to myself a greater 
happiness than in such an employment ; 
to be present at all the adventures to 
which human life is exposed ; to admi- 
nister slumber to thy eye-lids in the 
agonies of a fever ; to cover thy beloved 
face in the day of battle ; to go with 
thee a guardian angel, incapable of 
wound or pain : where I have longed to 
attend thee, when a weak, a fearful wo- 
man. These, my dear, are the thoughts 
with which I warm my poor languid 
heart ; but indeed I am not capable, un- 
der my present weakness, of bearing the 
strong agonies of mind I fall into, when 
I form to myself the grief you must be 
in upon your first hearing of my depar- 
ture. I will not dwell upon this, because 
your kind and generous heart will be 
but the more afflicted, the more the per- 
son, for whom you lament, ofi'ers you 
consolation. My last breath v/ill, if I 
am myself, expire in a prayer for you. 
I shall never see thy face again. Fare- 
well for ever. 



LETTER XXXIV. 

John Garden to Archbishop Seckeri 

Brechin, April 24, 1767. 

My lord archbishop. 
May it please your grace, 
I AM a layman, content with the fruit of 
my labour, and have nothing to ask for 



myself. I am a Scots Whig and a Pres- 
byterian ; not quite so rigid, indeed, but 
I could conform to the Church of Eng- 
land, were it by law established : but I 
shall never wdsli to see it so here : our 
country is too barren and poor ; and 
from the experience I have had of the 
clergy here, 1 shall never wish to see 
them possessed of power, the constant 
concomitant of great riches ; so apt they 
are to domineer, or to side with those 
who are disposed to do so, when they 
can see their own interest in it. This I 
am sensible is no very plausible introduc- 
tion in addressing one of your station ; 
but plain truth tells best, and is always 
more prevalent than fiction. 

I have lately read a book, published 
this year at Edinburgh, titled. Principles 
Political and Religious, by Mr. Norman 
Sievwright, minister of the authorised 
Episcopal congregation here, to be sold 
at A. Donaldson's shop, London. I am 
pleased with the performance ; the more 
so, as an essay of its nature, from one of 
his profession in this country, would have 
been looked upon as quite exotic some 
years ago. The design is certainly lau- 
dable, to open the eyes of, and introduce 
loyalty among, a blind, deluded, and dis- 
affected people : a design wherein the in- 
terest and happiness of Great Britain is 
not a little concerned, and of conse- 
quence worthy of your grace's attention, 
whom kind Providence has placed at the 
head of the Church of England. 

I am absolutely unconnected with the 
author, either by blood or alliance, but I 
know him to be a good man and a loyal 
subject : and that the character I give 
will be confirmed by every honest man 
that knows him ; and though altogether 
unknown to your grace, and even void 
of the improper and presumptuous am- 
bition of being so, I have, without Mr. 
Sievwright's knowledge or participation, 
from the mere motive of public spirit, 
ventured to address you in this way, and 
under your correction to suggest, that 
the countenance your grace may be 
pleased to shew him, and your approba- 
tion of his design, will be a spur on him, 
and others, to exert themselves strenu- 
ously in the same way, and cannot miss 
to have a tendency to make us in this 
country more unanimous if not in reli- 
gious, at least in political matters ; which 
would be no small point gained : two 
rebellions in my time demonstrate the 



Sect. II. 



RECENT. 



427 



truth of this. Thoiigli my acquaintance 
and Mr. Sievwright s is of pretty long 
standing, sixteen years or thereby, I was 
yesterday in his house for the first time ; 
I saw his wife, a grave genteel woman 
big Avitli child, and six young children, 
all clean and decently dressed, and every 
thing orderly. Mr. Sievwright was not 
at home. He has only forty pounds an- 
nually to support all this. Great must 
he the economy, considering the enor- 
mous price to which every thing has 
risen ; for cold, I know, is the charity of 
the place. I never heard Mr. Sievwright 
complain ; and I believe no man else 
ever did. I own I was moved at the de- 
cent solemnity which I observed ; and, 
upon consideration, nothing could have 
hindered me from giving that relief 
which a good God and generous nature 
prompted, but want of ability. To whom 
shall I pour forth the emotions of my 
soul so properly on this affecting sub- 
ject as to Mm, who, next to our amiable 
king, is God's vicegerent for good in the 

island of Britain? The humanity, 

generosity, and godlike disposition of 
soul, for which you are famed even in 
this remote corner, leaves no room to 
doubt, that you will unexpectedly send 
Mr. Sievwriglit that relief, which, upon 
due consideration, you shall find his 
merit deserving of, either by calling him 
to some small benefice in England, or 
otherways, as to your great wisdom shall 
seem most meet. These prudential and 
charitable suggestions are submitted to 
you with all humility. Begging pardon 
for this great and uncommon piece of 
presumption, I have, with the most pro- 
found regard, the honour to be, my lord, 
your grace's most obedient and most 
humble servant. 

LET^rER XXXV. 

Archbishop Seeker to John Garden, in 
ansiver to the above. 



Sir, 



Lambeth, May 25, 1767. 



I BEG your pardon that I have suffered 
your letter, in this busy time, to lie so 
long unanswered. And I hope the plain 
speaking of an English Episcopal Whig 
will be as acceptable to you, as that of 
a Scotch Presbyterian is to me. Your 
established Church hath as much power, 
I believe, as ours hath, or more, though 



less wealth. And its wealth, perhaps, 
is not so much less as you may imagine, 
allowing for the different prices of things ; 
only with you the shares are nearly alike. 
I wish the incomes of your ministers 
were somewhat greater, and those of 
ours somewhat more equally divided. I 
wish too that all your Episcopal clergy 
were friends to the government; and 
that all the Presbyterians were as candid 
as you towards such of them as are. But 
however vain it may be to form wishes 
about others, each person may endeavour 
to act rightly himself. My business is 
not to abuse either my power, by lording 
it over God's heritage, or my wealth to 
the purposes of luxury or covetousness, 
but to do as much good as I can with 
both. One part of it I am sure you have 
done, by recommending Mr. Sievwright 
to me. I have heard of a performance of 
his relative to the Hebrew language, for 
which I am inquirmg. I have got his 
Principles Religious and Political ; a 
work that shews much good sense and 
reading, and hath given me much in- 
formation concerning the state of episco- 
pacy in Scotland. I should be glad to 
see him rewarded in proportion to his 
merit ; but one half of the preferments in 
my gift are no better, all things con- 
sidered, than what he hath already ; and 
there are, amongst the English clergy, 
thrice as many claimants on good grounds, 
for the other half, as I shall live to gra- 
tify. Besides, I should do Scotland an 
injury by taking such a man out of it. I 
must therefore content myself with de- 
siring you to put the inclosed little note 
into his hands, and to tell him, that if I 
live another year, and do not forget 
(which last I hope you will prevent), 
notice shall be taken of him again, by 
your friend and servant. 

LETTER XXXVI. 

John Garden to Archbishop Seeker, in re- 
turn to the above. 

June 5, 1767, 
May it please your grace, 
I AM instantly favoured with yours of 
tlie 25th ult. and have communicated 
the same to Mr. Sievwright. The ho- 
nour you have conferred on me by your 
speedy and effectual reply, though far 
beyond Avhat I could have hoped for, is 
at present swallowed up in the more sub- 



Am 



ELfiGAMT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



stantial joy which I feel in living in those 
days when one is found at the head of 
the Church of England, who knows so 
well to make a proper use of that power 
and those riches, which Almighty Good- 
ness, out of mercy to mankind, has been 
graciously pleased to bestow upon so 
much merit. Methinks at present I feel 
and fully understand what St. Paul 
meant, when he said, *' that for a good 
man one would even dare to die." What 
Mr. Sievwright's feelings are, your grace 
will best understand from himself, for 
he also is to write you. Sure I am I 
surprised him. From the experience I 
have of him, I have reason to think, 
that the more your grace knows of him, 
the better you will be pleased with him, 
and the less you'll think your favours 
misapplied. He is a man of learning, 
and one whose walk and conversation 
seem worthy of his calling. He has now 
got the seventh child, and the wife is 
presently on the straw, so that the ten- 
pound note came seasonably. May those 
sensations that a good man feels upon 
doing a generous action be your grace's 
constant attendant : in one word, may 
God bless you and preserve you long to 
bless others ! With the greatest regard 
and affection, I am your grace's, &c. 

LETTER XXXVn. 

Archbishop Seeker to a Clergyman ijoho 
applied to him for Advice on his Son's 
becomins; a Calvinist. 

I AM very sorry that your son hath given 
you cause of uneasiness. But as a zeal 
of God, though in part not according to 
knowledge, influences him, his present 
state is far better than that of a profane 
or vicious person ; and there is ground 
to hope, that through the divine blessing 
on your mild instructions and affection- 



ate expostulations, he may be gradually 
brought into a temper every way Chris- 
tian. Perhaps you and he differ, even 
now, less than you imagine : for I have 
observed, that the Methodists and their 
opposers are apt to think too ill of each 
other's notions. Our clergy have dwelt 
too much upon mere morality, and too 
little on the peculiar doctrines of the 
Gospel : and hence they have been 
charged with being more deficient in 
this last respect than they are ; and even 
with disbelieving, or, however, slighting, 
the principal points of Revelation. They 
in their turns have reproached their ac- 
cusers with enthusiastic imaginations, 
irrational tenets, and disregard to the 
common social duties, of which many of 
thena perhaps are little if at all guilty. 
Who the author of the Address to the 
Clergy*, &c. is, I am totally ignorant: 
he seems a pious and well-meaning man, 
but grievously uncharitable in relation to 
the clergy, without perceiving it, and 
a little tinctured with antinomianism 
— I hope without being hurt by it him- 
self. God grant that nothing which he 
hath written may hurt others ! As Mr. 

P mentions Mr. B 1 to your 

son, I send you some letters relative to 
him, which will shew you more fully my 
way of thinking about Methodists, and 
persons considered as a-kin to them ? 
you will be pleased to return them. For 
the same purpose I add a copy of an un- 
published, though printed, charge, which 
you may keep as a present from your 
loving brother, &c. 

Since Mr. B ^t left my dioeese, I 

have never heard of him till now. 

* This was a pamphlet entitled, '* Au Ad- 
dress to the Clergy, concerning their Depar- 
ture from the Doctrines of the Reformation," 
dedicated to his grace the archbishop of Can- 
terbury. By a member of the established 
Church, 8vo,. 1767. 



BOOK THE FOURTH. 



RECENT, NARRATIVE, & MISCELLANEOUS. 



SECTION HI. 



FROM THE LETTERS OF THE LATE EARL OF CHATHAM, MRS. ELIZA- 
BETH MONTAGU, LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGUE, LORD CHES- 
TERFIELD, DOCTOR JOHNSON, AND OTHERS. 



LETTER I. 

From the Earl of Chatham to his Nephew 
Thomas Pitt, Esq. [afterwards Lord 
Camelford). 

My dear child, 
I A3I extremely pleased with your trans- 
lation now it is writ over fair. It is 
very close to the sense of the original, 
and done, in many places, with much 
spirit, as well as the numbers not lame, 
or rough. However, an attention to 
Mr. Pope's numbers will make you avoid 
some ill sound and hobbling of the 
verse, by only transposing a word or 
two, in many instances. I have, upon 
reading the eclogue over again, altered 
the third, fourth, and fifth lines, in or- 
der to bring them nearer to the Latin, 
as well as to render some beauty which 
is contained in the repetition of words 
in tender passages ; for example, Nos 
patrice fines, et dulcia linquimus arva ; 
Nos patriam fugimus : tu, Titi/re,lentus in 
umhrd Formosam resonare doces Amari/l- 
lida sylvas. *' We leave our native land, 
these fields so sweet ; Our country leave : 
at ease, in cool retreat, You, Thyrsis, bid 
the woods fair Daphne's name repeat." 
I will desire you to write over another 
copy Avith this alteration, and also to 
write smoaks in the plural number, in 
the last line but one. You give me great 
pleasure, my dear child, in the progress 
you have made. I will recommend to 
Mr. Leech to carry you quite through 
Virgil's iEneid from beginning to end- 
ing. Pray shew him this letter, with 



my service to him, and thanks for his 
care of you. For English poetry, I re- 
commend Pope's translation of Homer, 
and Dryden's Fables in particular. I am 
not sure if they are not called Tales, in- 
stead of Fables. Your cousin, whom I 
am sure you can overtake if you will, has 
read Virgil's iEneid quite through, and 
much of Horace's Epistles. Terence's 
Plays I would also desire Mr. Leech to 
make you perfect master of. Your cou- 
sin has read them all. Go on, my dear, 
and you will at least equal him. You 
are so good, that I have nothing to wish, 
but that you may be directed to proper 
books ; and I trust to your spirit, and 
desire to be praised for things that de- 
serve praise, for the figure you will here- 
after make. God bless you, my dear 
child. Your most affectionate uncle. 



LETTER II. 

From the safne to the same. 

Rath, Oct. 12, 1751. 

My dear nephew. 
As I have been moving about from place 
to place, your letter reached me here, at 
Bath, but very lately, after making a 
considerable circuit to find me. I should 
have otherwise, my dear child, returned 
you thanks for the very great pleasure 
you have given me, long before now. 
The very good account you give me of 
your studies, and that delivered in very 
good Latin, for your time, has filled me 
with the highest expectation of your fu- 



430 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



ture improvements : I see the founda- 
tions so well laid, that I do not make the 
least doubt but you will become a perfect 
good scholar ; and have the pleasure and 
applause that will attend the several ad- 
vantages hereafter, in the future course 
of your life, that you can only acquire 
MOW by your emulation and noble labours 
in the pursuit of learning, and of every 
acquirement that is to make you supe- 
rior to other gentlemen. I rejoice to 
hear that you have begun Homer's Iliad ; 
and have made so great a progress in 
Virgil. I hope you taste and love those 
authors particularly. You cannot read 
them too much ; they are not only the 
two greatest poets, but they contain the 
finest lessons for your age to imbibe : 
lessons of honour, courage, disinterested- 
ness, love of truth, command of temper, 
gentleness of behaviour, humanity, and, 
in one word, virtue in its true signifi- 
cation. Go on, my dear nephew, and 
drink as deep as you can of these divine 
springs : the pleasure of the draught is 
equal at least to the prodigious advan- 
tages of it to the heart and morals. I 
hope you will drink them as somebody 
does in Virgil, of another sort of cup : 
Ille impiger hausit spumantem pateram. 

I shall be highly pleased to hear from 
you, and to know what authors give you 
most pleasure. I desire my service to 
Mr. Leech : pray tell him I will write to 
him soon about your studies. 

I am, with the greatest affection, my 
dear child, your loving uncle. 

LETTER in. 

From the Earl of Chatham to his Nephew 
Thomas Pitt, Esq. 

Bath, Jan. 12, 1754. 
My dear nephew, 
Your letter from Cambridge affords me 
many very sensible pleasures : first, that 
you are at last in a proper place for study 
and improvement, instead of losing any 
more of that most precious thing, time, 
in London. In the next place, that you 
seem pleased with the particular society 
you are placed in, and with the gentle- 
man to whose care and instructions you 
are committed : and, above all, I applaud 
the sound, right sense, and love of vir- 
tue, which appears tlirough your whole 
letter. You are already possessed of the 
true clue to guide you through this dan- 



gerous and perplexing part of your life's 
journey, the years of education ; and upon 
which, the complexion of all the rest of 
your days will infallibly depend ; I say 
you have the true clue to guide you, in 
the maxim you lay down in your letter 
to me ; namely, that the use of learning 
is, to render a man more wise and vir- 
tuous ; not merely to make him more 
learned. Made tud virtute : Go on, my 
dear boy, by this golden rule, and you 
cannot fail to become every thing your 
generous heart prompts you to wish to 
be, and that mine most affectionately 
wishes for you. There is but one danger 
in your way ; and that is, perhaps, natu- 
ral enough to your age, the love of plea- 
sure, or the fear of close application and 
laborious diligence. With the last there 
is nothing you may not conquer : and 
the first is sure to conquer and inslave 
whoever does not strenuously resist the 
first allurements of it, lest by small in- 
dulgencies he fall under the yoke of ir- 
resistible habit. Vitanda est improha Si- 
ren, Desidia, I desire may be affixt to the 
curtains of your bed, and to the walls of 
your chambers. If you do not rise early, 
you never can make any progress worth 
talking of : and another rule is, If you do 
not set apart your hours of reading, and 
never suffer yourself or any one else to 
break in upon them, your days will slip 
through your hands, unprofitably and 
frivolously ; unpraised by all you wish 
to please, and really unenjoy able to your- 
self. Be assured, whatever you take from 
pleasure, amusements, or indolence, for 
these first few years of your life, will re- 
pay you a hundred-fold, in the pleasures, 
honours, and advantages of all the re- 
mainder of your days. My heart is so full 
of the most earnest desire that you should 
do well, that I find my letter has run into 
some length, which you will, I know, be 
so good to excuse. There remains now 
nothing to trouble you with, but a little 
plan for the beginning of your studies, 
which I desire, in a particular manner, 
may be exactly followed in every tittle. 
You are to qualify yourself for the part 
in society to which your birth and estate 
call you. You are to be a gentleman of 
such learning and qualifications as may 
distinguish you in the service of your 
country hereafter ; not a pedant, who 
reads only to be called learned, instead 
of considering learning as an instru- 
ment only for action. Give me leave 



Sect. III. 



RECENT. 



431 



therefore, my dear nephew, who have 
scone hefore you, to point out to you the 
dangers in your road ; to guard you 
against such things as I experience my 
own defects to arise from ; and at the 
same time, if I have had any little suc- 
cesses in the world, to guide you to 
what 1 have drawn many helps from. I 
have not the pleasure of knowing the 
gentleman who is your tutor, but I dare 
say he is every way equal to such a 
charge, which I think no small one. 
You will communicate this letter to him, 
and I hope he will be so good to concur 
with me, as to the course of study I de- 
sire you may begin with ; and that such 
books, and such only, as 1 have pointed 
out, may be read. They are as follow : 
Euclid ; a Course of Logic ; a Course of 
Experimental Philosophy ; Locke's Con- 
duct of the L^nderstanding ; his Treatise 
also on the Understanding ; his Trea- 
tise on Government, and Letters on To- 
leration. I desire, for the present, no 
books of poetry, but Horace and Virgil : 
of Horace the Odes, hut, above all, the 
Epistles and Ars Poetica. These parts, 
Nocturnd versate manu, versate diurnd. 
Tully de Officiis, de Amicitia, de Senec- 
tute. His Catilinarian Orations and 
Philippics. Sallust. At leisure hours, 
an abridgment of the History of Eng- 
land to be run through, in order to 
settle in the mind a general chronolo- 
gical order and series of principal events, 
and succession of kings : proper books 
of English history, on the true princi- 
ples of our happy constitution, shall be 
pointed out afterwards. Burnet's His- 
tory of the Reformation, abridged by 
himself, to be read with great care. Fa- 
ther Paul on Beneficiary Matters in Eng- 
lish. A French master, and only Mo- 
liere's Plays to be read with him, or by 
yourself, till you have gone through them 
all. Spectators, especially Mr. Addison's 
papers, to be read very frequently at 
broken times in your room. I make it 
my request, that you will forbear draw- 
ing, totally, while you are at Cambridge ; 
and not meddle with Greek, otherwise 
than to know a little the etymology of 
words in Latin, or English, or French; 
nor to meddle with Italian. I hope this 
little course will soon be run tlirough : 
I intend it as a general foundation for 
many things of infinite utility, to come 
as soon as this is finished. 



Believe me, with the truest affection ^ 
my dear nephew, ever yours. 

Keep this letter and read it again. 

LETTER IV. 

From the same to the same, 

Bath, Jan. 14, 1754. 

My dear nephew, 
You will hardly have read over one very 
long letter from me before you are trou- 
bled with a second. I intended to have 
writ soon, but I do it the sooner on ac- 
count of your letter to your aunt, which 
she transmitted to me here. If any thing, 
my dear boy, could have happened to 
raise you higher in my esteem, and to 
endear you more to me, it is the amiable 
abhorrence you feel for the scene of vice 
and folly (and of real misery and perdi- 
tion, under the false notion of pleasure 
and spirit), which has opened to you at 
your college, and at the same time the 
manly, brave, generous, and wise reso- 
lution and true spirit, with which you 
resisted and repulsed the first attempts 
upon a mind and heart, I thank God, in- 
finitely too firm and noble, as well as too 
elegant and enlightened, to be in any 
danger of yielding to such contemptible 
and wretched corruptions. You charm 
me with the description of Mr. Wheler* ; 
and while you say you could adore him, 
I could adore you for the natural, ge- 
nuine love of virtue, which speaks in all 
you feel, say, or do. As to your com- 
panions, let this be your rule. Cultivate 
the acquaintance with Mr. Wheler which 
you have so fortunately begun : and in 
general, be sure to associate with men 
much older than yourself: scholars when- 
ever you can ; but always with men of 
decent and honourable lives. As their 
age and learning, superior both to your 
own, must necessarily, in good sense, 
and in the view of acquiring knowledge 
from them, entitle them to all deference, 
and submission of your own lights to 
theirs, you will particularly practise that 
first and greatest rule for pleasing in 
conversation, as well as for drawing in- 
struction and improvement from the 

* The rev, John Wheler, prebendary of 
Westminster. The friendship forreied between 
this gentleman and lord Camelford at so early 
a period of their lives was founded in mutual 
esteem, and continued uninterrupted till lord 
Camelford's death. 



432 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



company of one's superiors in age and 
knowledge ; namely, to be a patient, at- 
tentive, and well-bred bearer, and to 
answer with modesty ; to deliver yonr 
own opinions sparingly, and with proper 
diffidence -, and if you are forced to de- 
sire further information or explanation 
upon a point, to do it with proper apo- 
logies for the trouble you give : or if 
obliged to differ, to do it with all possi- 
ble candour, and an unprejudiced desire 
to find and ascertain truth, with an en- 
tire indifference to the side on which that 
truth is to be found. There is likewise a 
particular attention required to contra- 
dict with good manners ; such as, " beg- 
ging pardon," " begging leave to doubt," 
and such like phrases. Pythagoras en- 
joined his scholars an absolute silence 
for a long noviciate. I am far from ap- 
proving such a taciturnity : but I highly 
recommend the end and intent of Pytha- 
goras's injunction ; which is, to dedicate 
the first parts of life more to hear and 
learn, in order to collect materials, out 
of which to form opinions founded on 
proper lights, and well-examined sound 
principles, than to be presuming, prompt, 
and flippant in hazarding one's own slight 
crude notions of things ; and thereby ex- 
posing the nakedness and emptiness of 
the mind, like a house opened to com- 
pany before it is fitted either with neces- 
saries, or any ornaments for their recep- 
tion and entertainment. And not only 
will this disgrace follow from such te- 
merity and presumption, but a more 
serious danger is sure to ensue, that is, 
the embracing errors for truths, preju- 
dices for principles ; and when that is 
once done (no matter how vainly and 
weakly), the adhering perhaps to false 
and dangerous notions, only because one 
has declared for them, and submitting, 
for life, the understanding and consci- 
ence to a yoke of base and servile preju- 
dices, vainly taken up and obstinately 
retained. This will never be your dan- 
ger ; but I thought it not amiss to offer 
these reflections to your thoughts. As 
to your manner of behaving towards 
these unhappy young gentlemen you de- 
scribe, let it be manly and easy ; decline 
their parties with civility ; retort their 
raillery with raillery, always tempered 
with good-breeding ; if they banter your 
regularity, order, decency, and love of 
study, banter in return their neglect of 



them ; and venture to own frankly, that 
you came to Cambridge to learn what 
you can, not to follow what they are 
pleased to call pleasure. In short, let 
your external behaviour to them be as 
full of politeness and ease as your inward 
estimation of them is full of pity, mixed 
with contempt. I come now to the part 
of the advice have to offer to you, 
which most nearly concerns your wel- 
fare, and upon which every good and 
honourable purpose of your life will as- 
suredly turn ; I mean the keeping up in 
your heart the true sentiments of reli- 
gion. If you are not right towards God, 
you can never be so towards man ; the 
noblest sentiment of the human breast 
is here brought to the test. Is gratitude 
in the number of a man's virtues ? If it 
be, the highest Benefactor demands the 
warmest returns of gratitude, love, and 
praise : Ingratum qui dixerit, omnia dixit. 
If a man wants this virtue, where there 
are infinite obligations to excite and 
quicken it, he will be likely to want 
all others towards his fellow-creatures, 
whose utmost gifts are poor compared to 
those he daily receives at the hands of 
his never-failing Almighty Friend. " Re- 
member thy Creator in the days of thy 
youth," is big with the deepest wisdom : 
*' The fear of the Lord is the beginning 
of wisdom; and an upright heart, that 
is understanding." This is eternally true, 
whether the wits and rakes of Cambridge 
allow it or not : nay, I must add of this 
religious wisdom, " Her ways are ways 
of pleasantness, and all her paths are 
peace," whatever your young gentlemen 
of pleasure think of a whore and a bot- 
tle, a tainted health and battered con- 
stitution. Hold fast therefore by this 
sheet-anchor of happiness. Religion; you 
will often want it in the times of most 
danger, the storms and tempests of life. 
Cherish true religion as preciously as 
you will fly with abhorrence and con- 
tempt superstition and enthusiasm. The 
first is the perfection and glory of the 
human nature ; the two last, the depri- 
vation and disgrace of it. Remember 
the essence of religion is, a heart void of 
offence towards God and man ; not 
subtle speculative opinions, but an 
active vital principle of faith. The 
words of a heathen were so fine that 
I must give them to you : Compositum 
jus, fasque animi, sanctosque reccssus 



Sect. III. 



RECENT. 



433 



meritis, €l incoctum generoso pectus ho- 
7iesto. 

Go on, my dear child , in the admira- 
ble dispositions you have tOAvards all that 
is right and good, and make yourself the 
iove and admiration of the world ! I 
have neither paper nor words to tell you 
how tenderly I am yours. 



LETTER V. 

From the Earl of Chatham to his Nephew 
Thomas Pin, Eaq. 

Bath, Jan. 24, 1754. 
I WILL not los« a moment before I re- 
turn my most tender and warm thanks 
to the most amiable, valuable, and noble- 
minded of youths, for the infinite plea- 
sure his letter gives me. My dear ne- 
phew, what a beautiful thing is genuine 
goodness, and how lovely does the hu- 
man mind appear in its native purity, 
(in a nature as happy as yours), before 
the taints of a corrupted world have 
touched it ! To guard you from the fatal 
effects of all the dangers th-at surround 
and beset youth (and many they are, 
nam varice iltudunt pestes), I thank God, 
i« become my pleasing and very import- 
ant charge ; your own choice, and our 
nearness in blood, and still more a dearer 
and nearer relation of hearts, which I 
feel between us, all concur to make it so. 
1 shall seek then every occasion, my dear 
young friend, of being useful to you, by 
offering you those lights, which one must 
have lived some years in the world to see 
the full force and extent of, and which 
the best mind and clearest understand- 
ing will suggest imperfectly, in any case, 
and in the most difficult, delicate, and 
essential points perhaps not ut all, till 
experience, that dear-bought instructor, 
comes to our assistance. What I shall 
therefore make my task (a happy de- 
lightful task, if I prove a safeguard to so 
much opening virtue), i« to be for some 
years, what you cannot be to yourself, 
your experience ; experience anticipated, 
and ready digested for your use. Thus 
we will endeavour, my dear child, to join 
the two best seasons of life, to establish 
your virtue and your happiness upon 
solid foundations : miseens autumni et 
veris honores. So much in general. I 
will now, my dear nephew, say a few 



things to you upon a matter where you 
have surprisingly little to learn, consi- 
dering you have seen nothing but Bo- 
connock ; I mean, behaviour. Behaviour 
is of infinite advantage or prejudice to a 
man, as he happens to have formed it to 
a graceful, noble, engaging, and proper 
manner, or to a vulgar, coarse, ill-bred, 
or awkward and ungenteel one. Beha- 
viour, though an external thing, which 
seems rather to belong to the body than 
to the mind, is certainly founded in con- 
siderable virtues ; though I have known 
instances of good men, with something 
very revolting and offensive in their man- 
ner of behaviour, especially Avhen they 
have the misfortune to be naturally very 
awkward and ungenteel ; and which their 
mistaken friends have helped to confirm 
them in, by telling them, they were above 
such trifles as being genteel, dancing, 
fencing, riding, and doing all manly ex- 
ercises with grace and vigour. As if 
the body, because inferior, were not a 
part of the composition of man ; and the 
proper, easy, ready, and graceful use of 
himself, both in mind and limb, did not 
go to make up the character of an ac- 
complished man. You are in no danger 
of falling into this preposterous error : 
and I had a great pleasure in finding 
you, when I first saw you in London, so 
well disposed by nature, and so properly 
attentive to make yourself genteel in 
person, and well-bred in behaviour. I 
am very glad you have taken a fencing- 
master : that exercise will give you some 
manly, firm, and graceful attitudes ; open 
your chest, place your head upright, and 
plant you well upon your legs. As to 
the use of the sword, it is well to know 
it ; but remember, my dearest nephew, 
it is a science of defence : and that a 
sword can never be employed by the 
hand of a man of virtue, in any other 
cause. As to the carriage of your per- 
son, be particularly careful, as you are 
tall and thin, not to get a habit of stoop- 
ing ; nothing has so poor a look : above 
all things avoid contracting any peculiar 
gesticulations of the body, or movements 
of the muscles of the face. It is rare to 
see in any one a graceful laughter ; it is 
generally better to smile than laugh out, 
especially to contract a habit of laugh- 
ing at small or no jokes. Sometimes it 
would be affectation, or worse, mere mo- 
roseuess, not to laugh heartily, when the 
2 F 



434 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



truly ridiculous circumstances of an in- 
cident, or the true pleasantry and wit of 
a thing, call for and justify it ; but the 
trick of laughing frivolously is by all 
means to be avoided : Risu inepto res 
ineptior nulla est. Now as to politeness ; 
many have attempted definitions of it ; 
I believe it is best to be known by de- 
scription ; definition not being able to 
comprise it. I would however venture 
to call it benevolence in trifles, or the 
preference of others to ourselves in little 
daily, hourly, occurrences in the com- 
merce of life. A better place, a more 
commodious seat, priority in being help- 
ed at table, &c., what is it, but sacrificing 
ourselves in such trifles to the conve- 
nience and pleasure of others ? And this 
constitutes true politeness. It is a per- 
petual attention (by habit it grows easy 
and natural to us) to the little wants of 
those we are with, by which we either 
prevent or remove them. Bowing, ce- 
remonious, formal compliments, stiff ci- 
vilities, will never be politeness : that 
must be easy, natural, unstudied, manly, 
noble. And what will give this, but a 
mind benevolent, and perpetually atten- 
tive to exert that amiable disposition in 
trifles tov/ards all you converse and live 
with ? Benevolence in greater matters 
takes a higher name, and is the queen of 
virtues. Nothing is so incompatible with 
politeness as any trick of absence of 
mind. I would trouble you with a word 
or two more upon some branches of be- 
haviour, which have a more serious mo- 
ral obligation in them than those of 
mere politeness ; which are equally im- 
portant in the eye of the world. I mean 
a proper behaviour, adapted to the respec- 
tive relations we stand in, towards the dif- 
ferent ranks of superiors, equals, and in- 
feriors. Let your behaviour towards su- 
periors in dignity, age, learning, or any 
distinguished excellence, be full of re- 
spect, deference, and modesty. To- 
wards equals > nothing becomes a man 
so well as well-bred ease, polite free- 
dom, generous frankness, manly spirit, 
always tempered with gentleness and 
sweetness of manner, noble sincerity, 
candour, and openness of heart, qua- 
lified and restrained within the bounds 
of discretion and prudence, and ever 
limited by a sacred regard to secrecy 
in all things intrusted to it, and an in- 
violable attachment to your word. To 



inferiors, gentleness, condescension, and 
aflFability, is the only dignity. Towards 
servants, never accustom yourself to 
rough and passionate language. When 
they are good, we should consider them 
as hwniles amici, as fellow Christians, ut 
conservi; and when they are bad, pity, 
admonish, and part with them if incor- 
rigible. On all occasions beware, my 
dear child, of Anger, that daemon, that 
destroyer of our peace. Ira furor brevis 
est : animum rege : qui, nisiparet, imperat: 
huncfrcenis, hunc tu compesce catena. 

Write soon, and tell me of your stu- 
dies. Your ever affectionate. 

LETTER VL 

From the Earl of Chatham to his Nephew 
Thomas Pitt, Esq. 

Bath, Feb. 3, 1754. 
Nothing can, or ought to give me a 
higher satisfaction, than the obliging 
manner in which my dear nephew re- 
ceives my most sincere and affectionate 
endeavours to be of use to him. You 
much overrate the obligation, whatever 
it be, which youth has to those who have 
trod the paths of the world before them, 
for their friendly advice how to avoid the 
inconveniences, dangers, and evils, which 
they themselves may have run upon for 
want of such timely warnings, and to 
seize, cultivate, and carry forward to- 
wards perfection those advantages, 
graces, virtues, and felicities, which 
they may have totally missed, or stopped 
short in the generous pursuit. To lend 
this helping hand to those, who are be- 
ginning to tread the slippery way, seems, 
at best, but an office of common hu- 
manity to all ; but to withhold it from 
one we truly love, and whose heart and 
mind bear every genuine mark of the 
very soil proper for all the amiable, 
manly, and generous virtues to take root, 
and bear their heavenly fruit ; inward, 
conscious peace, fame amongst men, 
public love, temporal and eternal hap- 
piness ; — to withhold it, I say, in such 
an instance, would deserve the worst of 
names. I am greatly pleased, my dear 
young friend, that you do me the justice 
to believe I do not mean to impose any 
yoke of authority upon your understand- 
ing and conviction. I wish to warn, ad- 
monish, instruct, enlighten, and con- 



Sect. III. 



RECENT. 



435 



vince your reason ; and so determine 
yOiir judgment to right things, when 
you shall be made to see that they are 
right ; not to overbear, and impel you 
to adopt any thing before you perceive 
it to be right or wrong, by the force 
of authority. 1 hear with great pleasure, 
that Locke lay before you, when you 
writ last to me ; and I like the obser- 
vation that you make from him, that 
we must use our own reason, not that 
of another, if we would deal fairly by 
ourselves, and hope to enjoy a peaceful 
and contented conscience. This precept 
is truly worthy of the dignity of rational 
natures. But here, my dear child, let 
me oflFer one distinction to you, and it is 
of much moment : it is this : Mr. Locke's 
precept is applicable only to such opi- 
nions as regard moral or religious obli- 
gations, and which as such our own con- 
sciences alone can judge and determine 
for ourselves : matters of mere expe- 
diency, that affect neither honour, mo- 
rality, or religion, were not in that great 
and wise man's view ; such are the usages, 
forms, manners, modes, proprieties, de- 
corum, and all those numberless orna- 
mental little acquirements, and genteel 
well-bred attentions, which constitute a 
proper, graceful, amiable, and noble be- 
haviour. In matters of this kind, I am 
sure your own reason, to which I shall 
always refer you, will at once tell you, 
that you must, at first, make use of the 
experience of others ; in effect, see with 
their eyes, or not be able to see at all ; 
for the ways of the worlds as to its usages 
and exterior manners, as well as to all 
things of expediency and prudential con- 
siderations, a moment's reflection will 
convince a mind as right as yours, must 
necessarily be to inexperienced youth, 
with ever so fine natural parts, a terra 
incognita. As you would not therefore 
attempt to form notions of China or Per- 
sia, but from those who have travelled 
those countries, and the fidelity and sa- 
gacity of whose relations you can trust ; 
so will you, as little, I trust, prema- 
turely form notions of your own, con- 
cerning that usage of the world (as it is 
called) into which you have not yet tra- 
velled, and which must be long studied 
and practised, before it can be tolerably 
weU known. I can repeat nothing to 
you of so infinite consequence to your 
future welfare, as to conjure you not to 
be hasty in taking up notions and opi- 



nions : guard your honest and ingenuous 
mind against this main danger of youth : 
with regard to all things, that appear 
not to your reason, after due examina- 
tion, evident duties of honour, morality, 
or religion (and in aU such as do, let 
your conscience and reason determine 
your notions and conduct), in all other 
matters, I say^, be slow to form opinions, 
keep your mind in a candid state of sus- 
pense, and open to full conviction when 
you shall procure it ; using in the mean 
time the experience of a friend you can 
trust, the sincerity of whose advice you 
will try and prove by your own expe- 
rience hereafter, when more years shall 
have given it to you. I have been longer 
upon this head than, I hope, there was 
any occasion for ; but the great import- 
ance of the matter, and my warm wishes 
for your welfare, figure, and happiness, 
have drawn it from me. I wish to know 
if you have a good French master : I must 
recommend the study of the French lan- 
guage, to speak and write it correctly, 
as to grammar and orthography, as a 
matter of the utmost and indispensable 
use to you, if you would make any figure 
in the great world. I need say no more 
to enforce this recommendation : when 
I get to London, I will send you the 
best French dictionary. Have you been 
taught geography and the use of the 
globes by Mr. Leech ? If not, pray take 
a geography master and learn the use of 
the globes : it is soon known. I recom- 
mend to you to acquire a clear and tho- 
rough notion of what is called the solar 
system ; together with the doctrine of 
comets. I wanted as much, or more, to 
hear of your private reading at home, as 
of public lectures, which I hope, how- 
ever, you will frequent for example's sake. 
Pardon this long letter, and keep it by 
you if you do not hate it. Believe me, 
my dear nephew, ever affectionately, 

Yours. 

LETTER VII. 

From the same to the same. 

Batli. March 30, 1754. 
My dear nephew, 
I A3I much obliged to you for your kind 
remembrance and wishes for my health. 
It is much recovered by the regular fit of 
gout, of which I am still lame in both 
feet, and I may hope for better health 
2F2 



436 



ELEGANT EPISTLE S. 



Book IV. 



Hereafter in consequence. I have thought 
it long since we conversed : I waited to 
be able to give you a better account of 
my health, and in part, to leave you time 
to make advances in your plan of study, 
of which I am very desirous to hear an 
account. I desire you will be so good 
to let me know particularly, if you have 
gone through the Abridgment of Bur- 
net's History of the Reformation, and 
the Treatise of Father Paul on Bene- 
fices ; also how much of Locke you have 
read. I beg of you not to mix any 
other English reading with what I re- 
commend to you. I propose to save 
you much time and trouble, by pointing 
out to you such books, in succession, as 
will carry you the shortest way to the 
things you must know to fit yourself for 
the business of the world, and give you 
the clearer knowledge of them, by keep- 
ing them unmixed with superfluous, vain, 
empty trash. Let me hear, my dear child, 
of your French also ; as well as of those 
studies which are more properly univer- 
sity studies. 1 cannot tell you better 
how truly and tenderly I love you, than . 
by telling you I am most solicitously bent 
on your doing evei'y thing that is right, 
and laying the foundations of your fu- 
ture happiness and figure in the world, 
in such a course of improvement, as will 
not fail to make you a better man, while 
it makes you a more knowing one. Do 
you rise early ? I hope you have already 
made to yourself the habit of doing it ; 
if not, let me conjure you to acquire it. 
Remember your friend Horace ; Et ni 
Post'es ante diem lihrum cum lumine, si 
non Intendes animum studiis et rebus ho- 
nestis, Invidid vel amore miser torquebere. 
Adieu. Your ever affectionate uncle. 



LETTER Vin. 

From the Earl of Chatham to his Nephew 
Thomas Pitt, Esq. 

Bath, May 4, 1734. 

My dear nephew, 
1 USE a pen with some difficulty, being 
still lame in my hand with the gout : I 
cannot, however, d,elay writing this line 
to you on the course of English history 
I propose for you. If you have finished 
the Abridgment of English History, and 
of Burnet's History of the Reformation, 
I recommend to you next (before any 



other reading of history) Oldcastle's Re- 
marks on the History of England, by lord 
Bolingbroke. Let me apprise you of one 
thing before you read them ; and that is, 
that the author has bent some passages 
to make them invidious parallels to the 
times he wrote in ; therefore be aware of 
that, and depend^ in general, on finding 
the truest constitutional doctrines : and 
that the facts of history (though warped) 
are nowhere falsified. I also recommend 
Nathaniel Bacon's Historical and Politi- 
cal Observations * ; it is, without excep- 
tion, the best and most instructive book 
we have on matters of that kind. They 
are both to be read Avith much attention, 
and twice over ; Oldcastle's Remarks to 
be studied and almost got by heart, for 
the inimitable beauty of the style, as 
well as the matter. Bacon for the mat- 
ter chiefly ; the style being uncouth, but 
the expression forcible and striking. I 
can write no more, and you will hardly 
read what is writ. 

Adieu, my dear child. Your ever af- 
fectionate uncle. 



LETTER IX. 

From the same to the same, 

Astjop AV'ells, Sept. 5, 17i4. 

My dear nephew, 
I HAVE been a long time without con- 
versing with you, and thanking you for 
the pleasure of your last letter. You 

* This book, though at present little known, 
formerly enjoyed a very high reputation. It is 
written with a very evident bias to the princi- 
ples of the parliamentary party to which Bacon 
adhered; but contains a great deal of very 
useful and valuable matter. It was published 
in two parts, the 1st in 1647, the 2nd in 1651, 
and was secretly reprinted in 1672, and again 
in 1682; for which edition the publisher was 
indicted and outlawed. After the Revolution, 
a fourth edition was printed, with an advertise- 
ment, asserting, on the authority of lord chief 
justice Vaughan, one of Selden's executors, 
that the groundwork of this book was laid by 
that great and learned man. And it is proba- 
bly on the ground of this assertion, that in 
the folio edition of Bacon's book, printed in 
1739, it is sa+d in the titlepage to have been 
*' collected from some manuscript notes of 
John Selden, esq." But it does not appear 
that this notion rests on any sufficient evi- 
dence. It is, however, manifest from some ex- 
pressions in the very unjust and disparaging 
account given of this work in Nicholson's His- 
torical Library (part i, p. 150), that Nathaniel 
Bacon was generally considered as an imitator 
and follower of Selden. 



Sect. III. 



RECENT 



may possibly be about to return to the 
seat of learning- on the banks of the 
Cam ; but I will not defer discoursing 
to you on literary matters, till you leave 
Cornwall, not doubting but you are 
mindful of the Muses amidst the very 
savage rocks and moors, and yet more 
savage natives, of the ancient and re- 
spectable dutchy. First, with regard to 
the opinion you desire concerning a 
common-place book ; in general 1 much 
disapprove the use of it : it is chiefly in- 
tended for persons who mean to be au- 
thors, and tends to impair the memory, 
and to deprive you of a ready, extem- 
pore use of your reading, by accustom- 
ing the mind to discharge itself of its 
reading on paper, instead of relying on 
its natural power of retention, aided and 
fortified by frequent revisions of its ideas 
and materials. Some things must be 
common-placed in order to be of any 
use ; dates, chronological order, and 
the like ; for instance, Nathaniel Bacon 
ought to be extracted in the best method 
you can : but in general my advice to 
you is, not to common-place upon paper, 
but, as an equivalent to it, to endeavour 
to range and methodize in your head 
what you read, and by so doing fre- 
quently and habitually to fix matter in 
the memory. I desired you some time 
since to read lord Clarendon's History of 
the civil wars. I have lately read a much 
honester and more instructive book, of 
the same period of history ; it is the 
History of the Parliament, by Thomas 
May*, esq., &c. I will send it to you 
as soon as you return to Cambridge. If 
you have not read Burnet's History of 
his own Times, I beg you will. I hope 
your father is well. My love to the 
girls. 

Your ever affectionate. 

• May, the translator of Lucan, had been 
rauch countenanced by Charles the First, but 
quitted the court on some personal disgust, 
and afterwards became secretary to the par- 
liament. His Hrstory was published in 1647 
under their authority and license, and cannot 
by any means be considered as an impartial 
work. It is, however, well worthy of being at- 
tentively read; and the contemptuous cha- 
racter given of it by Clarendon (Life, vol. i, 
p. 35.) is as much below its real merit as Cla- 
rendon's own History is superior to it. 



LETTER X. 

From the same to the sanie^ 

Pay Office, April 9, 1755. 
My dear nephew, 
I REJOICE extremely to hear that your 
father and the girls are not unenter- 
tained in their travels : in the mean 
time your travels through the paths of 
literature, arts, and sciences (a road, 
sometimes set with flowers, and some- 
times difl&cult, laborious, and arduous), 
are not only infinitely more profitable in 
future, but at present, upon the whole, 
infinitely more delightful. My own tra- 
vels at present are none of the plea- 
santest : I am going through a fit of the 
gout ; with much proper pain, and what 
proper patience I may. Avis au lecteur, 
my sweet boy : " Remember thy Crea- 
tor in the days of thy youth." Let no 
excesses lay the foundations of gout and 
the rest of Pandora's box ; nor any im- 
moralities or vicious courses sow the 
seeds of a too late and painful repent- 
ance. Here ends my sermon, which, 
I trust, you are not fine gentleman 
enough, or, in plain English, silly fellow 
enough, to laugh at. Lady Hester is 
much yours. Let me hear some ac- 
count of your intercourse with the 
Muses ; and believe me ever, your 
truly most affectionate. 



LETTER XI. 

From the same to the same. 

Pay Office, April 15, 1755. 
A THOUSAND thanks to my dear boy for 
a very pretty letter. I like extremely 
the account you give of your literary 
life ; the reflections you make upon some 
West Saxon actors in the times you are 
reading are natural, manly, and sen- 
sible, and flow from a heart that will 
make you far superior to any of them. 
I am content you should be interrupted 
(provided the interruption be not long) 
in the course of your reading, by de- 
claiming in defence of the thesis you have 
so A\isely chosen to maintain. It is true 
indeed that the affirmative maxim, Omve 
solujiifortipatria est, has supported some 
great and good men imder the perse- 
cutions of faction and party injustice, 
and taught them to prefer an hospitable 



438 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



retreat in a foreign land, to an unnatu- 
ral mother-country. Some few such may 
he found in ancient times: in our own 
country also some ; such was Algernon 
Sidney, Ludlow, and others. But how 
dangerous is it to trust frail, corrupt 
man, with such an aphorism ! What fa- 
tal casuistry is it big with ! How many a 
villain might, and has, masked himself 
in the sayings of ancient illustrious ex- 
iles, while he was, in fact, dissolving all 
the nearest and dearest ties that hold so- 
cieties together, and spurning at all laws 
divine and human ! How easy the trans- 
ition from this political to some impious 
ecclesiastical aphorisms ! If all soils are 
alike to the brave and virtuous, so may 
all churches and modes of worship ; that 
is, all will be equally neglected and vio- 
lated. Instead of every soil being his 
country, he will have no one for his 
country ; he will be the forlorn outcast 
of mankind. Such was the late Boling- 
broke of impious memory. Let me know 
when your declamation is over. Pardon 
an observation on style: " I received 
yours" is vulgar and mercantile ; " Your 
letter" is the way of writhig. Inclose 
your letters in a cover ; it is more polite. 

LETTER XII. 

Fro?n (he Earl of Chathatn to his Nepheiv 
Thomas Pitt, Esq. 

Pay Office, May 20, 1755. 

My dear nephew, 
1 Aj>i extremely concerned to hear that 
you have been ill, especially as your ac- 
count of an illness you speak of as past, 
implies such remains of disorder as I beg 
you will give all proper attention to. By 
the medicine your physician has ordered, 
I conceive he considers your casein some 
degree nervous. If that be so, advise 
with him whether a little change of air 
and of the scene, together with some 
weeks course of steel waters, might not 
be highly proper for you. I am to go the 
day after to-morrow to Sunning HiU, in 
Windsor Forest, where I propose to drink 
those waters for about a month. Lady 
Hester and I shall be happy in your com- 
pany, if your doctor shall be of opinion 
that such waters may be of service to 
you ; which, I hope, will be his opinion. 
Besides health recovered, the Muses shall 
not be quite forgot: we will ride, read, 
walk, and philosophize, extremely at 



our ease ; and you may return to Cam- 
bridge with new ardour, or at least with 
strength repaired, when we leave Sun- 
ning Hill. If you come, the sooner the 
better, on all accounts. We propose to 
go into Buckinghamshire in about a 
month. 1 rejoice that your declamation 
is over, and that you have begun, my 
dearest nephew, to open your mouth in 
public, ingenti patricB perculsus atnore, 
I wish I had heard you perform : the 
only way I ever shall hear your praises 
from your own mouth. My gout pre- 
vented my so -much-intended and wished- 
for journey to Cambridge : and now my 
plan of drinking waters renders it im- 
possible. Come, then, my dear boy, to 
us ; and so Mahomet and the mountain 
meet, no matter which moves to the 
other. Adieu. Your ever affectionate. 



LETTER XIII. 

Fro?n the same to the same, 

July 13, 1755. 
My dear nephew, 
I HAVE delayed writing to you in expec- 
tation of hearing farther from you upon 
the subject of your stay at college. No 
news is the best news ; and I will hope 
now that all your difficulties upon that 
head are at an end. I represent you to 
myself deep in study, and drinking large 
draughts of intellectual nectar ; a very 
delicious state to a mind happy enough, 
and elevated enough, to thirst after 
knowledge and true honest fame, even 
as the hart panteth after the water- 
brooks. When I name knowledge, I 
ever intend learning as the weapon and 
instrument only of manly, honourable, 
and virtuous action, ui)on the stage of 
the world, both in private and public 
life ; as a gentleman, and as a member 
of the commonwealth, who is to answer 
for all he does to the laws of his coun- 
try, to his own breast and conscience, 
and at the tribunal of honour and good 
fame. You, my dear boy, will not only 
be acquitted, but applauded and dignified 
at all these respectable and awful bars. 
So Made fud virtute ! Go on and prosper 
in your glorious and happy career ; not 
forgetting to walk an hour briskly every 
morning and evening, to fortify the 
nerves. I wish to hear, in some little 
time, of the progress you shall have 



Sect. III. 



RECENT. 



439 



made in the course of reading chalked 
out. Adieu. Your ever affectionate 
uncle. 

Lady Hester desires her best compli- 
ments to you. 

LETTER XIV. 

From the same to the sa?ne. 

Stowe, July 24, ] 735. 
My dear nephew, 
I AM just leaving this place to go to 
Wotton ; but I will not lose the post, 
tliough I have time but for one line. I 
am extremely happy that you can stay 
at your college, and pursue the pru- 
dent and glorious resolution of em- 
ploying your present moments with a 
view to the future. May your noble and 
generous love of virtue pay you with the 
sweet rewards of a self-approving heart 
and an applauding country ! and may I 
enjoy the true satisfaction of seeing your 
fame and happiness, and of thinking that 
I may have been fortunate enough to 
have contributed, in any small degree, 
to do common justice to kind Nature by 
a suitable education ! I am no very good 
judge of the question concerning the 
books ; I believe they are your own in 
the same sense that your wearing ap- 
parel is. I would retain them, and leave 
the candid and equitable Mr. * * * to 
plan, with the honest Mr. * * *, schemes 
of perpetual vexation. As to the per- 
sons just mentioned, 1 trust that you 
bear about you a mind and heart much 
superior to such malice ; and that you 
are as little capable of resenting it, with 
any sensations but those of cool decent 
contempt, as you are of fearing the con- 
sequences of such low efforts. As to the 
caution money, I think you have done 
well. The case of the chambers, I con- 
ceive, you likewise apprehend rightly. 
Let me know in your next what these 
two articles require you to pay down, 
and how far your present cash is ex- 
hausted, and I will direct Mr. Campbell 
to give you credit accordingly. Believe 
me, my dear nephew, truly happy to be 
of use to you. 

Your ever affectionate. 



LEFfER XV. 

From the same to the same. 

Wotton, Aug. 7, 1755. 

My dear nephew, 
I HAVE only time at present to let you 
know I am setting ovit for London ; when 
I return to Sunning Hill, which I pro- 
pose to do in a few days, I shall have 
considered the question about a letter 
to * * * *j and will send you my thoughts 
upon it. As to literature, I know you 
are not idle, under so many and so strong 
motives to animate you to the ardent 
pursuit of improvement. For English 
history, read the revolutions of York and 
Lancaster in Pere d'Orleans, and no more 
of the father ; the Life of Edward the 
Fourth, and so downwards all the life- 
writers of our kings, except such as you 
have already read. For Queen Anne's 
reign, the continuator of Rapin. 

Farewell, my dearest nephew, for to- 
day. Your most affectionate uncle. 

LETTER XVI. 

From the same to the same. 

Bath, Sept. 25, 1755. 
I HAVE not conversed with my dear ne- 
phew a long time : I have been much in 
a post-chaise, living a wandering Scy- 
thian life, and he has been more use- 
fully employed than in reading or writing 
letters ; travelling through the various, 
instructing, and entertaining- road of 
history. I have a particular pleasure in 
hearing now and then a word from you 
in your journey, just while you are 
changing horses, if I may so call it, and 
getting from one author to another. I 
suppose you going through the biogra- 
phers, from Edward the Fourth down- 
wards, not intending to stop till you 
reach to the continuator of honest Ra- 
pin. There is a little book I never men- 
tioned, Welwood's Memoirs ; I recom- 
mend it. Davis's Ireland must not on 
any account be omitted : it is a great 
performance, a masterly work, and con- 
tains much depth and extensive know- 
ledge in state matters, and settling of 
countries, in a very short compass. I 
have met with a scheme of chronology 
by Blair, shewing all contemporary his- 
torical characters through all ages : it 
is of great use to consult frequently, in 



440 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



order to fix periods, and throw collateral 
light upon any particular branch you 
are reading. Let me know, when I 
haye the pleasure of a letter from you, 
how far you are advanced in English 
history. You may probably not have 
heard authentically of governor Lyttel- 
ton's captivity and release. He is safe 
and well in England, after being taken 
and detained in France some days. Sir 
Richard and he met, unexpectedly 
enough, at Brussels, and came together 
to England. I propose returning to 
London in about a week, where I hope 
to find lady Hester as well as I left her. 
We are both much indebted for your kind 
and affectionate wishes. In jmblica co»i- 
vioda peccem, si lojigo sermone mover one 
bent on so honourable and virtuous a 
journey as you are. 

LETTER XVn. 

From the Earl of Chatham to his Nephew 
Thomas Pitt, Esq. 

Pay Office, Dec. 6, 1755. 
Of all the various satisfactions of mind 
1 have felt upon some late events, none 
has affected me with more sensibility and 
delight than the reading my dear ne- 
phew's letter. The matter of it is wor- 
thy of a better age than that we live in ; 
worthy of your own noble, untainted 
mind ; and the manner and expression 
of it is such as I trust will one day 
make you a powerful instrument to- 
wards mending the present degeneracy. 
Examples are unnecessary to happy na- 
tures ; and it is well for your future 
glory and happiness that this is the case ; 
for to copy any now existing, might 
cramp genius, and check the native spirit 
of the piece, rather than contribute to 
the perfection of it. I learn from sir 
Richard Lyttelton that we may have the 
pleasure of meeting soon, as he has al- 
ready, or intends to offer you a bed at 
his house. It is on this, as on all occa- 
sions, little necessary to preach pru- 
dence, or to intimate a wish that your 
studies at Cambridge might not be 
broken by a long interruption of them. 
I know the rightness of your own mind, 
and leave you to all the generous and 
animating motives you find there, for 
pursuing improvements in literature and 
useful knowledge, as much better coun- 
sellors than 

Your ever most affectionate uncle. 



Lady Hester desires her best compli- 
ments. The little cousin is well, 

LETTER XVIII. 

From the same to the same. 

Horse Guards, Jan. 13, I75<7. 
My dear nephew, 
Let me thank you a thousand times for 
your remembering me, and giving me 
the pleasure of hearing that you was well, 
and had laid by the ideas of London and 
its dissipations, to re&ume the sober train 
of thoughts that gowns, square caps, qua- 
drangles, and matin bells, naturally draw 
after them. I hope the air of Cambridge 
has brought no disorder upon you, and 
that you will compound with the Muses 
so as to dedicate some hours, not less than 
two, of the day to exercise. The earlier 
you rise, the better your nerves will bear 
study. When you next do me the plea- 
sure to write to me, I beg a copy of your 
Elegy on your Mother's Picture j it is 
such admirable poetry, that I beg you to 
plunge deep into prose and severer stu- 
dies, and not indulge your genius with 
verse, for the present. Finitimus ora- 
tori poeta. Substitute Tully and Demos- 
thenes in the place of Homer and Vir- 
gil ; and arm yourself with all the va- 
riety of manner, copiousness, and beauty 
of diction, nobleness and magnificence 
of ideas of the Roman consul ; and ren- 
der the powers of eloquence complete 
by the irresistible torrent of vehement 
argumentation, the close and forcible 
reasoning, and the depth and fortitude 
of mind of the Grecian statesman. This I 
mean at leisure intervals, and to relieve 
the course of those studies which you 
intend to make your principal object. 
The book relating to the empire of Ger- 
many, which I could not recollect, is; 
Vitriarius's Jus Publicum,, an admirable 
book in its kind, and esteemed of the 
best authority in matters much contro- 
verted. We are all well : sir Richard is 
upon his legs and abroad again. 

Your ever affectionate uncle 

LETTER XIX. 

From the same to the same, 
Haj'^es, near Bromley, May 11, I75'i. 
My dear nephew's obliging letter was 
every way most pleasing ; as I had more 
than begun to think it long since I had 
the satisfaction of hearing he was well. 



I 



Sect. III. 



RECENT. 



44i 



As the season of humidity and relaxation 
is now almost over, 1 trust that the 
Muses are in no danger of nervous com- 
plaints, and that whatever pains they 
have to tell are out of the reach of Es- 
culapius, and not dangerous, though 
epidemical to youth at this soft month, 

** When lavish nature in her best attire 
Clothes tlie gay spring, the season of desire." 

To he serious, I hope my dearest ne- 
phew is perfectly free from all returns 
of his former complaint, and enabled by 
an unailing body, and an ardent elevated 
mind, to follow, quo te coelestis sapien- 
tia duceret. My holidays are now ap- 
proaching, and I long to hear something 
of your labours, which, I doubt not, will 
prove in their consequences more profit- 
able to your country a few years hence 
than your uncle's. Be so good to let 
me know what progress you have made 
in our historical and constitutional jour- 
ney, that I may suggest to you some far- 
ther reading. Lady Hester is well, and 
desires her best compliments to you. I 
am well, but threatened with gout in my 
feet from a parliamentary debauch, till 
six in the morning, on the militia. Poor 
sir Richard is laid up with the gout. 

Yours most affectionately. 

LETTER XX. 

From the same to the scnne. 

Hayes, Oct. 7, 175'"). 
I THINK it very long since I heard any 
thing of my dear nephew's health and 
learned occupations at the mother of arts 
and sciences. Pray give me the pleasure 
of a letter soon, and be so good to let 
me know Avhat progress is made in our 
plan of reading. 1 am now to make a 
request to you in behalf of a young gen- 
tleman coming to Cambridge, Mr. ***'s 
son. The father desires much that you 
and his son may make an acquaintance : 
as what father would not? Mr. *** is 
one of the best friends I have in the 
world ; and nothing can oblige me more 
than that you would do all in your power 
to be of assistance and advantage to the 
young man. He has good parts, good 
nature, and amiable qualities. He is 
young, and consequently much depends 
on the first habits he forms, whether of 
application or dissipation. You see, my 
dear nephew, what it is already to have 



made yourself princeps juventutis. It 
has its glories and its cares. You are 
invested with a kind of public charge, 
and the eyes of the world are upon you, 
not only for your own acquittal, but for 
the example and pattern to the British 
youth. Lady Hester is still about, but 
in daily expectation of the good minute. 
She desires her compliments to you. My 
sister is gone to Howberry. Believe me 
ever, my dear nephew. 

Most affectionately yours. 

LETTER XXL 

From the same to the same. 

Hayes, Oct. 10, 1736- 
My dear nephew, 
I HAVE the pleasure to acquaint you with 
the glad tidings of Hayes. Lady Hester 
was safely delivered this morning of a 
son. She and the child are as well as 
possible, and the father in the joy of his 
heart. It is no small addition to my 
happiness to know you will kindly share 
it with me. A father must form wishes 
for his child as soon as it comes into the 
world, and 1 will make mine. That he 
may live to make as good use of life as 
one that shall be nameless is now doing 
at Cambridge. 2uid voveat dulci matri- 
cula jnajus aLumno ? 

Your ever affectionate. 

LETTER XXII. 

From the same to the same. 

St, James's Square, Aug. 28, 17.57. 
My dear nephew. 
Nothing can give me greater pleasure 
than the approaching conclusion of a 
happy reconciliation in the family. Your 
letter to *** is the properest that can 
be imagined, and, I doubt not, will make 
the deepest impression on his heart. I 
have been in much pain for you during 
all this unseasonable weather, and am 
still apprehensive, till I have the satis- 
faction of hearing from you, that your 
course of sea bathing has been inter- 
rupted by such gusts of wind as must 
have rendered the sea too rough an ele- 
ment for a convalescent to disport in. 
I trust, my dearest nephew, that open- 
ing scenes of domestic comfort and fa- 
mily affection will confirm and augment 
every hour the benefits you are receiving 
at Brighthelmston, from external and 
internal medical assistances. Lady Hes-. 



442 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



ter and aunt Mary join with me in all 
good wishes for your health and hap- 
piness. The duplicate, *** mentions 
having addressed to me, has never come 
to hand. I am, with truest affection, 
my dearest nephew, ever yours. 

LETTER XXIII. 

From the Earl of Chatham to his Nephew 
Thomas Pitt, Esq. 

St. James's Square, Oct. 27, 1757. 

My dear nephew. 
Inclosed is a letter from * * * *, which 
came in one to me. I heartily wish the 
contents may be agreeable to you. 

I am far from being satisfied, my 
dearest nephew, with the account your 
last letter to my sister gives of your 
health. I had formed the hope of your 
ceasing to be an invalid before this time ; 
but since you must submit to be one for 
this winter, I am comforted to find your 
strength is not impaired, as it used to 
be, by the returns of illness you some- 
times feel ; and I trust the good govern- 
ment you are under, and the fortitude 
and manly resignation you are possessed 
of, will carry you well through this trial 
of a young man's patience, and bring 
you out in spring, like gold, the better 
for the proof. I rejoice to hear you 
have a friend of great merit to be with 
you. My warmest wishes for your health 
and happiness never fail to follow you. 
Lady Hester desires her best compli- 
ments. Believe me, with the truest af- 
fection, ever yours. 



LETTER XXIV. 



From Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu to the Du- 
chess of Portland. 

Mount Morris, Sept. 4, 1736. 
Madam, 
I HAVE been racking my brains for an 
excuse for my negligence in not answer- 
ing your grace's agreeable letter ; but I 
find my oflFence so much beyond the 
power of apology, that 1 want no less 
than your own good-humour to excuse 
it ; and I think I cannot give a greater 
proof of my opinion of it, than by rely- 
ing wholy upon it for my pardon. And 
now I will suppose your grace gives me 
a smile ; and upon that I will proceed 



with my letter, as supposing myself ex- 
cused and forgiven. I shall give you 
the best account I can of the time I have 
spent since I wrote last to you. I was 
near five weeks at Tunbridge, and re- 
turned just time enough for the races at 
Canterbury. But in the order of things, 
I should first speak of Tunbridge ; and 
I will mention the part of the company 
I imagine best known to your grace, viz. 
the duchesses of Norfolk and Richmond, 
lord and lady Litchfield, lord and lady 
Tylney and their family, lord and lady 
Augustus Fitzroy, and lord Stanhope 
and Lady Lucy, and lord and lady Peter- 
borough, and lord Paisley, and lady Dil- 
lon, and Mr. and Mrs. Southwell; lord 

V came a little before 1 left the 

Wells. What a ridiculous thing it was 
to swear the peace against that animal ! 
How timorous must her ladyship be, if 
he could put her in fear of her life ! He 
danced at the ball, but with a gravity of 
countenance, and solemnity of gait, that 
shewed the dance was only in his toes, 
and never reached his heart. Had she 
prudence and good nature, though his 
understanding might not make them 
happy, they might at least be easy. Not 
to be miserable is all some people are 
capable of. There want not only vir- 
tues, but a thousand little accomplish- 
ments to make married people entirely 
happy. I know why they are very often 
not happy, but your grace knows why 
they are, by experience ; and that is the 
sure way of judging. I think if there 
were no better representatives of the 
married state than the thin melancholy 

countenance of lord V , the words 

*' for better for worse," which have but 
a bad sound, would soon be out of use. 
I don't know whether it proceeds from 
the dulness of the weather, or the sub- 
ject, but I am almost asleep, so I must 
change my conversation from matrimony 
to a ball. You know some of our Grub 
Street wits compared marriage to a coun- 
try dance, which scheme I extremely ap- 
proved ; but when I read it, I thought 
it should have been set to the tune of 
" Love for ever ; " but they say it never 
did go to that tune, nor ever would. I 
danced twice a week all the while I was 
at Tunbridge ; and once extraordinary, 
for lord Euston came down to see lord 
Augustus Fitzroy, and made a ball. Lord 
Euston danced with the duchess of Nor- 
folk ; but her grace went home early ; 



Sect. HI. 



RECENT. 



443 



and then lord Eustoii danced Avith lady 
Delves. We all left off about one o'clock. 
The day after I left the Wells I went to 
the races, which began on Monday, and 
ended on Thursday, and I came home 
yesterday. On Monday there was an as- 
sembly again, and on Thursday another 
play ; and as soon as that was over, a pri- 
vate ball, where we had ten couple. Lord 
Crawfurd and lord Rothes were at the 
races. The person most noticed for sin- 
gularity at Tunbridge was lord : he 

is always making mathematical scratches 
in his pocket-book, so that one half of 
the people took him for a conjuror. He 
is much admired and commended by his 
acquaintance, which are few in number. 
I think he had three at the Wells, and I 
believe he did not allow them above a 
sentence apiece in a whole day ; the rest 

he left lady L to say, who, I believe, 

does not acquit herself ill of the office of 
spokeswoman. She seems to be very 
goodnatured, sensible, and of a more 
communicative temper than his lord- 
ship. I am, madam, your grace's, &c. 
E. Robinson. 



LETTER XXV. 

From the same to the same. 

Hatch, 11, 1738. 
Madam, 
Your grace's very entertaining letter 
was sent to me at sir Wyndham Knatch- 
bull's, where I have been about three 
weeks, and propose returning to Mount 
Morris in a few days. I am as angry as 
I dare be with your grace, that you did 
not send any account of those charming 
fire works, which I fancy were the pret- 
tiest things imaginable. I very much 
approve your love of variety in trifles, 
and constancy in things of greater mo- 
ment. I think you have great reason 
to call exchange robbery, though the 
common saying is to the contrary. For 
my part, who never saw one man that I 
loved, I scarce imagine I could be fond 
of a dozen, and come to that unreason- 
ableness so ridiculously set forth in Hip- 
polyto in the Tempest ; at present I sel- 
dom like above six or eight at a time. I 
fancy in matrimony one finds variety in 
one, in the charming vicissitudes of 

"Sometimes my pi ague, sometimes my darling; 
Kissing to Hay, to-morrow snarling." 



Then the surprising and sudden trans- 
formation of the obsequious and obedient 
lover, to the graceful haughtiness and 
imperiousness of the commanding hus- 
band, must be so agreeable a metamor- 
phosis as is not to be equalled in all 
Ovid's collection, where I do not remem- 
ber a lamb's being transformed into a 
bear. Your grace is much to be pitied, 
who has never known the varieties I 
mention, but has found all the sincerity 
of friendship, and complacency of a lo- 
ver, in the same person ; and I am sure 
my lord duke is a most miserable man^ 
who has found one person who has taken 
away that passion for change, which is 
the boast and happiness of so many peo- 
ple. Pray tell my lord Dupplin that I 
never heard of a viscount that was a pro- 
phet in my life. I assure you I am not 
going to tie the fast knot you mention : 
whenever I have any thoughts of it I 
shall acquaint your grace with it, and 
send you a description of the gentleman 
with his good qualities and faults in full 
length. At present I will tell you what 
sort of a man I desire, which is above 
ten times as good as I deserve ; for gra- 
titude is a great virtue, and I would have 
cause to be thankful. He should have a 
great deal of sense and prudence to di- 
rect and instruct me, much wit to divert 
me, beauty to please me, good humour 
to indulge me in the right, and reprove 
me gently when I am in the wrong ; 
money enough to afford me more than I 
can want, and as much as I can wish ; 
and constancy to like me as long as other 
people do, that is, till my face is wrinkled 
by age, or scarred by the small pox ; and 
after that I shall expect only civility in 
the room of love, for as Mrs. Clive sings, 

" All I hope of mortal man, 
Is to love me whilst he can." 

When I can meet all these things in a 
man above the trivial consideration of 
money, you may expect to hear I am go- 
ing to change the easy tranquillity of 
mind I enjoy at present, for a prospect 
of happiness ; for I am like Pygmalion, 
in love with a picture of my own draw- 
ing, but I never saw an original like it 
in my life ; 1 hope when I do, I shall, 
as some poet says, find the statue warm. 
I am, madam, your most obedient 
humble servant, 

Eliz. Robinson. 



444 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



LETTER XXVL 

From Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu to the Du- 
chess of Port /and. 

1-738. 

Madam, 
As your grace tenders my peace of mind, 
you will be glad to hear I am not so an- 
gry as I was. I own I was much moved 
in spirit at hearing you neglected your 
health ; but since you have had advice, 
there is one safe step taken. As forme, 
I have swallowed the weight of an apo- 
thecary in medicine ; and what I am the 
better, except more patient and less cre- 
dulous, I know not. I have learnt to 
bear my infirmities, and not to trust to 
the skill of physicians for curing them. 
I endeavour to drink deep of philosophy, 
and to be wise when I cannot be merry, 
easy when I cannot be glad, content 
with what cannot be mended, and patient 
where there is no redress. The mighty 
can do no more, and the wise seldom do 
as much. You see I am in the main 
content with myself, though many would 
quarrel with such an insignificant, idle, 
inconsistent person ; but I am resolved 
to make the best of all circumstances 
around me, that this short life may not 
be half lost in pains, " well remember- 
ing and applying, the necessity of dying." 
Between the periods of birth and burial, 
I would fain insert a little happiness, a 
little pleasure, a little peace : to-day is 
ours, yesterday is past, and to-morrow 
may never come. I wonder people can 
so much forget death, when all we see 
before us is but succession ; minute suc- 
ceeds to minute, season to season, sum- 
mer dies as winter comes. The dial 
marks the change of hour, every night 
brings death -like sleep, and morning 
seems a resurrection ; yet, while all 
changes and decays, we expect no alte- 
ration, unapt to live, unready to die, we 
lose the present and seek the future, ask 
much for what we have not, thank Pro- 
vidence but little for what we have ; 
our youth has no joy, our middle age 
no quiet, our old age no ease, no in- 
dulgence ; ceremony is the tyrant of 
this day, fashion of the other, business 
of the next. Little is allowed to free- 
dom, happiness, and contemplation, the 
adoration of our Creator, the admiration 
of his works, and the inspection of our- 
selves. But why should I trouble your 
grace with these reflections. What my 



little knowledge can suggest, you must 
know better : what my short experience 
has shewn, you must have better observ- 
ed. I am sure any thing is more ac- 
ceptable to you than news and compli- 
ments, so I always give your grace the 
present thoughts of my heart. I beg 
my compliments to lady Oxford, who I 
hope is better. 

I am, madam, your grace's most obe- 
dient servant, E. Robinson. 



LETTER XXVIL 

From the same to the sa?ne. 

Canterbury, Aug. 15, Vt39'. 

Madam, 
I HOPE the writing faculty will be re- 
stored again to your grace in a few days, 
for 1 never stood more in need of such a 
consolation. I am at present banished 
from home by the small pox. On Satur- 
day a woman and three children, who 
live in a farm house at our gate, fell ill 
of it, which so much frightened my very 
good and tender mamma, that my papa 
sent my sister and myself directly to Can- 
terbury, where we shall stay a week with 

Mrs. Scott, and then go to Mrs. T , 

the wife of a prebend of this church. I 
do not much like a country town ; there 
is little company except deans, prebends, 
and minor canons. We have met with 
a great deal of civility, and have nothing 
but messages and visits from prebends, 
deacons, and the rest of the church mi- 
litant here on earth. In short, the whole 
town takes to me so much, that I am 
sure they would choose me a member of 
parliament, if 1 would offer myself as a 
candidate. I think I shall be tired of 
the study of divines, before our pestilen- 
tial neighbours are well again. To my 
unspeakable grief, my brother Robinson 
will not be persuaded to avoid the dan- 
ger. 1 heard lately that Mr. Dashwood 
was dead at Rome. I hope it was not 
miss Dash wood's brother ; for an addition 
of fortune, which comes by the loss of a 
friend, is always far from welcome. I 
have seven brothers, and would not part 
with one for a kingdom ; and if I had 
but one, I should be distracted about 
him ; but, thanks to fortune, I am plen- 
tifully provided with them ; surely no 
one has so many or so good brothers. 
Three of them intend seeing me to-mor- 
row, and will stay here two or three days. 



Sect. 111. 



RECENT. 



445 



I have written a line to the duke ; I hope 
the feminine hand will not hurt liis re- 
putation. I never wrote before a letter 
to a gentleman which was not read with 
spectacles ; but it will be necessary for 
me to bespeak some younger correspon- 
dent, for fear of losing* my old ones the 
first hard winter. I think there are 
some of them that could not bear a long- 
frost. If I did not always write ill, I 
should make some excuse for this letter ; 
my pen has been an ancient inhabitant 
of the standish ; it has defaced much 
white paper, and been long the engine 
of industry and the secretary of diligence. 
It has given flight to as much foolish- 
ness, as when it was in the wing of a 
goose ; but it sings its last so melodiously, 
one would imagine it was taken from a 
swan : it shall, however, ere I consign 
it to ignoble rest, sign myself 

Your grace's very humble servant, 

E. Robinson. 



LETTER XXVIII. 

From the same to the same. 

Mount Morris, Oct. 10, 1739. 
Madam, 
It is extremely good of your grace to 
continue to make me happy at a time 
when I can neither see you nor hear 
from you. I should have written upon 
my leaving lady KnatchbuU's, but the 
country and the head-ach are certainly 
the worst correspondents, as well as the 
dullest companions, in the world. I have 
promised continually to trouble you no 
more, having exhausted aU my epistolary 
matter ; but I cannot help expressing my 
gratitude to my lord duke, who is cer- 
tainly a person of indefatigable good 
nature. I hope soon to have the plea- 
sure of seeing you in my way to Bath, 
and beg you will give orders to your 
porter to admit me : for if not, as I am 
grown thin since my indisposition, he 
will think it is my ghost and shut the 
door ; and if you should afterwards read 
in your visiting book, Miss Robinson 
from the shades below, you will guess 
the meaning of it ; but remember 1 am 
not going to be dipt in Lethe, but the 
Bath water. I shall stay but a few days 
in town, and then shall proceed with 
my father and mother to the waters of 



life and recovery. My papa's chimney- 
corner hyp will never venture to attack 
him in a public place ; it is the sweet 
companion of solitude, and the offspring 
of meditation ; the disease of an idle ima- 
gination, not the child of hurry and di- 
version. I am afraid that, with the 
gaieties of the place, and the spirits the 
waters give, 1 shall be perfect sal volatile, 
and open my mouth and evaporate. I 
wish you and his grace much comfort, 
and lady Bell much joy upon the occa- 
sion of her marriage. I imagine she 
only waits for the writings. Ijawyers, 
who live by delay, do not consider it is 
often the death of love. They would 
rather break an impatient lover's heart, 
than make a flaw in the writings. Then 
they think of the jointure, and separa- 
tion of the turtles, who think they can 
never part from, or survive each other ; 
at last they are convinced they loved, but 
the lawyer reasoned. Your grace, by 
experience, knows what makes matri- 
mony happy ; from observation I can tell 
what makes it miserable. But I can 
define matrimonial happiness only like 
wit, by negatives : 'tis not kissing, that's 
too sweet ; 'tis not scolding, that's too 
sour ; 'tis not raillery, that's too bitter ; 
nor the continual shuttlecock of reply, 
for that's too tart. In short, I hardly 
know how to season it to my taste ; but 
I would neither have it tart, nor mawk- 
ishly sweet. I should not like to live 
upon metheglin or verjuice ; and then, 
for that agreeable variety of " sometimes 
my plague, sometimes my darling," it 
would be worse than any thing ; for re- 
collection would never sufl^er one either 
entirely to love them when good, or hate 
them when bad. I believe your grace 
will easily suppose I am not a little 
pleased at escaping the stupidity of a 
winter in the country. I have heard 
people speak with comfort of being as 
merry as a cricket, but for my part I do 
not find the joy of being cohabitant of 
the fire side with them, i am in very 
good spirits here-, and should be so were 
1 in a desert ; I borrow from the future 
the happiness I expect; and from the 
past, by recollection, bring it back to 
the present. I can sit and live over 
those hours I passed so pleasantly with 
you when I was in town, and in hope 
enjoy those 1 may have the pleasure of 
passing with you again. I was a month 
at Hatch, where the good humour of the 



446 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



family makes every thing" agreeable ; we 
had great variety in the house : children 
ill cradles, and old women in elbow 
chairs. I think the family may be look- 
ed upon like the three tenses, the pre- 
sent, past, and future. I am very glad 
to hear the marquis and the little ladie«; 
are well ; I beg my compliments to his 
grace. The hour for ghosts to rest is 
come, so I must vanish ; I shall appear 
again in a white sheet of paper ere long ; 
but what can I write from a place where 
I know nothing but that I am, your 
grace's humble servant, 

E. Robinson. 



LETTER XXIX. 

From Mrs. EUzaheth Montagu to the 
Duchess of Portland. 



1739. 



Madam, 
As I always acquaint your grace with 
my motions from place to place, I think 
it incumbent upon me to let you know 
1 died last Thursday ; having that day 
expected to hear of a certain duchess, 
and being disappointed, I fell into a 
vexation, and from thence into a cha- 
grin, and from that into a melancholy, 
with a complicated et cetera, and so ex- 
pired, and have since crossed the Styx, 
though Charon was loth to receive me 
into the boat. Pluto inquired into the 
cause of my arrival ; and upon telling 
him it, he said, that lady had sent many 
lovers there by her cruelty, but I was 
the first friend who was despatched by 
her neglect. I thought it proper to ac- 
quaint you with my misfortune, and 
therefore called for the pen and ink Mrs. 
Rowe had used to write her Letters from 
the Dead to the Living, and consulted 
with the melancholy lovers you had sent 
there before me, what I should say to 
you. One was for beginning, Obdurate 
fair ; one for addressing you in metre ; 
another in metaphor ; but I found these 
lovers so sublime a set of ghosts, that 
their advice was of no service to me, so 
I applied to the other inhabitants of 
Erebus. I went to Ixion for counsel ; 
but his head was so giddy with turning, 
he could not give m.e a steady opinion ; 
Sisyphus was so much out of breath with 
walking up hill he could not make me 
an answer. Tantalus was so dry he 



could not speak to be understood ; and 
Prometheus had such a gnawing at his 
stomach he could not attend to what I 
said. Presently after I met Eurydice, 
who asked me if I could sing a tune, for 
Pluto had a very good ear, and I might 
release her for ever, for though 

" Fate had fast bound her, 
With Styx nine tinies round her, 
Yet singing a tune was victorious." 

I told her I had no voice, but that there 
was one lady Wallingford in the other 
world, who could sing and play like her 
own Orpheus, but that I hoped she would 
not come thither a great while. The Fatal 
Sisters said they had much fine thread to 
spin for her yet, and so madam Eurydice 
must wait with patience. Charon says 
the packet-boat is ready, and ghosts will 
not wait, so I must take my leave of you 
to my great grief; for, as Bays in the 
Rehearsal says, ghosts are not obliged to 
speak sense, I could have added a great 
deal more. Pluto gives his service, and 
Proserpine is your humble servant. We 
live here very elegantly ; we dine upon 
essence, like the duke of Newcastle ; we 
eat and drink the soul and spirit of every 
thing ; we are all thin and well-shaped, 
but what most surprised me was to see 
sir Robert Austin*, who arrived here 
when I did, a perfect shadow ; indeed I 
was not so much amazed that he had 
gone the way of all flesh, as to meet him 
in the state of all spirit. At first 1 took 
him for sir ■, his cousin; but 

upon hearing him say how many ton he 
was shrunk in circumference, I easily 
found him out. 1 shall wait patiently 
till our packet wafts me a letter from 
your grace : being now divested of pas- 
sion, I can, as a ghost, stay a post or 
two under your neglect, though flesh 
and blood could not bear it. All that 
remains of me is your faithful shade, 

E. Robinson. 

P. S. Pray lay up my letter where it 
cannot hear the cock crow, or it will 
vanish, having died a maid. There are a 
great many apes who were beaux in your 
world, and I have a promise of three more 
who made a fine figure at the last birth- 
day, but cannot outlive the winter. 

Written from Pluto's palace by dark- 
ness visible. 

* A very fat man. 



Sect. III. 



RECENT. 



447 



LETTER XXX. 

From the same to the Siwie. 

Bath, Jan. 7, 1740. 
Madam, 
The pleasure your grace's letter gave 
me, convinced me that happiness can 
reach one at Bath, though I think it is 
not an inhabitant of the place. I pity 
your confinement with the reverend as- 
sembly you mentioned. It is very un- 
reasonable of people to expect one should 
be at home, because one is in the house. 
Of all privileges, that of invisibility is the 

most valuable. Lord was wheeled 

into the rooms on Thursday night, where 
he saluted me with much snuff and civi- 
lity, in consequence of which I sneezed 
and courtesied abundantly. As a farther 
demonstration of his loving kindness, 
he made me play at commerce with him. 
You may easily guess at the charms of a 
place where the height of my happiness 
is a pair royal at commerce, and a peer 
of threescore. Last night I took the 
more youthful diversion of dancing ; our 
beaux here may make a rent in a wo- 
man's fan, but they will never make a 
hole in her heart ; for my part, lord N. 
Somerset has made me a convert from 
toupets and pumps to tie wigs and a 
gouty shoe. Ever since my lord duke 
reprimanded me for too tender a regard 
for lord Crauford's nimble legs, I have 
resolved to prefer the merit of the head 
to the agility of the heels ; and I have 
made so great a progress in my resolu- 
tion as to like the good sense which 
limps, better than the lively folly which 
dances. But to my misfortune he likes 
the queen of spades so much more than 
me, that he never looks off his cards, 
though were I queen of diamonds, he 
would stand a fair chance for me. I 
hope the Bath waters are as good for the 
gout in the heart as the gout in the sto- 
mach, or I shall be the worse for the 
journey. Lord Ailesford, lady Ann 
Shirley, lady S. Paulet, &c. 8cc. are here ; 
miss Greville, miss Berkely, and lady 
Hereford. Mr. Mansell came last night 
to the ball. We have the most diverting 
set of dancers, especially among the men ; 
some hop and some halt in a very agree- 
able variety. The dowager duchess of 
Norfolk bathes ; and being very tall, had 
nearly drowned a few women in the 
Cross Bath, for she ordered it to be 



filled till it reached her chin, and so all 
those who were below her stature, as 
well as her rank, were forced to come 
out or drown ; and finding it, according 
to the proverb, in vain to strive against 
the stream, they left the bath rather 
than swallow so large a draught of wa- 
ter. I am sorry for the cruel separation 
of your grace and Miss Dashwood; I 
believe no one parts with their friends 
with greater reluctance than you do ; 
and how they part with you I have a 
melancholy remembrance. I am of your 
opinion, that one may easily guess at the 
depth of an understanding whose shal- 
lows are never covered by silence. It is 
now pretty late, and I will end my scan- 
dalous chronicle of Bath. I beg my 
best compliments to my lord duke and 
to lady Wallingford. I am, &c. 

E. Robinson. 



LETTER XXXI. 

From the same to the same. 

Bath, Jan. 30, 1740. 
Madam, 
It is said. Expectation enhances the value 
of a pleasure. I think your letters want 
nothing to add to the satisfaction they 
give, and I would not have your grace 
take the method of delay to give a zest 
to your favours : however, your letter 
did give me the greatest pleasure ; I 
must have been sunk in insensibility if it 
had not made me happy. 1 have long 
been convinced it was in your power to 
give me happiness, and I shall begin to 
think health too, for I have been much 
better ever since I received it. I hope 
the duke is entirely well of his new dis- 
order ; I am sure his grace will never 
have it much, for it is a distemper al- 
ways accompanied by peevishness ; and 
as he has not the smallest grain of that 
in his composition, he can never have a 
constitution troubled with the gout. 
What will this world come to now duch- 
esses drink gin and frequent fairs ! I am 
afraid your gentlemen did not pledge 
you, or they might have resisted the 
frost and fatigue by the strength of that 
comfortable liquor. I want much to 
know whether your grace got a ride in 
the flying coach, which is part of the di- 
version of a fair. I am much obliged to 
you for wishing me of the party ; I should 



448 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



have liked it extremely. Wlien you go 
again, pray bew^are of a thaw, lest you 
should meet with your final dissolution. 
Lady Berkshire, Mrs. Greville, and her 
daughter, called upon me yesterday. 
Every body takes pity on me now I am 
confined so much. I am much obliged 
to your grace for forming schemes for 
me. If any castles come to my share, 
they must be airy ones, for I have no 
materials to build them on terra fir ma. 
I am not a good chimerical architect : 
and besides, I would rather dwell this 
summer in a small room in a certain no- 
bble mansion near Gerrard's Cross, than 
in the most spacious building I could 
have. I shall not be troublesome to you 
in town ; for our stay here will be so long, 
that our family will hardly go down till 
the end of May. I have many things to 
say which can be conveyed to your know- 
ledge by no way but through your ear. 
The time will come that we shall meet 
at Philippi. Time, though swift, seems 
slow while its progress is towards our 
wishes : if I was at the old gentleman's 
elbow I should shake his hour-glass to 
hasten the arrival of April. While I am 
impatient to see you, I cannot help won- 
dering dean Swift should think it an 
unreasonable thing for lovers to desire 
the gods to annihilate both space and 
time to make two lovers happy. For 
my part, I have wished, in the more rea- 
sonable passion of friendship, the loss of 
three months, and at least as many coun- 
ties, that we might be together. If love, 
like faith, could remove mountains, you 
would see me with you by to-morrow 
morning ; except the humourous lieute- 
nant, no one was ever so much in love 
with one of their own sex, as I am with 
your grace. If I should ever be half as 
much enamoured of one of the other, 
what will become of me in this world, 

" Where sighs and tears are bought and sold, 
And love is made bnt to be told ?'* 

While Hymen holds by Mammon's char- 
ter, my affections would assuredly be 
slighted, having nothing but myself in 
the scale, and some few vanities that 
make me light. What is a woman with- 
out gold or fee-simple ? A toy while she 
is young, and a trifle when she is old. 
Jewels of the first water are good for 
nothing till they are set : but as for us, 
who are no brilliants, we are nobody's 
money till we have a foil, and are en- 



compassed with the precious metal. As 
for the intrinsic value of a woman, few 
know it, and nobody cares. liord Fop- 
pington appraised all the female virtues, 
and bought them in under a 1000/. 
sterling ; and the whole sex have agreed 
no one better understood the value of 
womankind. I admire the heroic ex- 
ploits of the beaux at the playhouse ; 
but could these Narcissus's break the 
looking-glass and destroy the images of 
themselves ! Beating the actors off the 
stage exceeded the valorous enterprise 
of Don Quixotte when he demolished 
the puppets. I hear one of the gentle- 
men (fortune de la guerre) was caught 
in a trap, and descended, ghost-like, un- 
der the stage : I fancy he called out. 
Fight, fight ! with as much solemnity as 
Hamlet's ghost cries. Swear ! I think 
this practical wit is a little dangerous. I 
hope a law will be made, that no man 
shall be witty upon another until he 
fetches blood, or unfurnishes or fires a 
house, for the jest's sake; for really it 
becomes necessary to restrain the active 
genius of our youths ; and especially it 
shall be ordered, that no j)erson be witty 
if they cannot pay damages, and that 
unlawful jests, &c. &c. be forborne. — 
With compliments to my lord duke I 
take my leave. I am, madam, your 
grace's, &c. E. Robinson. 



LETTER XXXII. 

From Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu, to Miss 
S. Robinson. 

Whitehall, 1740. 

My dear sister, 
I HAD your kind and affectionate letter ; 
and I can assure you I have had no plea- 
sure equal to what it gave me since we 
parted. I believe we should be too much 
grieved at the swift passing of hours, if 
we did not look upon the near stages 
of time as the road to some happiness. 
How should we regret every span of life 
that did not seem to stretch towards 
the attainment of some desire ; as, in a 
story that delights, we hasten eagerly to 
the circumstances, without considering 
that the tale is the nearer told ; and very 
brief is that of life ; yet not to be re- 
peated because that it is good, or that it 
is short, or that it is pleasant. May 
your little story be filled with every 



Sect. IIT, 



RECENT. 



44§ 



particular joy, eyery inst?-nce of happi- 
ness, every gift of good fortune ; and 
let it be the chief circumstance of mine 
that I gTiered or rejoiced, and loved, 
and lived, and died as you did. We had 
company at dinner on Monday, and in 
the afternoon I went to lord Oxford's 
ball at ]Mary-le-bone. It was very agree- 
able ; I will give you the list of company 
as they danced. — The duchess and lord 
Foley, the duke and ]Mrs. Pendarvis*, 
Lord Dupplin and Dashf, lord Oeorge 
and Fidget ^, lord Howard and miss 
Caesar, Mr. Granville and miss Tatton, 
Mr. Hay and another miss Csesar. The 
}>artners were chosen by their fans, but 
with a little supercherie in the case. I 
helieve one of our dancers failed, so our 

worthy cousin, sir T , was invited 

and came ; but when h€ had drawn miss 

's fan. he would not dance with 

her; but Mr. Hay, who, as the more 
canonical diversion, had chosen cards, 
danced with the poor forsaken lady. The 
knight bore the roast T\ith great forti- 
tude, and, to make amends, promises his 
neglected fair a ball at his house. It did 
not end till two in the morning. The 
earl and countess beliaved very gracious- 
ly : my lord desired his compliments to 
my father. Pray give him my duty, and 
tell him I propose doing myself the ho- 
nour of writing to him very soon. I sat 
for my picture this morning to Zinck ; 
I believe it will be like. I am in x^nne 
Boleyn's dress. I had tlie pleasure of 
hearing to-day that our dear Robert had 
succeeded in obtaining a ship. I am 
sorry he will ^o out with the first fleet, 
for your sake and mine, two respects 
very dear to me. I tremble too, for fear 
he should have any engagement with 
the Spaniards. Mrs. Dewes desires to 
recommend hei^self to you, being of the 
party of loving sisters. 

I hope the ill news of Vernon is not 
true. My duty to my mamma. 

My dearest sister, 1 am yours most 
affectionately, 

E. Robinson. 

* The widow of Alex. Pendarvis, esq. of 
Roscrow, in Cornwall, afterwards married to 
Dr. Delany, the friend of Swift. See her letters 
in Swift's Correspondence. 

t Miss Catherine Dashwood^ the Delia of 
Hammond th.e poet. 

X Herself, 



LErrER XXXIII. 

From the same to the same. 

Whitehall, . 

My dear sister. 
You will think me the most idly busy of 
any person in the world ; I have got a 
little interval between vanity and cere- 
mony to write to you, but must soon 
leave you, to dress and visit, the grand 
occupations of a woman's life. I was at 

Mrs. 's ; we were both so courteous, 

complaisant, and something so like lov- 
ing, it would have surprised you. What 
farces, what puppet-shows do we act ! 
Some little machine behind the scene 
moves us, and makes the same puppet 
act Scrub, or strut Alexander the Great. 
Madam, contrary to her usual manner, 
acted the part of the obliging ; I, as 
much against my former sentiments, 
personated the obliged. Alas ! I fear 
the first mover in the one case was not 
generosity, nor in the other gratitude. 
She went over head and ears in pro?- 
mises, and I went as deep in thanks. 
The evening was concluded, and the 
farce ended, with a scene more sincere 
and affectionate between Morris, Robert, 
and myself. I have taken leave of Ro- 
bert ; alas ! what a painful word is fare- 
well ! Lord Dunsinane came from Cam- 
bridge this morning : he says my bro- 
ther Matt is better in health than he has 
been a great while. I am reading docr 
tor Swift's and Mr. Pope's letters; I 
like them much, and find great marks 
of friendship, goodness, and affection, 
between these people, whom the world 
think too wise to be honest, and too 
witty to be affectionate. But vice is the 
child of folly rather than of wisdom ; 
and for insensibility of heart, like that 
of the head, it belongeth unto fools. 
Lord Bolingbroke's letters shine much 
in the collection. We are reading Dr. 
Middleton's nev>^ edition of his Letter 
from Rome, with the additions; but 
have not yet reached the postscript to 
Warburton. The answer to the Roman 
Catholic is full, and I doubt not but the 
Protestant Divine wiU be as happily si- 
lenced. Truth wUl maintain its gTOund 
against all opposition. The dedication 

to Dr. G — is modest enough ; the 

doctor commends his hospitality and 
table, but does not tell us his friend was 
careful not to over-eat himself, which is 
2 G 



450 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



an omission. I am, my dear sister, most 
affectionately yours, 

E. Robinson. 



LETTER XXXIV. 

From Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu to Miss 
S. Robinson. 



Whitehall, 



Dear sister, 



I propose to entertain you with some 
poetry, therefore you will excuse a lack 
of prose for this post. I am pretty well 
in health, but at this present instant 
not in high spirits ; a key below imper- 
tinence and talkativeness. However the 
Muses, fair ladies, and Mr. Lyttleton, a 
fine gentleman, will entertain you more 
agreeably. The verses were written at 
lord Westmoreland's : I think they are 
pretty. Either I am very partial to the 
writer, or Mr. Lyttleton has something 
of an elegance in all his compositions, 
let the subject be ever so trifling. I be- 
lieve what he says in praise of solitude 
and the country is to please Apollo, who, 
of all employments, preferred that of a 
shepherd. To Juno he puts up petitions 
of more pride and ambition ; and from 
Minerva he has not unsuccessfully asked 
wisdom and the arts of policy. Happy 
is the genius that can drink inspiration 
at every stream, and gather similes with 
every nosegay ! 

Does the world want odd people, or do 
we want strange cousins, that the St — nes 
must increase and multiply? No folly 
ever becomes extinct, fools do so esta- 
blish posterity. Mr. S has a living 

of 100/. a year, with a prospect of better 
preferment. He was a great rake, but 
having been japanned and married, his 
character is new varnished. I do not 
comprehend what my cousin means by 
their little desires ; if she had said their 
little stomachs, it had been some help to 
their oeconomy. But when people have 
not sufficient for the necessaries of life, 
what avails it that they can do without 

its pomps and superfluities ? Mr. B 

came up in the park to me to-day, and 

asked me if I would give A leave to 

beg my pardon, for that he had ordered 
him to do it. I desired he would tell 
him that he was as safe in my contempt 
as h.e could be in my forgiveness, and 
that J had rather not be troubled with 



him. I thought the valorous captain 
would put him upon his penitentials ; 

and if A n's sword was no sharper 

than his satire, and his courage no 
greater than his wit, the challenge would 
not be dangerous. But he is well aware 
of 

" the perils that environ 
The man that nieddh^s with cold iron." 

I really think this fright will give him 
such a terror of steel, that he will hardly 
endure the blade of a knife this twelve- 
month. I hope in his repentance he will m 
not turn his hand to commendation ; for ■ 
though I am not vexed at the spattering 
of his abuse, I could never endure the 
daub of his panegyric. 

The duchess has presented me with a 
very fine lace head and ruffles. My duty 
to papa and mamma. In great haste yours, 

E. R. 



LETTER XXXV. 

Frojn the same to the Rev. W. Freind*^ 

Sir, 
I HAD the pleasure of your letter on Sa- 
turday, at my return from Ranelagh 
Gardens ; I was glad to see the evening 
of a day spent in diversion improve into 
friendship. The various pleasures the ge- 
neral world can give us are nothing in 
comparison of the collected comforts of 
friendship. The first play round the 
head, but come not to the heart ; the 
last are intensely felt : however, both 
these kinds of pleasures are necessary to 
our satisfaction. If we would be more 
merry than wise, we may be imprudent ; 
but to increase the critical knowledge, 
that increases sorrow, is not the desire or 
boast, but the misfortune and complaint, 
of the truly wise. It is really a misfor- 
tune to be above the bagatelle ; a scorn 
of trifles may make us despise grey heads, 
mitred heads, nay, perhaps, crowned 
heads ; it may teach us to take a little 
man from his great estate, a lord-mayor 
from his great coach, a judge out of his 
long wig, a chief-justice from his chair ; 
it may even penetrate a crowd of cour- 

* Afterwards dean of Canterbury, son of Dr. 
Robert Freind, head master of Westminster 
school, and nephew of Dr. John Freind, M. D. 
who was committed to the Tower on account 
of Atterbury's conspiracy. He married miss 
Grace Robinson, sister of sir Thomas Robinson, 
and of the primate of Ireland. 



Sect. III. 



RECENT. 



451 



tiers, till we reach the very heart of the 
prime mhiister. It is best to admire and 
not to understand the world. Like a 
riddle, by its mystery rather than by its 
meaning', it affords a great deal of amuse- 
ment till understood, and then but a 
very poor and scanty satisfaction. To 
the farmer every ear of wheat is bread ; 
the thrasher, by dint of labour, finds out 
it is half chaff; the miller, a man of still 
nicer inquiry, discovers that not a quar- 
ter of it will bear the sifting ; the baker 
knows it is liable to a thousand acci- 
dents, before it can be made into bread. 
Thus it is in the great harvest of life ; 
reckon that lofty stem on which great- 
ness grows, and all that envelope it, as 
a part of the golden grain, and it makes a 
good figure ; and thus sees the common 
eye. The nicer inquirer discerns how 
much of the fair appearance wants in- 
trinsic value, and that when it is sifted 
there remains but little of real worth, 
and even that little is with difficulty 
moulded to good use. Do not let you 
and I encourage this sharpness of sight ; 
let the vision come to us through the 
grossest medium, and every little object 
borrow bulk and colour : let all be mag- 
nified, multiplied, varied, and beautified 
by opinion, and the mistaken eye of pre- 
judice : thus will the world appear a gay 
scene ; as indulgent spectators we will call 
every trick a scheme, and every little wish 
ambition. I am mortified at your not 
coming to town ; I hoped I should have 
seen you and Mrs. Freind this spring, 
but as that cannot be, let me hear often 
from you. I long to hear my little cou- 
sin is well. The dean of Exeter is no 
more, he died yesterday. Mr. Hay told 
me, upon hearing me say I should write 
to you to-day, that he would have me 
tell you, from him, that Mr. Hume is to 
be prebend of Westminster ; Dr. Holmes 
to be dean of Exeter, in the room of Dr. 
Clark ; the speaker's chaplain is made 
prebend of Windsor in the room of Dr. 
Lewis : it is said Dr. Hutton or Dr. Wil- 
les is to have Westminster, whoever is 
made bishop. Mr. Hay says, if you would 
know any thing more he will write to 
you; he seems to have a great regard 
for you. I hear it vfould be much easier 
for you to get something new than any 
thing which your father has had, as it is 
a precedent that may open a door to so- 
licitations from persons who have not 
the reason to exjiect that consideration 



which your good, and your father's great 
and excellent character require : consi- 
der this, and don't be slack ! I know 
you do not think half enough of your 
interest. The bell rings, else I could 
be so impertinent as to advise. Forgive 
the zeal of a sincere^ friend and well- 
wisher. E. Robinson. 

My kindest thoughts attend on my 



LETTER XXXVI. 

From the same to the Duchess of Portland. 

Hayton, May 5, . 

Madam, 
In this wicked world your grace will see 
honest sincerity go generally worse drest 
than flattery. In the true affection of 
my heart, I am going to write a long 
letter upon paper ungilded and unadorn- 
ed ; but truth, as your friend, may visit 
you in a dishabille ; and by the length of 
my paper, and its homeliness, I compli- 
ment you with the opinion of your hav- 
ing two rare virtues, patience and humi- 
lity, to endure and accept such an epistle. 
I had the pleasure of my lord duke's let- 
ter yesterday ; all the contents were 
agreeable, and especially your commands 
to write, though 1 am not just in the si- 
tuation one would wish a correspondent. 
I wish you could see the furniture of my 
desk, which is all eaten by the worms. 
My pen has served the good old man for 
his accounts these forty years ; I can 
hardly make it write any thing but 17/1- 
primis, item, ditto; if 1 would thank 
your grace for the many obligations I 
have received, it is ready to write a re- 
ceipt in full ; or would I express that 
you have my entire affection and esteem, 
it is going to write, for value received ; 
and when I would enumerate your fa- 
vours, it is in haste to run to the sum 
total. I believe since the pen was dipped 
in ink it never made a compliment, or 
was employed to express one generous 
sentiment of friendship. It has been 
worn out in the service of gain ; to note 
pounds, shillings, and pence, with the 
balance on the side of profit, has been its 
business. I hear the burlesque of sweet 
Pamela and her dear master is very droll ; 
if it has ridiculed them as well as it has 
Dr. Muldleton and his hero, ! fancy it 
must be diverting ; but high things are 
better burlesqued than low ; the dedica- 
2G2 



452 



E L E G A N T E P 1 S T L E 8. 



Book IV. 



tion was really admirable, and I fancy 
must mortify both the author and the 
patron. Indeed I believe my friend was 
the first man that ever complimented a 
gentleman upon not cramming till he 
was sick, and not lying in bed longer 
than he could sleep ; but flattery must 
be at the dinner and the levee of the 

great. I wish lord H y may not get 

the cholic with his vegetable diet ; as it 
turns to vanity and wind, he will be too 
much puffed up with it. 1 cannot ima- 
gine, after this, how the doctor can ever 
dedicate a book to the duke of Newcas- 
tle, unless he says, as Pope does, that by 
various methods they aim at praise, and 
that 

" Lucullus, when frtigalit^v' could charrn, 
Had roasted turnips in the Sahine farm " 

I believe many great men have been ce- 
lebrated for their banquets, but my lord 

H has the honour of being the first 

who ever recommended himself to an au- 
thor by his fasting. I had the pleasure 
yesterday of a long letter from my sister : 
her eyes are perfectly well, but she has 
not made any use of them but in writ- 
ing to' me ; and, 1 must tell you, her 
care made her steep her letter in vine- 
gar, for fear it should prove as fatal as 
Pandora's present. The caution diverted 
me extremely, for I thought the letter 
seemed as if it had been sent for a broken 
forehead. My mamma made me the 
first visit last Wednesday. If the wea- 
ther was more mild I might soon hope 
to meet my sister, but it confines her at 
home. I had the satisfaction of hearing 
from my brother Robinson, last post, 
that he finds great benefit by the Bath 
waters ; but while I was rejoicing at 
this good news, he informed me Mrs. 
Freind had just lost her little daughter 
by an unhappy accident. I know hers 
and Mr. Freind's tenderness to be such, 
that they will be extremely grieved at 
it, and the aggravation of its not being 
in the common order of nature will add 
much to the aflliction. If your grace 
continues to exhort me to v/rite, you 
must not be surprised if I entertain you 
with the conversation of the place I am 
in ; you may expect a very good receipt 
to make cheese and syllabub, or, for your 
more elegant entertainment, a treatise 
upon the education of turkeys. I would 
catch you some butterflies, but I have 
not seen any pretty ones. I have order- 



ed people upon all our coasts to seek for 
shells, but have not yet got any pretty 
ones : if Neptune knev/ your grace 
wanted some, he would send his maids 
of honour, the Nereides, to look for them , 
and Proteus would take the shape of a 
shell in hopes of having a place in your 
grotto ; I intend to tell the inhabitants 
of the deep whom they are for, and they 
will all assist me ; even the Leviathan 
will not be worse than the judge ; if he 
eats the fish, he will give us the shell. 1 
am sorry Mrs. Pendarvis has left you for 
the summer ; Dash too talks of depart- 
ing ; when they are gone London will 
lose much of its charms for you, and the 
country is not yet delightful ; even this 
sweet month, the fairest of the year, does 
not disclose its beauties. Pray make my 
compliments to my lord duke, and give 
a thousand kisses to the dear little ones, 
and assure them I should be glad to de- 
liver them myself. I hope Mrs. Pendar- 
vis had a long letter from me the begin- X 
ning of this week. Farewell, my dear ■ 
lady duchess ; farewell is the hardest 
word in our language, and to you I ge- 
gerally speak it the last of a thousand. 
I am, dear madam, your most obliged 
servant, 

E. Robinson. 



LETTER XXXVIL 



From Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu tot/ie Du- 



■jJiess of Portland. 



Mav 7. 



Madam. 



I HAD begun a letter to your grace last 
post, but was interrupted by company ; 
then did I regret having left the humble 
and quiet habitation to which the idle 
and the noisy did not resort ; and where 
1 had leisure to permit me to do what 
i did like, and no ceremonious duty to 
oblige me to do that I did not ; for what 
a mortification to leave writing to you 
to entertain — whom? Why, an honest 
boisterous sea captain, his formal wife, 
most wondrous civil daughter, and a 
very coxcombical son ; the good captain 
is so honest and so fierce, a bad con- 
science and a cool courage cannot abide 
him ; he thinks he lias a good title to 
reprove any man that is not as honest, 
and to beat any man that is not as valiant 
as himself ; he hates every vice of nature 



$ECT. HI. 



R E C E N T. 



453 



but wrath, and every corruption of the 
times but tyranny ; a patriot in his public 
character, but an absolute and angry 
monarch in his family j he thinks every 
man a fool in politics who is not angry, 
and a knave if he is not perverse : in- 
deed, the captain is v/ell in his element, 
and may appear gentle compared to the 
waves and wind, but on the happy quiet 
shore he seems a perfect whirlwind ; he 
is much fitter to hold converse with the 
hoarse Boreas in his wintry cavern, than 
to join in the whispers of Zephyrus in 
Flora's honeymoon of May. I was afraid, 
as he walked in the garden, that he would 
fright away the larks and nightingales ; 
and expected to see a flight of sea-gulls 
hovering about him : the amphibious 
pewet found him too much a water animal 
for his acquaintance, and fled with ter- 
ror. I was angry to find he was envious 
of admiral Vernon ; but considering his 
appetite to danger and thirst of glory, 
I endeavoured to excuse something of 
the fault : it is fine when danger becomes 
sport, and hardships voluptuousness. All 
this is brought about by the magic sound 
of fame. Dr. Young will tell us the same 
principle puts the feather in the hat of 
the beau, which erects the high plume in 
the helmet of the hero ; but if so, how 
gentle is the enchantment of the pretty 
man of praise, compared to the high 
madness of the bold hero of renown ! 
Very safely trips the red-heeled shoe, 
but most perilous is the tread of ho- 
nour's boot ! But a-j:ropO:, how do our 
scarlet beaux like this scheme of go- 
ing abroad? Do the pretty creatures, 
who mind no other thing but the ladies 
and the king, like to leave the drawhig- 
room and ridotto for camps and trenches ? 
Should the chance of war bring a slo- 
venly corpse betwixt the wind and their 
nobility, can they abide it? — Dare they 
behold friends dead, and enemies living? 
I think they will die of a panic, and save 
their enemies' powder. Well, they are 
proper gentlemen, heaven defend the 
nunneries ! as for the garrisons, they 
will be safe enough. The father con- 
fessors will have more consciences to 
quiet, than the surgeons will have wounds 
to dress ; I v/ould venture a wager Flan- 
ders increases in the christenings more 
than in the burials of the week. 1 am 
your grace's faithful and very affec- 
tionate 

E, Robinson. 



LETTER XXXVIII. 

From the same to the same. 

May 13, . 

Madam, 
I CANNOT express the pleasure your 
grace's letter gave me, after not having 
heard from you five weeks, nor indeed 
of you for the last fortnight. How can 
you say it is not in your power to make a 
return for my letters ! mine can only 
afford you a little amusement, yours, my 
dear lady duchess, give me real happi- 
ness. 1 hope you did not receive any 
harm from writing ; if your constitution 
is as naturally disposed as your mind to 
make a friend happy, I am sure you did 
not. My sister is just gone from me ; our 
first meeting under the same roof was 
this morning ; you will imagine we 
lengthened our happiness as long as the 
day ; this evening she retired a little the 
sooner, to give me time to write to your 
grace. I have not yet been at Mount 
Morris ; though I believe the infection 
maybe over, I am not willing to venture 
myself for the sake of the house, while 
the inhabitants of it can come to me here 
with much more ease to themselves, and 
better security to me. My habitation 
indeed is humble, but it has the best 
blessings of humility, peace and content. 
I think I never spent a happier day than 
this, though fortune gave no pageantry 
to the joy. Indeed we wanted none of 
that pomp that people make use of to 
signify happiness, but were glad to enjoy 
it free and alone. We talked of your 
grace ; I won't tell you what we said, for 
then you would say I was partial, and 
my friend complaisant ; however, my 
happiest hours are rendered more joyful 
by the remembrance of you, and my 
most melancholy less dismal. I can ne- 
ver want inclination to write to you, but 
that I may not want materials I cannot 
answer : first, you must know those who 
are impertinent in London are down- 
right dull in the country ; here is neither 
vice nor novelty ; and consider, if news 
and scandal are out of the question, what 
a drawback it is upon conversation ? If I 
could sit, and rightly spell, of every herb 
that sips the dew, &c., I might indeed 
be a very good correspondent : but being 
neither merry nor wise, what can you 
make of me ? Should I tell you of an in- 
trigue between the Moon and Endvmion^ 



_j^t^?iis*a?ffiv. 



>^'*^>^^ 



454 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



I3ooK IV. 



Aurora and Cephalus, or the people of 
our sky, you would not thank me for my 
news ; but except the plants of the earth, 
and the stars of heaven, what do I see 
here? My eyes, you know, are not fit 
for either minute speculations or distant 
prospects : however, I will own I am an 
admirer of a Narcissus, and now and then 
ogle the man in the moon through a 
glass. The first is as sweet as any beau, 
the second as changeable as any lover ; 
but I know Pen, who despises all beaux 
and lovers, will afford a regard to these ; 
therefore I imagine them worth my ac- 
quaintance. How impertinent is this in- 
terruption ! Must I leave your grace for 
such a trivial consideration as my sup- 
per ? They have sent me some chicken, 
but, alas ! can one eat one's acquaintance ! 
these inofTensive companions of my re- 
tirement, can I devour them ! How often 
have I lately admired the provident care 
and the maternal affection of a hen, and 
shall I eat her hopeful son or fair daugh- 
ter ! Sure I should then be an unworthy 
member of the chicken society. I find 
myself reduced to a vegetable diet, not 
as a Pythagorean, for fear of removing 
the soul of a friend, but to avoid destroy- 
ing the body of an acquaintance. There 
is not a sheep, a calf, a lamb, a goose, a 
hen, or a turkey in the neighbourhood, 
with which I am not intimately ac- 
quainted. When I shall leave my ark I 
don't know ; would my dove bring me 
an olive branch, in promise of peace, I 
would soon do it ; but I am in less haste, 
because here I have as much of my sis- 
ter's compatiy, or more, than I can 
quietly enjoy there ; and a certain per- 
son seems I can never describe 

how, nor tell why, but they look a little 
awful, and pish ! and phoo ! with a dig- 
nity age will never give me ; really it is 
droll, and some things I have seen lately 
would furnish out scenes for a play ; to 
me indeed it would be neither comedy 
nor tragedy ; I can neither laugh at 
what I don't like, nor cry for what I 
don't deserve. I am very cautious as to 
my conversation, for I never pretend to 
think, or to know, or to hear, or to see. 
I am a sceptic, and doubt of all things ; 
and as a mediator between my opinion 
and all positive affirmation, make use of 
an — It seems to me, and r— Perhaps, 
and — It may he; and then I can tack 
about to the right point of the compass 
at a short warning. The other day. 



seeing Dr. Middleton's book upon the 
table, they discoursed the whole matter 
over, and set things in so new a light, 
that I was extremely entertained for 
two hours, though I had full exercise in 
following with my assent all that was 
advanced ; we condemned Cicero for 
folly, Cato for cowardice, Brutus for sub- 
jection, Cassius for gaiety ; and then we 
talked it all back again, and left them 
the very men we found them ; for you 
must know there are persons, who, if no 
one will contradict them, will contra- 
dict themselves rather than not debate. 
I am very glad to hear those I value so 
much as Pen, Dash, and Don, love me ; 
but I approve their prudence in not 
telling me so too often, for I am by na- 
ture prone to vanity. Indeed, as to Dash, 
I have been the aggressor, and I have 
not a good title to complain of Mrs. 
Pendarvis ; but as to Mrs. Donnellan, she 
has not wrote to me this age ; I hope 
they are all well, and desire my compli- 
ments, or, in a style which better suits 
the simplicity and sincerity of my man- 
ners, my love. I need not say I am al- 
ways glad, and I dare not say desirous, 
to hear from you : let me never inter- 
rupt your pleasure, nor hurt your health ; 
but when you have a moment in which 
it will be agreeable to you to write, re- 
member, my dear lady duchess, that you 
can bestow it on one whom it will make 
happy ; indeed there are many who may 
assert that claim, but no one is with 
more gratitude, esteem, affection, and 
constancy, yours, &c. &c. . E. R. 



LETTER XXXIX. 

'Prom Mrs. 'Elizabeth Montagu to the Du- 
chess of Portland. 

May 30, . 

Madam, 
I BELIEVE the admiral's letter did not 
make his wife happier than it did me, as 
it came to me accompanied with one 
from your grace. Indeed my regard for 
him is much increased by this letter. 
Before I honoured him as great, but now 
I love him as good ; and I must tell you, 
that after all his account of his brave 
exploits, I was much pleased with his 
friendly compliment to honest Will 
Fisher. I was charmed too Avith his af- 
fectionate expression of love to his chil- 



Sect. III. 



RECENT. 



455 



dren. The noise of war, and the trum- 
pet of fame, is apt to render a man deaf 
to the voice of nature while he is in the 
pursuit of glory ; but I cannot imagine 
that a brave man, who is least checked 
by the timorous counsel of self-love, 
should not be of all others most open to 
the love of his family and friends. Your 
grace will think perhaps, that, like Des- 
demona, I shall be won by some story, 
passing strange, of hair breadth 'scapes 
in the imminent and deadly breach ; but 
really I am sensible I should make a 
weak rib for a hero ; and, considering 
that while his heart throbbed with cou- 
rage mine might pant with fear, I 
shall not aspire to a man who has more 
courage than suffices to head the militia 
and trained bands, whenever it may be 
necessary for his country that they should 
march from St. Paul's to Westminster. 
May he seek peace and ensue it at home 
and abroad. Let Minerva teach him all 
her peaceful arts, and Apollo instruct 
liim in any soft accomplishments ; but 
may the fell Bellona, and fierce Mars, 
never breathe the spirit of war into him ! 
In the realm of fame I could not reign 
his consort, but must be left his melan- 
choly relict. My love being become, 
like the nymph Echo, nothing but voice, 
much he would be praised, but first he 
must be buried ; nor will an envious 
world utter their commendations, till 
the ear that merited them is deaf. Then 
those praises he could not hear for his 
reward, I should hear to my regret. I 
remember a story of a disconsolate wi- 
dow, whose rank did not set her above 
truth, following her husband's corpse 
with many lamentations, but the most 
bitter was. Oh ! where shall such an- 
other be gotten ! — Now this irreparable 
circumstance makes me tremble for Mrs. 
Vernon, for there is none such, no not 
one, should the admiral be slain. Now 
for the beaux, the same tailor makes an- 
other as good at a reasonable rate, and 
without loss of time ; he makes a buck- 
ram man as fast as Falstaif ; it is but 
change of raiment, when the coat is the 
merit of the man ; nor does one expect 
the beau, who is but a suit of satin, to 
last like the hero, who is a coat of mail. 
I am very glad of what your grace tells 
me of the lawsuit. I hope Mr. Harley 
has got his book again. I am very sorry 
for the duchess of Leeds' misfortune; 
if a fright would have made her mis- 



carry, I don't know but her grace might 
have suffered by the capers of a certain 
miss Hoyden of our acquaintance. As 
for my eyes, which you obligingly in- 
quire after, I cannot say, in the common 
phrase, that they are at your service, for 
really they are not under my command ; 
I foUow your grace's advice, I do not 
work at all, and I read by my sister's 
eyes. 1 thought I had told you a fort- 
night ago (but I see by the direction of 
your letter I have not), that I had left 
Mr. Smith's, and was come to a room 
my mamma had furnished for me, in a 
farm at the bottom of our gates, where 
she could more conveniently visit me 
than at a greater distance ; and she 
thought I should grow less afraid of the 
house, by being near it. I was glad to 
come here, for I knew I should have 
every thing I wanted from Mount Mor- 
ris, and I had a room for a maid, and all 
was neat and clean, and I could be as 
much alone as I pleased ; and to tell 
you the truth, I believe that circum- 
stance has helped to make my eyes bad, 
for before 1 had seen my sister I was 
alone all the evenings, and I used to 
read more than was prudent ; now I do 
nothing at all, and take great care of 
myself, I should grieve to be forced to 
see with other people's eyes, but that I 
reflect it is what the first man in every 
kingdom does : and what the powerful 
choose, the weak may well submit to. I 
have dined at Mount Morris these two 
days, but they will not let me go up 
stairs yet ; this affords me the comfort 
of seeing other people are more fearful 
for me than I am for myself, though I 
acquit myself of the duty of caution 
most rigidly. I believe your grace never 
saw so humble a dwelling as mine ; it is 
high enough for Content, which is of 
middling stature, but high Ambition 
would break its head in the entrance. 
If I was poetically inclined I should 
write a pastoral, but the Muses do not 
haunt these shades ; the poet's laurel 
and the lover's willow grow not in our 
groves ; honest oak for timber, and un- 
derwood for firing, with conveniences 
for life, are produced, but no ornaments 
for story. I would describe my habita- 
tion if I had time, but it is late, and my 
eyes insist upon punctuality. I am 
greatly diverted with your account of 
the ancient coquette and antiquated fop 
Could not she find out in sixty years 



u^ 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book iVr 



what David wisely said in his haste? 
May we all better improve our leisure. 
Oh, should I at the fatal hour, when all 
hloom hut that of my topknot has left 
me, endeavour to charm, pray, my dear 
lady duchess, give me a hint, that there 
is an innocent period in which a woman 
is not young or old enough to bewitch ; 
those remonstrances wisdom and you 
will preach like ; but I see the cherry- 
coloured tabby and love hood are by the 
Destinies laid up in the India cabinet for 
me. I am very glad the duke is better 
in health, and beg your grace would tell 
him so. I am Mr. Achard's very hum- 
ble servant : how humble and hov*^ 
civil does the apprehension of age 
make one ! All this is jest. 1 am 
resolved to remain always Avhat I am 
in the unalterable particular of being 
your grace's faithful, grateful, and 
affectionate Fidget. 

My best wishes attend the dear, 
dear little ones : you say the marquis is 
naughty to mortify me ; if he was always 
in the same humour, one should think 
he had no fancy ; allow some whims for 
his age and sex. It is very good in 
your grace and lady Andover to think 
of me. 



LETTER XL. 

Uizaheth Monta^ 
chess of Portland. 



From Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu to the Du- 



Mount Morris, June 25, 1741. 
Madam, 
I HOPE 1 shall now be able to write to 
your grace with more ease than 1 have 
done lately : the last time I wrote to you 
I was ill, and my eyes were very painful ; 
but now 1 am happy in the recovery of 
my eyes, and have no pain or uneasiness 
but in my heart, which aches for my 
dearest friend. It owes you so many days 
of joy and satisfaction, it cannot repine 
at paying you those sympathizing hours 
of anguish, which any misfortune that 
touches you can require. It will be great 
joy to me to hear you keep your health, 
a,nd in some degree recover your tran- 
quillity of mind ; indeed the best senti- 
ments of nature require you should 
grieve ; but, at the same time, all pre- 
cedents and examples of fortune demand 
that you should again be comforted. 



The law of nature is indispensable, the 
commands of necessity unavoidable. A 
comparison is the measure by which we 
judge. Look on the misfortunes of 
others : the present public calamity will 
afford many examples of unhappiness. 
How many mothers have here lo&t the 
only support of their age, and comforts 
of their life ; and by the very messenger 
whom they hoped to have heard their 
sons were honoured and advanced by 
victory and triumph, they learned they 
were conquered and murthered, a sacri- 
fice to their country ! — even thinks their 
defith a fault ; and censure speaks so 
loudly of the action, the gentle voice of 
pity does not plead for them ; this is in- 
deed a death of horrors, when the aid of 
reflection, the comfort and assistance of 
friends, and the interposition of repent- 
ance and prayers is far off ; when reli- 
gion and hope do not encourage, but 
terror and dismay are on every side, with 
haste and confusion, sad convoy to eter- 
nity ! Is there (for, my dear duchess, 
you know the tenderest affections of the 
nearest relation) so sad a case as that of 
a parent that loses the promise of many 
years, the flattering hope of a life of 
care — their only child? Think, too, how 
many wives this fatal expedition may 
have robbed of the happiness and the 
very support of their beings ; having 
now lost their maintenance and friend 
together, they are left with their chil- 
dren to all the temptations of want and 
mean insinuations of poverty. If they 
can withstand these, how many enemies 
have they still left to cope with ! The 
outrages of the powerful, the insolence 
of the rich, scorn of the proud, and ma- 
lice of the uncharitable, all beating 
against the broken spirit of the unfortu- 
nate. Many unhappy sisters must now 
be deprived of the friend and guardian 
of their youth, orphans and unfriended 
before, with only this relation to sup- 
port them in a world dangerous and 
malicious to youth ; here they were pro- 
mised the sincerest friendship under the 
tenderest name, and perhaps hopeful 
and ambitious for this their dearest ob- 
ject, have persuaded their brother to this 
life of hazard, and are now left for ever 
to repent that which they can never re- 
dress. How hard is it to avoid misfor- 
tunes for those to whom idleness is im- 
proper ! Where does ambition, or indeed 
reasonable industry, call, that consci- 



Sect. 111. 



HECENt. 



457 



eiice, honour, or safety, is not some- 
times hazarded ? This world has much 
of grief ; through life we feel it, and in 
death we give it, to those whom to de- 
fend from it we would have lived or died 
as best were for their interest. But 
let us, as far as we can, shorten our sor- 
row and lengthen our joys ; it is our 
duty to do so ; our journey is but short, 
it is well to be guided in it by patience 
and accompanied by hope, and it will 
seem easier ; long it can't appear : ' ' We 
are such stuff as dreams are made of ; our 
little life is bounded by a sleep." I must 
bid your grace adieu much sooner than 
I would choose, but lord Rockingham is 
just arrived, and dinner will be upon 
table in a moment. If I can keep my 
eyes in a seeing condition, you shall hear 
from me constantly. Lady Oxford, I 
hope, is not entirely cast down. I am, 
dear madam, your grace's most obe- 
dient, most obliged, faithful, and affec- 
tionate servant, E. Rosinson. 



LETTER XLL 

From the same to the same. 

July 3, 1741. 

Madam, 
Forty lines could not contain the thanks 
due for the four I received from your 
grace : I am much obliged to you for 
not delaying a moment to make me 
happy by your good news '^' ; 1 wish you 
all joy upon it, and to the most noble 
and excellent duke also : I was in fine 
spirits all the rest of the day, and my 
pace and motion was so quick, that had 
1 been in any room with china or brit- 
tle ware, I might have proved very de- 
trimental to it ; but as it was, I did only 
some slight damage to my wearing ap- 
parel : for jumping into my brother's 
study to give him part of my joy, I rent 
my garment in such a manner, that if I 
had not carried a joyful countenance, he 
would have imagined I had done it upon 
ill news, according to the old custom ; 
indeed, I made a fine confusion in his 
room ; Seneca, Socrates, and Plato, were 
never in their lives so discomposed with 
joy ; but all degrees of learning, from 
the mighty folio to the little pocket vo- 

* The success of the duke in his important 
lawsuit. 



lume, were put into disorder ; the light 
pamphlets fluttered about, and in short 
it was long ere peace and silence re- 
gained their power in this their empire 
of wisdom. It is not usual to have such 
sudden occasions of joy in the country : 
if we are a little brisker than what is 
called very dull, it is sufficient ; mirth 
here is reckoned madness, gaiety is idle- 
ness, and wit a crying sin. The parson 
preaches to its annoy, and much in its: 
contempt ; the justice magisterially con- 
demns it, the young squire (like a true 
Briton) hates it as foreign ; but indif- 
ference is so easy, and dulness so safe^ 
every one recommends the method ; they 
lend their precept and example too to 
help it forward ; who hates the dull, or 
who envies them? who can or who 
would disturb them ? but for the witty, 
they carry such a dangerous spleen they 
are not to be suffered in a civil society. 
Among many reasons for being stupid it 
may be urged, it is being like other peo- 
ple, and living like one's neighbours, 
and indeed without it, it may be difficult 
to love some neighbours as oneself : now 
seeing the necessity of being dull, you 
won't, I hope, take it amiss that you 
find me so, but consider I am involved 
in mists from the sea, and that the tem- 
perament of the air and the manners of 
the place contribute to my heaviness. It 
provokes me to hear people that live in 
a fog talk of the smoke of London, and 
that they cannot breathe there : a pro- 
per reason for them to stay aw^ay, who 
were made for nothing but to breathe. 
But people in town have other signs of 
life. But to the good folks that talk in 
that manner, nothing is an obstruction 
of life but an asthma ! Oh, may their 
lungs never be troubled with a phthi- 
sic, since they think wheezing the only 
misfortune ! Poor Alma with them re- 
sides in a pair of bellows, and has no- 
thing to do but to puff. We have a gen- 
tleman in our neighbourhood, who, not 
content with his own natural dulness 
(though, without partiality, no man has 
more), has purchased ten thousand vo- 
lumes at two-pence a volume. Now ex- 
cept the deep-learned and right reverend 

Dr. , I do not believe any one ever 

grew learned from such a study of their 
fathers ; yet I cannot but imagine my 
neighbour bought this collection for the 
instruction of his sons ; for not being 
young, he ran never hope to read half 



458 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV 



these books, and they are not sumptu- 
ous enough in their appearance to give 
any suspicion of vanity in him : but see 
the perverse turn of human things ! as 
the bishop abovementioned did from the 
bottom of the mince-pie collect books, 
1 fear these young men will from their 
books make a mince-pie. It is a great 
mortification to me that I do not visit 
this family, for they are certainly the 
most extraordinary personages in the 
county ; the father was , till this parlia- 
ment, a senator, a man of few words, but 
less meaning, when in the House, on 
common occasions very prating and im- 
pertinent ; yet he has sold his voice, 
empty as it is, at such low gains as he 
could get. His wife, an awkward wo- 
man, he has always kept in the country 
to nurse seven or eight daughters, after 
his own manner, and the success has 
answered the design ; he has taught 
them that all finery lies in a pair of red- 
heeled shoes ; and as for diversion (or 
as I suppose they call it, fun), there is 
nothing like blindman's buff. Thus 
dressed, and thus accomplished, he 
brought them to our races, and carried 
them to the ball, where, poor girls, they 
expected to be pure merry, and to play 
at puss in the corner, and hunt the 
whistle ; but seeing there was nothing 
but footing, which they had never been 
suffered to do in their shoes, and right 
hand and left, which their father thought 
too much for women to know, they fell 
asleep, as they had often been used to 
do, without their supper. The sons, for 
fear they should die, are not to be taught 
how to live ; they are kept at home, be- 
cause one boy of theirs died at school : 
see the advantage we have in living so 
far from the great city ! You have no 
such good folks in Buckinghamshire : 
there your grace saw a fine importation 

of S 's ; they had not one article of 

behaviour so untaught as to appear na- 
tural ; these have not one manner that 
seems acquired by art : the two families 
would make a fine contrast ; pray do but 
figure the mademoiselles Catherinas ad- 
vancing in state to meet these jumping 
Joans ; to be sure, seeing madame cour- 
tesy so low, they would think she meant 
to play at leap-frog, and would jump 
over her head before she got to the ex- 
tremest sink of her courtesy. But you 
will say, what are these people to you ? 
because you keep the very medium of 



politeness, must you be troubled Avith 
those that are in the bad extremes of 
behaviour ! Why, really I believe you 
can have no notion of such awkward- 
ness as this, who have only kept the 
best company. 1 must tell you, madam, 
you can know but a little of the world 
by keeping company with such people 
as Pen and Dash ; they are quite in a 
different style from the rest of the world ; 
indeed, when your humility stoops to one 
Fidget, you may know what is meant by 
the word awkwardness ; but if she has 
the honour of living with you, she will 
be very apt to alter ; for I think she is 
of a nature flexible to example : and if 
she does but imitate, in any degree, as 
she admires, she will endeavour to ap- 
pear, what it is her ambition to be 
thought, entirely yours, 

Eliz. Robinson. 

P. S. I beg your grace to present my 
compliments to my lord duke, and Mr. 
Achard, and some kisses to the little 
angels. 

LETTER XLIL 

From Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu to the 
Rev, Mr. and Mrs. Freind. 

Bullstrode, Tuesday 24th, 1741. 

Two so united in my thoughts shall not 
be separated in my words ; so, my good 
cousins, accept my salutations from the 
country. I took leave of our smoky 
metropolis on Monday morning, and 
changed the scene for one better suited 
to the season. The agreeable freedom 
I live in, and the rural beauties of the 
place, would persuade me I was in the 
plains of Arcadia; but the magnificence 
of the building, under whose gilded 
roofs I dwell, have a pomp far beyond 
pastoral. In one thing I fall short of 
Chloe and Phillis, I have no Pastor fido, 
no languishing Corydon to sigh with the 
zephyrs, and complain to the murmur- 
ing brooks ; but those things are unne- 
cessary to a heart taken up, and suffi- 
ciently softened by friendship. Here I 
know Mrs. Freind and you shake your 
heads, and think a little bergerie a pro- 
per amusement for the country ; but, in 
my opinion, friendship is preferable to 
love. The presence of a friend is de- 
lightful, their absence supportable ; de- 
licacy without jealousy, and tenderness 



Sect. Ill, 



RECENT. 



459 



without weakness, transports without 
madness, and pleasure without satiety. 
No fear that caprice should destroy what 
reason established ; but even time, which 
perfects friendship, destroys love. I may 
now say this to you, who, from constant 
lovers, are become faithful friends. I 
congratulate your change ; to have passed 
from hope to security, and from admira- 
tion to esteem. If you knew the charm- 
ing friend I am with, you would not 
wonder at my encomiums upon friend- 
ship, which she makes one taste in its 
greatest perfection. I have greater 
pleasure in walking in these fine gar- 
dens because they are hers ; and indeed 
the place is very delightful. I am sorry 
to think I have lost so much sunshine in 
town. Society and coal fires are very 
proper for frost ; but solitude and green 
trees for summer. Then the care selvc 
heate come in season, and Philomel sings 
sweeter than Farinelli. The beasts of 
the field, and the birds of the air, are 
better company than the beau monde ; 
and a butterfly and a magpye, in my 
opinion, are at all times better company 
than a fop or a coxcomb. It is the ne- 
cessity of the one to be gaudy, and of 
the other to chatter; but where folly 
and foppery are by choice, my contempt 
must attend the absurdity. I like an 
owl, very often, better than an alder- 
man ; a spaniel better than a courtier ; 
and a hound is more sagacious than a 
fox-hunter ; for a fox-hunter is only the 
follower of another creature's instinct, 
and is but a second instrument in the 
important affair of killing a fox. I 
could say a great deal more of them, if 
supper was not ready ; so leaving you 
to balance their merits, and determine 
their sagacity, I must take my leave, 
only desiring my compliments to Mrs. 
Freind and the Doctor ; if, at his years 
and wisdom, things so trifling as wo- 
men and compliments can take any 
place in his remembrance. Pray let me 
hear from the writing half very soon ; 
the husband is always allowed to be the 
head, and I think in your family he is 
the hand too. A letter directed to Bull- 
strode, by Gerrard's bag, will find and 
rejoice your most faithful friend and af- 
fectionate cousin, 

Eliz. Robinson^'. 

* This letter properly belongs to a former 
year, and to some previous visit to Bullstrode; 
but having no other date than Tuesday, 2-Uh, 



LETTER XLIII. 

From Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu to Miss 
S. Robinson. 

Bullstrode. 

My dear sister, 
I WAS ashamed, sorry, disappointed, and 
a hundred other things, that the re- 
miss and lazy deserve to be, that I could 
not write to you last post. My inclina- 
tion to write to you is well known ; so 
that I need not assure you the omission 
was not by choice. The truth was, my 
eyes not being well, I was reduced to 
have a blister on my back. Well may it 
bend to such a weight of calamity ! The 
punishments of sinful mortals generally 
fall on the rear. The ill-bred man is 
kicked, the pilfering soldier, the trans- 
gressing nymph, the idle vagabond, all 
receive lashes on the back. We are now 
a small family in comparison of our usual 
number. The duke, Mrs. Pendarvis, 
lord George, and Mr. Green, are all 
gone to town, the gentlemen for the 
birth-day, and do not return till Sun- 
day. We are now quite a little party, 
but as cheerful as if we had a whole 
world to laugh with. Indeed we have 
it to laugh at, which is a safer amuse- 
ment. Your description of the ball and 
supper is excellent. It was all a la daube. 
I am glad you went away before the 
Scene of the shambles was opened. To 
be sure, our friend thought he was mak- 
ing a carrion entertainment for my lord 
Thanet's hounds. Thomas Diafoirus, 
who asked his mistress to see a dissec- 
tion, did not ofl'er a more absurd enter- 
tainment than this feast of mangled 
limbs. The duchess of Kent and Dr. 
Young, have long left us. You would 
like Dr. Young ; he has nothing of the 
gall of satire in his conversation, but 
many pretty thoughts, and a particular 
regard for women when they are good. 
I have laid aside the Arcadia till Mrs. 
Pendarvis comes, who is fond of it, and 
the duchess and I have agreed that she 
shall read it to us. I have been quite 
tired of the hero ever since I caught 
him napping. I believe I mentioned 
the famous mask of Alfred to you in my 
last ; it is now published. In the first 
scene I stumbled into a gulphy pool, 

the year cannot be ascertained. The date 
1741, is added to recal to the reader the pro- 
gress of the series. 



460 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV, 



and a trembling quagmire ; it is a sub- 
lime piece of nonsense, with very few 
good things in it. 1 have not read it 
all, but I have made no impatient in- 
quiries after it. 1 think tlie plot seems 
not unlike Gustavus Vasa, a hero in 
distress, whose je ne sgai quoi heroical 
fashion, in taking a walk, or sitting 
down on a bank, betray an air of ma- 
jesty, that you know may be a compli- 
ment to our countrymen, to shew how 
sagacious they are ; or that, like lions, 
they can smell the blood royal ; but no 
instinct of that sort, except sir John Fal- 
staflPs, has ever pleasefl me. When I am 
pretty well, I go into a tub of cold water. 
My dreams are not like those of the 
Persian monarch in the Spectator, or I 
would send you them. By a violent 
hurry in my head I find I am not in my 
element, but ever desire to resemble lord 

G , who complains of being a goose 

out of water. 

I am, my dear sister, yours most af- 
fectionately, E. Robinson, 

LETTER XLIV. 

From Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu to Mr.^, 
Donnellaii. 

Bullstrode, Jan 1, 1742. 
Dear Mrs. Donnellan, 
Though there is no day of the year 
in which one does not wish all happi- 
ness to one's friends, this is the day in 
which the heart goes forth in particular 
vows and wishes foi* the welfare of those 
it loves. It is the birth of a new year, 
whose entrance we would salute, and 
hope auspicious : nor is this particular 
mark of time of little use ; it teaches us 
to number our days, which a wise man 
thought an incitement to the well spend- 
ing them ; and indeed, did we consider 
how much the pleasure and profit of our 
lives depends upon an oeconomy of our 
time, we should not waste it, as v/e do, in 
idle repentance or reflection on the past, 
or i vain unuseful regard for the future. 
In our youth we defer being prudent till 
we are old, and look forv/ard to a pro- 
mise of wisdom as the portion of latter 
years : when v/e are old we seek not to 
improve, and scarce employ ourselves ; 
looking backward to our youth, as to 
the day of our diligence, and take a 
pride in laziness, saying we rest as after 
the accomplishment of our undertak- 



ings ; but we ought to ask for our daily 
merit as for our daily bread. The mind 
no more than the body can be sustained 
by the food taken yesterday, or promised 
for to-morrow. Every day ought to be 
considered as a period apart : some vir- 
tue should be exercised, some knowledge 
improved, and the value of happiness 
well understood ; some pleasure compre- 
hended in it ; some duty to ourselves or 
others must be infringed, if any of these 
things are neglected. Many look upon 
the present day as only the day before 
to-morrow, and wear it out with a weary 
impatience of its length. I pity these 
people, who are ever in pursuit, but never 
in possession ; and I think their happi- 
ness must arrive as we date our promises 
to children, when two to-morrows come 
together. We are taught that there is a 
prudence in neglecting the present time 
for the future, when, alas ! our fate de- 
ceives us, and we labour for others ; for, 
as says our poet, 

" H(; ihat to future times extends his cares. 
Deals in other tiien's affairs." 

We ought so to enjoy the present as not 
to hurt the future. 1 would wish myself 
as little anxious as possible about the 
future, for the event of things generally 
mocks our foresight, and eludes our care, 
and shows us that vain is the labour of 
anxiety. The man was laughed at as a 
blunderer, who said in a public business, 
" V/e do much for posterity, I would 
fain see them do something for us." I 
have no notion of doing every thing for 
the future, while it does nothing for us. 
Shall I give fate to-day without knowing 
whether it will pay me with to-morrow ? 
The adventurers for hope are bankrupts 
of content : may the sun every day this 
year, when it rises, find you well with 
yourself, and at its setting leave you 
happy with your friends. Let it be rather 
the felicity of ease and pleasure than the 
extasy of mirth and joy ! May your mind 
repose in virtue and truth, and never in 
indolence or negligence ! That you al- 
ready know much, is the best incite- 
ment to know more ; if you study trifles, 
you neglect two of the best things in tlie 
world, knowledge and your ov/n under- 
standing. I wish v/e were as much afraid 
of unbending the mind as we are of re- 
laxing our nerves ; 1 should as soon be 
afraid of stretching a glove till it was too 
strait, as of making tlie understandingr 



Sect. III. 



R E C E N T. 



461 



and capacity narrow by extendrng' it to 
things of a large comprehension ; yet 
this is a common notion. I beg* of 3^011 
to reserve Monday morning for me, and 
I will spend it all with you. On Tuesday 
I set out for ]?iIount Morris, and on Sun- 
day night Pen desires you to be at her 
house. I hope to return to yoii in the 
beginning of March, for between two 
and three months ; I wish we may con- 
trive to be much together then, and will 
do my part towards it ; I am the easier 
in this parting, as the meeting again is 
so near at hand. Our happy society is 
just breaking up, but I will think of it 
with gratitude, and not witli regret, and 
thank Fate for the joyful hours she lent 
me, without blaming her for putting a 
stop to them. Hers is the distaff that 
spins the golden thread as well as the 
scissars that cut it. This year does not 
promise me such pleasure as the last has 
afforded me here, but the fairest gifts of 
fate come often unexpected. I hope this 
year will be happy to me, the last was 
much encumbered with fears and anxiety, 
and I had not much health in it, yet 
I was concerned at taking leave of it 
yesterday ; I had not for it the tender- 
ness one feels for a friend, or the grati- 
tude one has to a benefactor ; but I was 
reconciled to it as to an old acquaintance : 
it had not enriched nor (I fear) improved 
me ; but it suffered me, and admitted 
my friends : I am sorry too when 1 am 
made to compute that I am tending to- 
wards a season of less gaiety, for there 
are few things worth being serious about. 
Follies, that are our diversion when we 
are young, are apt to be our trouble 
w^hen we grow more prudent ; a fool 
too, which now we laugh at, w^e shall 
then detest ; and those vices we meet 
abroad, that now in a pride of virtue we 
despise, we shall from observation of 
their ill effects sadly fear and hate ; our 
disposition Avill be changed from seeing 
to feeling vice and folly, from being 
spectators we shall become sufferers. 
You ask me how the desire of talking is 
to be cured ? I don't know the recipe, 
and you don't want it. The duchess 
thanks you for your letter, and Y>ill an- 
swer it by word of mouth. I am sorry 
you have been low spirited, but I can 
never like you the less for it. Mutual 
friendships are built on mutual wants ; 
were you perfectly happy, you would not 
want me : but there is no being but the 



One perfect who is alone and without 
companion and equal. Imperfection 
wants and seeks assistance. 
1 am, dear madam, &c. 

Eliz. Robinson. 



LETTER XLV. 

Fro])> Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu to Miss 
S. Robinson. 

Biillstrodc, 1741-2. 
My dear sister. 
This day did not begin with the auspi- 
cious appearance of a letter from you. I 
am glad it is not the first day of the 
year, for I might have been superstitious 
upon it. I wish it may be our lot to 
find in the next year what we wanted in 
the last. But, alas ! time steals the most 
precious pleasures from us ; our life i& 
like a road, where every shovv' that has. 
passed leaves but a track, that makes re- 
membrance and reflection rugged. Where 
gay pleasures have swiftly passed, un- 
sightly marks remain, and observation is 
much longer displeased than ever it was 
delighted. I am loth to part with an old 
year as with an old acquaintance ; not 
that I have to it the gratitude one feels 
to a benefactor, or the affection one 
bears to a friend. I have one particular 
obligation to this year, as it has insured 
you from the danger of the small-pox, 
w^hich, with a violent hand, takes at once 
what time steals more gently. This 
year, too, has allowed us many happy 
months together ; 1 hope the rest will 
do the same, else they will come un- 
welcome, and depart unregTCtted. I 
pity miss Anstey for the loss of her 
agreeable cousin and incomparable lover. 
For my part, I would rather have a 
merry sinner for a lover than so serious 
a saint. I wish he had left her a good 
legacy. I must tell you the duchess 
drinks your health in particular every 
other day : lady Oxford dmes with her 
one dayy and I the other. You will 
be acquainted with her grace next win- 
ter, and Mrs. Pendarvis, and the rest of 
her friends, whose company you will like 
very well. Mrs. Dounellan tells me she 
has a closet in Mr. Perceval's new house, 
which is to hold none but friends, and 
friends' friends. I fancy you will not 
dislike the society. Adieu, my dearest 
sister ; if I could dream of you it would 



462 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



induce me to keep my bed for a week 
together, so I think it is better that I 
do not. I am, &c. &c. 

E. Robinson. 

P. S. This day se'niiight I shall be 
with you, and the good family at Hor- 
ton, telling a winter's tale by the fire- 
side. Oh ! that we were all to meet 
there that once graced that fire-side, 
even the goodly nine, thanking my fa- 
ther and mother for all the life they im- 
parted to us, and have since supported ! 
I hope the flock is safe, and our meet- 
ing reserved for some of the golden days 
of fate. I wish you all a happy new 
year, that shall bring you much plea- 
sure, and leave no repentance behind. 
May it increase your knowledge, with- 
out giving ye sighs of experience ! 

LETTER XLVI. 

From Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu to the 
Duchess of Portland. 

Mount Morris, Jan. 15, 1741-2. 
Madam, 
In your reasons for writing to me there 
was both judgment and mercy. For all 
the good things you do, no heart does 
better thank you than mine ; and, let me 
tell your grace, there is nothing belongs 
to me so good as my heart. As for be- 
ing the guest of my head, and the chief 
image of my fancy, 'tis true you are so, 
but the place and the company there are 
unworthy of you ; enthroned in my brain 
sits many a prejudice triumphant, much 
space entirely void, a desolate waste : 
some corners stuffed with lumber, and 
littered with unsorted matter ; things 
by haste misshapen, by idle memory de- 
formed, by ignorance darkened, or by 
error and folly strangely disguised ; rea- 
son deposed by will, judgment manacled 
in the bonds of prejudice, reflection bu- 
sied about trifles, fancy running wild, 
observation looking through false co- 
lours, and confounding and mistaking 
objects, discretion sitting idle, because 
reason's comparative rule and balance 
are taken from her, and whim is doing 
all the business, while chance is sending 
her on a fool's errand. But my heart, I 
can boast, is fitter for your reception ; it 
is filled with fair affections, love and 
gratitude wait on you, esteem holds you 
fast, regard will never part with you, 



tenderness watches you, fidelity, and 
every honest power, is ready to serve 
you, the passions are all under the gen- 
tle sway of friendship. Many guests 
my heart has not admitted, such as arc 
there do it honour, and a long and inti- 
mate acquaintance has preceded their 
admittance ; they were invited in by its 
best virtues, they passed through the 
examination of severity, nay even an- 
swered some questions of suspicion that 
inquired of their constancy, and since- 
rity, but now they are delivered over to 
the keeping of constant faith and love ; 
for doubt never visits the friend entered, 
but only examines such as would come 
in, lest the way should be too common. 
There are many ways into my heart, and 
but one out, which is to be forced but 
by outrageous injury, or breach of trust 
reposed. I am obliged to your grace for 
your wishes of fair weather ; sunshine 
gilds every object, but, alas ! January is 
but cloudy weather. How few seasons 
boast many days of calm ! April, which 
is the blooming youth of the year, is as 
famous for hasty showers as for gentle 
sunshine ; May, June, and July, have 
too much heat and violence ; the au- 
tumn withers the summer's gaiety ; and 
in the winter the hopeful blossoms of 
spring and fair fruits of summer are 
decayed, and storms and clouds arise ; 
nature is out of humour at her loss, be- 
wails her youth and strength worn out, 
and fairest seasons past : thus is it, too, 
with us. In our youth gentle expecta- 
tion, and kind hope, like soft zephyrs, 
fan our minds, but fear often waters our 
tender wishes with sad tears ; in the ma- 
turer seasons of life passions grow strong 
and violent, though more constant ; in 
the decline appears melancholy decay ; 
softness and strength gone ofl^, while 
dismal age brings despair of amend- 
ment, and makes the pleasure of youth 
and profit of the riper age forgotten ; 
unpleasant, unprofitable, uncomforta- 
ble, dark and dreary in itself, an enemy 
to every thing in nature, churlish and 
unkind, it casts no benevolent beams, 
but blows rude and biting blasts. Happy 
and worthy are those few, whose youth is 
not impetuous nor their age sullen ; they 
indeed should be esteemed, and their hap- 
py influence courted. I am glad to see 
lord George's frank upon the letter, a 
person must have a good deal of power 
to make any thing pass but by the road 



Skct. III. 



RECENT* 



403 



of g-aiu in our world ; I am much obliged 
to his lordship for exhorting your grace 
to write to me, and desire my thanks on 
that head, with congratulations on his 
new dignity ; may he grow in grace and 
wig daily, and an honourable and reve- 
rend cravat shall not be wanting. I 
have been very well since I came here, 
my face has acquired no new faults ; it 
has seen too many days to expect to be 
mended by them, and were beauty im- 
mortal, frail vanity would not be so ; and 
the first, without the latter, would not 
delight. I am glad, however, my face 
has not swelled with the frost ; for I am 
so uneasy under objects of terror, that I 
would by no means be frightful, out of 
compassion to my friends : my counte- 
nance has never wounded any man, and 
Heaven forbid it should make a lady 
miscarry ! My sister and I are going out 
for air and exercise ; how poor mortals 
labour to be healthy and happy ! but 
health and happiness are fugitive things. 
I shall send my brother word he may 
have the books when Mr. Carter's exe- 
cutors want them. Poor Morris is in 
deep affliction, and indeed his friend de- 
served his utmost concern : he was with 
him in his last agonies ; a grief his ten- 
der nature could hardly support. I be- 
lieve though Mr. Carter was not of a gay 
disposition he was happy. If sense and 
virtue could make a person happy, he 
was so ; and if it cannot, what is this 
world ? Virtue is all that is within our 
power, other circumstances of felicity 
are given alike to all ; sure, therefore, 
equitable Heaven knows that virtue alone 
outweighs them all : 

*' If there's a power above us, as that there is 
All nature cries aloud, he must delight in 

goodness, 
And that which he delights in must be happy." 

My brother is very unfortunate to have 
the first year of his life thus darkened 
by misfortune ; he has health and a 
cheerful nature to carry him through, 
but my heart bleeds for him. I am pro- 
voked and grieved in spirit, to hear some 
people wonder at his taking the trouble 
to go up to town to take care of a per- 
son who was not related to him, and 
they express great surprise at his being 
afliicted : I assure you it is the senti- 
ment of the great city of Canterbury, 
though many there would have gone 
twice as far to have saved a vole at qua- 



drille. My brother Robinson was in 
town but a few hours, and meeting with 
the ill news of a friend's death, and 
finding his brother in affliction, I ima- 
gine he was scarce able to wait upon 
your grace, nor do I suppose he had 
any dress unpacked that was proper to 
make his appearance in at Whitehall. I 
am glad you go into public places so as 
to keep yourself diverted : dissipation is 
the best thing for the health and spirits ; 
and 1 am at present too ready to judge 
this world does not deserve our collected 
thoughts ; there is so much misery and 
disappointment, it is not well to reflect 
and examine too deeply. The scenes of 
the world are gay, and the show delights 
our imagination, but the drama will 
hardly bear the criticisms of reason; 
fools and knaves are the principal actors, 
and many a villainous plot and sad 
catastrophe one beholds upon the stage 
of life ; it is best to look on with an 
equal mind : 

" Hurt, can we lausch ; and honest, need we 
cry ?" 

It is wisest to neglect all follies, and for- 
give all vices but our own. I hear Dr. 
Clarke is going to be made a bishop, and 
I hope the news is true, for, with reve- 
rence be it spoken, I am of opinion even 
the venerable bench wants a supply of 
charity and wit, and in both he abounds ; 
may his spirit animate the clay (and 
dough) of some of his mitred brethren, 
with whose mitres are entwined the 
nodding poppy rather than the laurels 
that adorn the learned head. I have 
wrote your grace an unreasonably long 
letter, but I cannot release you till I have 
desired my compliments to my lord duke 
and Mr. Achard ; a thousand kisses to 
the little angels ; twenty of which are 
to the marquis's chin, and twenty more 
to the silver curls in lady Margaret's 
neck. To Mrs. Donnellan, Mrs. Pen- 
darvis. Dash, and Mrs. Dewes, my kind 
remembrance ; to all that remember me 
my friendly recollection ; to such as for- 
get me my hearty forgiveness and entire 
oblivion ; so being in affection with 
my friends, and charity with my ene- 
mies, and easy indifference about the 
bulk of the world, I will look after my 
future provision. I am now going to 
read Dr. Gastrel's book. If Mrs. Pen 
does not send me the World she pro- 
mised me, I will Aveep in the style of 



464 



ELEGANT EPISTLES, 



Book IV. 



Alexander the Great, not indeed as that 
madman did, for a world to quarrel with, 
but for one to agree with. 1 want the 
kingdom of the just, such a long and 
pacific reign would suit me mightily, but 
this rapid world I like not much. Tinie, 
and the wheel of fortune, run too fast 
for my speed ; but in a thousand years I 
should have leisure for every thing. My 
brother Tom is reading to me, my sister 
is pulling me by the sleeve, all are fa- 
vouring my meditations. I like your 

account of lord S ; your grace has 

:as complaisant a way of calling a person 
:dull as ever I knew ; I dare say his lord- 
ship did not stare at you. All your 
obliged humble servants here beg their 
compliments, my sister in particular. I 
am, madam, your grace's most obedient, 
anost obliged, and ever grateful, 

E. Robinson. 

P. S. Thef direction Mrs. Pendarvis is 
to have for the book is. To be left for 
me at Mrs. Pembroke's, grocer, without 
St. George's gate, Canterbury. I have 
been blooded according to Dr. Mead's 
order ; I am sure he takes me for a ter- 
magant, and is desirous of bringing my 
spirit under ; but great souls are invinci- 
Me, and you see by my affections and 
aversions he has not reduced me to apa- 
fcliy ; if he should, he would be a loser 
by it, for I have him in high regard and 
esteem. 

LETTER XLVIL 

From Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu to the Rev. 
Dr. Shaw, F. R. S., 6fc. 8fc.-^ 

Rev. sir. 
You will perhaps think me rather too 
liasty in my congratulations if I wish you 
joy of being going to be married, whereas 
it is generally usual to stay till people 
really are so before we offer to make our 
compliments. But joy is a very transi- 
tory thing ; therefore I am willing to 
seize on the first occasion ; and as I ima- 
gine you are glad you are going to be 
married, I wish you joy of that gladness ; 
for whether you will be glad after you 
are married is more than mortal wight 
can determine ; and having prepared my- 
self to rejoice with you, I should be loth 

* This anonymous letter was written by miss 
Robinson, and sent to Dr. Shaw, the traveller, 
at the instigation, and for the amusement, of 
the duchess of Portland ^nd her society., 



to defer writing till, perliaps, you were 
become sorrowful ; I must therefore in 
prudence prevent your espousals. 1 would 
not have you imagine I shall treat matri- 
mony in a ludicrous manner ; it is impos- 
sible for a man, who, alas ! has had two 
wives, to look upon it as a jest, or think 
it a light thing ; indeed it has several 
advantages over a single life. You, that 
have made many voyages, know that a 
tempest is better than a dead calm ; and 
matrimony teaches many excellent les- 
sons, particularly patience and submis- 
sion, and brings with it all the advan- 
tages of reproof, and the great profit of 
remonstrances. These indeed are only 
temporal benefits ; but besides, any wife 
will save you from purgatory, and a dili- 
gent one will secure heaven to you. If 
you would atone for your sins, and do a 
work meet for repentance, marry. Some 
people wonder how Cupid has been able 
to wound a person of your prowess ; 
you, who wept not with the crocodile, 
listened not to the Sirens, stared the 
basilisk in the face, whistled to the rat- 
tlesnake, went to the masquerade with 
Proteus, danced the hays with Scylla and 
Charybdis, taught the dog of the Nile to 
fetch and carry, walked cheek-by-jowl 
with a lion, made an intimacy with a ti- 
ger, wrestled with a bear, and, in short, 
have lived like an owl in the desert, or a 
pelican in the wilderness ; after defying 
monsters so furious and fell, that you 
should be overcome by an arrow out of 
a little urchin's quiver, is amazing ! 
Have you not beheld the mummies of 
the beauteous Cleopatra, and of the fair 
consorts of the Ptolemies, vrithout one 
amorous sigh ! And now to fall a victim 
to a mere modern human widow is most 
unworthy of you ! What qualities has a 
v/oman, that you have not vanquished ! 
Her tears are not more apt to betray 
than those of the crocodile, she is hardly 
as deceitful as the Siren, less deadly, I 
believe, than the basilisk or rattlesnake, 
scarce as changeable as Proteus, nor 
more dangerous than Scylla and Cha- 
rybdis, as docile and faithful as the dog 
of the Nile, sociable as the lion, and 
mild, sure, as the tiger ! As her quali- 
ties are not more deadly than those of 
the animals you have despised, what is 
it that has conquered you ? Can it be 
her beauty ? Is she as handsome as the 
empress of the woods ? as well accom- 
modated as the many-chambered sailor? 



S«CT. ili, 



■RECENT 



465 



or as skilful as the nautilus ? You will 
find many a creature by eartJi, air, and 
water, that is more beautiful than a 
woman ; but indeed she is composed of 
all elements, and 

"Fire, water, woman, are man's ruin. 
And great's thy danger, Thomas Bruin." 

But you will tell me she has all the beau- 
ties in nature united in her person ; as 
ivory in her forehead, diamonds in her 
eyes, &c. 

"But Where's the sense, direct or moral, 
That teeth are pearl, or lips are coral ? " 

if she is a dowdy, what can you do with 
her ? If she is a beauty, what will she do 
for you? A man of your profession might 
know the lilies of the field toil not, nei- 
ther do they spin ; if she is rich she 
won't buy you, if she is poor 1 don't 
see why she should borrow joii. But, I 
fear, I am advising in vain, while your 
heart, like a fritter, is frying in fat in 
Cupid's flames. How frail and weak is 
flesh ! else, sure, so much might have 
kept in one little heart ; had Cupid 
struck the lean, or the melancholy, I 
had not lamented ; but true Jack Fal- 
staff, kind Jack Falstaff, merry Jack 
Falstaff, fai Jack Falstaff, beware the 
foul fiend, they call it Marriage, beware 
on't ! As what I have advanced on the 
subject of matrimony is absolutely un- 
answerable, I need not tell you where 
to diract a letter for me, nor will I, in 
my pride, declare who I am that give 
you this excellent counsel ; but, that 
you may not despair of knowing where 
to address your thanks for such an ex- 
traordinary favour, I will promise>, that 
before you find a courtier without de- 
ceit, a patriot without spleen, a lawyer 
without quibble, a philosopher without 
pride, a wit without vanity, a fool with- 
out presumption, or any man without 
conceit, you shall find the true name of 
your well-wisher and faithful counsellor. 



LETTER XLVIII. 

From Mrs. 'Elizabeth Montagu to the 
Duchess of Portland. 

Mount Morris, Jan. 31. 

Madam, 
Your grace will scarce believe mo if 1 
tell you I have not yet had time to write 



a long letter. Not time ! says my lady 
duchess, then she has no other material, 
I am sure. You will want to know how 
I can have employed that superfluity of 
time which lies upon my hands ; I have 
done with it as the rich do with their 
abundance ; I have wasted it, lavished it 
on trifles ; and now that I would pur- 
chase some real happiness with it, it is 
spent and consumed. Your grace knows 
I am often prodigal of time, and so it 
has been with me to-day; for the sun 
has set upon my idleness, and I have 
many letters to write ; some of them 
about business, in which I must be con- 
cise and explicit ; things 1 cannot bring 
about without vast labour of brain. I 
can spin a tliread so long it seems nei- 
ther to have end nor beginning, which 
serves to give my gentle correspondents 
an idea of eternity ; but though such 
things are very acceptable to people of 
much leisure and speculation, a man of 
business would hardly be content with 
what had neither meaning nor end, the 
purport and the conclusion being chiefly 
regarded by the vulgar. You say no- 
thing of lady Andover ; but whether 
that implies that she is or is not in town, 
I don't know, for absent or present your 
grace thinks of her very much. Why do 
you tell me you cannot make a return 
for my letters ? You v/rong my heart if 
you do not believe every line you write 
makes me happier than my best deserts 
can merit. 1 think the days I hear 
from you take a happy date from the 
very hour the letter comes. Those things 
that before were objects of indifference, 
by the pleasant disposition of my mind 
become agreeable. 1 am ashamed that 
I uttered some complaints of your si- 
lence ; but think, when we are touched 
in the tenderest part, how sorely we 
complain ! I am so unreasonable, that I 
expect your love, your remembrance, 
your thoughts. Love is very covetous, 
and I fear I am of a selfish temper, for 
of the aft'ection of my friends I am very 
tenacious ; if I am not so of other things 
it is indifference, and not generosity, 
that I do not see happiness in them, ra- 
ther than that I slight them from philo- 
sophy. The sea of politics runs high ; 
first-rates, frigates, barges, oars, and 
scullers, all running Avith the stream. 
We have had ail the various reports of 
rumour conveyed to us by Fame's light 
horse 3 the post ; and i find hopes and 
2 H 



466 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book W, 



fears fly about extremely. May chastise- 
ment mend those that are chastised, and 
power enlarg"e the hearts of such as are 
advanced ! so shall I say Amen to all the 
will of Fortune ; but if she fills her house 
with spirits more unclean than the for- 
mer, I value the topmost niche in her 
wheel less than the lowest spoke in a 
wheelbarrow. I am glad things go on 
so quietly ; I have but just courage 
enough to serve me in time of peace ; 
and for riots, seditions, wars, and ru- 
mours of wars, they sore affright me. I 
think one man has acted a wise part, 
but who acts wisely is not therefore 
wise, says Mr. Pope, in general, and it 
may be perhaps wondrously applicable 
to this particular case. However, if 
this head wants wisdom, it has that 
ornament which many prefer to it, 
even that which ambition and pride will 
stoop to, justice bend to, wisdom submit 
to, and religion worship with an idola- 
trous adoration ; it is a circle that be- 
witches the mind of man ; yet the 
wisest preacher, some thousand years 
ago, said, a wise child whose head was 
bound by a homely biggin was better ; 
but the preachers of now-a-days say 
otherwise. I am glad sir Robert gets 
oflp safe ; foe to his pride, but friend 
to his distress, I wish he may neither 
do nor suffer harm. Mr. Pelham's ad- 
vancement, I believe, is as happy for 
the public as for himself. There are 
many honourable men named of all sides 
to be put in ; I do not hear that many 
are ready to go out. As for the two 
your grace mentioned, if a purification 
be intended, I fear it will be necessary 
they should be done away. I hear Mr. 
Pulteney will not take a place, which is 
a noble piece of integrity ; but I hope 
he will not be inflexible, for power is 
well lodged in those hands that take it 
as a sceptre of mercy rather than as a 
rod of rule ; and if a person does not 
value places, they are the fitter to be 
trusted with them, since they will not 
then hold them on bad terms. I ima- 
gine the study of physiognomy must be 
very entertaining at present. One 
might see hope sitting in a dimple, fear 
skulking in a frown, haughtiness sitting 
on the triumphal arch of an eyebrow, 
and shame lurking under the eyelids ; 
then in wise bye-standers we might see 
conjecture drawing the eyebrows toge- 
ther, or amazement lifting them up. A 



man in place bringing his flexible coun- 
tenance to the taste of the present times, 
smiling about the mouth as if he was 
pleased with the change, but wearing a 
little gloom on the forehead, that be- 
trays his fear of losing by it. Men, 
that never were of any consequence, 
v/rapping themselves up in the mystery 
of politics, and seeming significant ; as 
if, when times alter, they had a right to 
expect to be Avise. Then the vacant 
smiling countenances of those civil peo- 
ple, that would intimate they would do 
any thing for any body. The asses, 
that, in lions' skins, have brayed for 
their party, throwing off their fierce- 
ness, and appearing in their proper 
shape of patient folly, that will carry a 
heavy burden through dirty roads. Then 
the state swallows, that have ever lived 
in the sunshine of favour, withdrawing 
from the declining season of power. 
Then the thermometers, weathercocks, 
and dials of the state, will scarce know 
what to say, how to turn, or which way 
to point. They, who have changed 
their coat with every blast, what must 
they do till they know which v/ay the 
wind blows ? Unhappy ignorance, that 
knows not if preferment comes from the 
east, or from the west, or yet from the 
south ! Then what will those noble 
patriots do, whose honesty consists in 
being always angry, now they know not 
whom to be angry v/ith ? These occur- 
rences give one too great an insight 
into mankind, for one receives bad im- 
pressions of them by seeing them in 
these hurries ; while, for haste, they 
leave the cloak of hypocrisy behind, and 
shew the patched, stained, and motley 
habit of their minds. There is a danger 
in seeing others are wicked ; it seems 
to dissolve the covenant of faith, and 
slackens good-will. But when we ob- 
serve how little peace attends even the 
success of wickedness, that power can- 
not purchase friends, nor pomp acquire 
esteem, nor greatness procure honour, 
but that the end is contempt Avhere the 
means are base, it must sure abate the 
appetite to ill. Power and pomp are of 
no use but to make servants and ad- 
mirers ; and could reason but persuade 
people, that if ill acquired they gain 
false friends and real enemies, feigned 
flattery and concealed contempt, not 
more gazers than censurers, not more 
noise tlian ill fame, few v/ould endea- 



Sect. III. 



RECENT. 



467 



vour to obtain a painful and hateful pre- 
eminence. But flattery, " parent of 
wicked, bane of honest deeds," repre- 
sents to the great, that every servile 
cring'e is zealous adoration, and every 
self-interested follower a sincere friend. 
What a deal of pains do some people take 
to make knaves envy, and fools admire, 
thoiig-h they would be ashamed to own 
they valued the opinions of such people. 
Strange that the proudest should court 
the opinions of the most contemptible ! 
I am sure your grace thinks I am not 
capable of envy, or you would not have 
made me liable to the sin, by saying you 
had so much company that I covet, and 
that they had your company, which 
most of all things I covet. I would fain 
have been any one of you to have been 
happy with the rest. We are quite alone 
here : I am not sorry for it, for I do not 
like, as some good folks do, every crea- 
ture that walks on two legs, with a face 
to look up to heaven or doAvn on the 
earth, and yet understands neither ; an 
animal that has missed of instinct, and 
not lit upon reason ; one that thinks by 
prejudice, speaks by rote, and lives by 
custom ; that dares do no good without 
an example, but dares do evil by prece- 
dent, whose conversation is composed 
of more remnants than a tailor's waist- 
coat, who snips off every man's superflu- 
ous observations to the patching of one 
sentence ; an inconsistency of thought 
that makes monstrous opinions, and an 
absurdity of memory that has laid up 
every fool's proverb as an infallible max- 
im ; one that thinks every thing wise 
his grandfather did, and every thing 
foolish that his juniors do ; who will 
not learn, and cannot teach; who, if he 
does wrong or right, acts from some 
prejudice he got when he was a boy ; so 
one can neither blame, nor praise, nor 
love, nor hate, nor laugh, nor cry for 
him, or any thing he does. I had rather 
have the dead palsy than such a com- 
panion. Any impertinent lively crea- 
ture is better than these gentry. I am 
sleepy with thinking of them : the hor- 
rid family of the Gorgons would be as 
welcome to me. I shall be very glad to 
hear the duke and lady Fanny are well. 
Adieu, my dear lady duchess ; believe, 
that as long as 1 exist, I ever shall be 
with the tenderest, sincerest, most grate- 
ful, and constant affection, yours, 

E. R. 



LETTER XLIX. 

Fjom Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu to the Du- 
chess of Portland. 

Allerthorpe, Oct. 2, 1742. 
My most dear friend. 
Love is the fulfilling of the law ; your 
grace orders me to write to you a sheet 
of quarto paper brimful; behold, my in- 
clination, exceeding your command, has 
chosen a folio. Most glad I am to 
lengthen out the time I may thus em- 
ploy. How few conversations are there 
wherein the head or the heart are in- 
terested ! If the country would afford a 
few reasonable companions, or burthen 
us with none that are not so, it would 
really make life a different thing ; but 
for me, who have not any sociable in- 
stinct, to lead me to creatures merely 
human, and, I think, scarce rational, it 
is really not a place of uninterrupted fe- 
licity. I do hourly thank my stars I am 
not married to a country squire, or a 
beau ; for in the country all ray pleasure 
is in my own fire-side, and that only 
when it is not littered with queer crea- 
tures. One must receive visits and re- 
turn them, such is the civil law of the 
nations ; and if you are not more happy 
in it in Nottinghamshire than I am in 
Yorkshire, I pity you most feelingly. In 
London, if one meets with impertinence 
and offence, one seeks entertainment 
and pleasure only ; but here one commits 
wilful murder on the hours, and with 
premeditated malice to oneself becomes 
felo de se for whole days. For an ante- 
diluvian a dining visit was proportioned 
to the time he had to throw away, but 
for the juniors of Methusalem to be tlius 
prodigal of life is the way to be soon 
bankrupt of leisure and happiness. Could 
you but see all the good folks that visit 
my poor tabernacle ; O, your grace 
would pity and admire ! You make com- 
plaints of a want of conversation ; to 
your sighs I reply in murmurs. When 
may I hope for our meeting in London ? 
Till you come, kings' palaces and high 
places appear desolate. The parliament, 
I hear, will meet on the i5th of Novem- 
ber, but you did not use to come up till 
January — a barbarous and heathenish 
custom ; though when I was passing 
time in the delights of BuUstrode I was 
of another opinion. O BuUstrode, Bull- 
strode ! when I forget thee, may my 
2 H 2 



46^; 



E L E G A N T E P 1 S T ]. E S. 



Book IV. 



head and hand forget their cunning* ! A 
small loss perhaps you will think for the 
most unpolitic head and the most un- 
skilful hand in the world ; but their lit- 
tle savoir /aire is necessary. I hope to 
see BuUstrode again before my eyes grow 
dim with age, and, what is more pre- 
sumptuous, to see the honour and orna- 
ments of BuUstrode at Sandleford. Mr. 
William Robinson is just come, I must 
go down to him. 

I am returned again to my dear lady 
duchess ; I stole from the company be- 
low stairs, after they had drunk tea, and 
have again for the thousandth time read 
over your delightful letter ; you have 

brought wit out of and : 

verily I had not known the trees by the 
fruit ; but you can work wonders when 
you please. They are indeed half as 
witty as sir John Falstaff ; that is, they 
are the cause of wit in other people. 
Your account of them is extremely en- 
tertaining ; but I forgot that you never 
could write tolerably, but were always a 
mighty dull correspondent : you have 
told me so a thousand times, and it is 
a strange thing I never could remember 
it. I should be glad to have a party of 
horse to guard your letters, but for mine 
I am assured they will go very safely by 
the bye-post ; if I revoke I will pay two 
tricks, as they do at cards. I am sorry 
my first letter was not so formidably 
formal* as it should have been ; but, to 
say the truth, I thought if it was too 
much upon the serious it would be sus- 
pected of being wrote for the occasion. 

As for what I said of Don, if likes 

her, v.e are of the same opinion, if not 
we shall not be rivals. I said, in my last 
letter, that I should not write to you till 
I had finished my peregrinations, and 
intimated that I should forbear troubling 
you with a letter till I could send your 
grace a map of Yorkshire : you may sup- 
pose that was sai^ on purpose to prevent 
any inquiries after my letters, for as to 
my travels, the Serjeant's circuit round 
the fire would be a tour as well worthy 
of memory. Pray whan shall you visit 
the noble family at Brodsworth ? I v/ish 
1 was in their neighbourhood ; i fancy 
it is a paradisaical family, and hav- 
ing the honour to be in some degree 
of favour with your grace, I should 

* The duchess was miwilling to show the 
whole of their intimate correspondence to lady 
Oxford. 



hope ta be admitted to their acquaint- 
ance. I honour their manner of life, 
and affection for each other ; to main- 
tain continual cheerfulness, without the 
gay pleasures of our great city, is great 
praise. Oh that you were to go, with 
only the duke, to Brodsworth, and that 
Doncaster were v/ithin a day's journey 
from hence ! I have love for your com- 
pany that would, if not remove moun- 
tains, pass them. We might meet at 
Doncaster, if it were not for that odious 
impediment of almost all human desires, 
impossibility. I should be much diverted 
to hear that Desdemona was enamoured 
by these stories " passing strange ;" the 
hero being a fair man into the bargain, 
and having, in all "hair-breadth 'scapes," 
received not one scar, it is not impos- 
sible but something " wondrous pitiful" 
may be awakened in her tender heart. 
I return a thousand thanks for your long 
letter ; I rejoice that the duke and the 
little angels are well. 

1 am, madam, your grace's ever grate- 
ful, affectionate, faithful, humble ser- 
vant, E. Montagu. 

LETTER L. 

Fro7H 3Irs. Elizabeth JMontagu to the 
Duchess of Portland. 

Nov. 5. 
Madam, 
My heart and hand are too much yours 
to permit me to employ another's to dic- 
tate, or write to your grace, when I am 
able to do it. i had your letter, for 
which I am obliged to you : I feel all 
the sensibility of friendship when I re- 
flect you are unhappy. I hope my lord 
duke will have no more of the complaint 
in his stomach. Lady Oxford really 
knows her remedy, and I hope you will 
j)revail upon her ladyship to go to Bath. 
I had not any letter from Dr. Sandys, 
but you know he has always a very te- 
dious labour when he goes of a letter. I 
wish he was well delivered of this, for I 
am impatient to know my doom ; whe- 
ther I am to sit here, like Patience on a 
monument, or may be allowed, in my 
quondam character of a Fidget, to bustle 
into the bustling world. My appetite 
for the country is satisfied, and 1 should 
like to see London fine town again ; and 
I shall be a poor wife (pity, but for the 
verse, it were maiden) forsaken, 



8Ecr. HI- 



RE C E N T. 



469 



" Yet must bear a contented mind. 
But when leave of me he has taken, 
I can't have another as kind." 

The last line sets forth the melancholy 
ch'cumstance. As for smgle ladies, the 
loss of a lover is nothing ; for, as Milia- 
maiit says, one makes as many as one 
pleases, and keeps them as long- as one 
pleases ; but it is worth while to take 
care of a good hushand, for they are 
reckoned rarities. I am pretty well at 
present, but I don't much like this sort 
of constitution. 1 believe Sandys would 
not tell his wife a secret for fear she 
should go abroad to tell it ; and, you 
know, he loves she should sit. like sober 
puss in the comer, to ofPend all those 
who would annoy the cheese, or other 
good tilings in his cupb(tard ; for, I 
guess, it is from some principle of oeco- 
nomy that he keeps her at home. 

I am, madam, your grace'^s faithful, 
humble servant, 

E. M. 

LETTER LI. 

From the scaue to the same. 

AUei-thorpe, Nov, \^, 1742. 
Madam, 
What prophets are my fears ! they whis- 
pered to me your grace was not well, and 
I find their suggestions were true. Hard 
state of things, that one may believe 
one's fears, but cannot rely upon one's 
hopes ! I imagined concern would have 
an ill effect on your constitution ; I know 
you have many pledges in the hands of 
fate, and I feared for you, and every 
thing that was near and dear to you. I 
am sensible your regard and tenderness 
for lady Oxford will make you suffer ex- 
tremely when you see her ill ; she has 
therefore a double portion of my good 
wishes, on her own and your grace's ac- 
count. When sensibility of heart and 
head makes you feel all the outrages that 
fortune and folly offer, why do you not 
envy the thoughtless giggle and unmean- 
ing smile? " In Folly's cup still laughs 
the bubble Joy." Wisdom's cup is often 
dashed with sorrow, but the nepenthe of 
stupidity is the only medicine of life ; 
fools neither are troubled with fear nor 
doubt. What did the wisdom of the 
wisest man teach him ? Verily, that all 
was vanity and vexation of spirit ! A 



painful lesson fools will never learn, for 
they are of all vanities most vain. And 
there is not so sweet a companion as that 
same vanity ; when we go into the 
world it leads us by the hand ; if we re- 
tire from it, it follows us ; it meets us 
at court, and finds us in the country ; 
commends the hero that gains the world, 
and the philosopher that forsakes it ; 
praises the luxury of the prodigal, and 
the prudence of the penurious ; feasts 
with the voluptuous, fasts with the ab- 
stemious, sits on the pen of the author, 
and visits the paper of the critic ; reads 
dedications, and writes them ; makes 
court to superiors, receives homage of 
inferiors ; in short, it is useful, it is 
agreeable, and the very thing needful to 
happiness : had Solomon felt some in- 
ward vanity, sweet sounds had been ever 
in his ears without the voices of men- 
singers, or women-singers ; he had not 
then said of laughter, what is it ? and of 
mirth, what doeth it ? Vanity, and a good 
set of teeth, would have taught bim the 
ends and purposes of laughing, that fame 
may be acquired by it, where, like the 
proposal for the grinning wager, 



' The fiightfullest 
Is the winner." 



grinner 



Did not we think lady C would get 

nothing by that broad grin but the tooth- 
ache ? But vanity, profitable vanity, was 
her better counsellor ; and as she always 
imagined the heart of a lover was caught 
between her teeth, I cannot say his delay 
is an argument of her charms, or his gal- 
lantry, but she has him secure by an old 
proverb, that what is bred in the bone 
will never out of the flesh, and no doubt 
but this love was bred in the bone, even 
in the jaw-bone. No wonder if tame, 
weak man, is subdued by that weapon 
with which Sampson killed the mighty 
lion. Mr. Montagu got well to London 
on Monday night. I am glad your face- 
tious senator is gone to parliament, 
where alibis conversation will be yea, yea, 
and nay, nay ; and even of that cometli 
evil sometimes. Time will not allow 
me to lengthen this epistle with any 
thing. more than my sister's compliments 
to your grace. 

I am, madam, yours, &c. 

E. M. 



470 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



LETTER LIL 

From Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu to the 
Duchess of Portland. 

Nov. 28, 1742. 
Madam, 
I AM very sorry I have not received all 
the letters your grace has been so good 
as to write to me ; Fate received them 
into her left hand, and I am deprived of 
them. I am glad to hear yonr spirits 
are better ; may circling Joys dance 
round your fire-side, 

" With Sport, that wrinkled Care derides, 
And Laughter, holding hoth his sides !" 

for life is too short to allow for melan- 
choly fears and intruding cares, which 
are apt to fill up the youthful time, when 
we are fittest for happiness. Age will 
bring its solemn train of woe ; let us 
therefore admit all Youth's gay company, 
smiling Joy, cheerful Mirth, and happy 
Hope ; life's early Hours come dancing 
along with their fair partner Pleasure ; 
but in the evening of our day they tread 
a heavy measure, dragging after them 
weak Infirmity and sad Regret, 

" Expense, and after- thought, and idle care, 
And doubts of motley hue, and dark despair." 

1 grieve whenever I think your mind is 
pained ; all infirmities and diseases of the 
body are nothing compared to anguish of 
heart. 1 am now in the highest content ; 
my little brothers are to go to Westmin- 
ster as soon as the holidays are over, and 
what adds still to my pleasure in this is, 
that Jacky's going is owing to Mr. Mon- 
tagu's intercession for him with my fa- 
ther, who did not design his going to 
Westminster till next year : our young- 
est, I believe, is to go out with our new 
captain. 1 w^ould give a great deal for a 
tete-d-tete with your grace, mais helas ! 
ma pauvre tete nest j:as une tete ailee. 
It would have been a strange and unna- 
tural thing that Dr. Sandy's letter should 
have miscarried ; my faith has swallowed 
his advice, and my throat his pills ; so I 
have endured the country, and taken his 
physic, very unpalatable things both. I 
am pretty well, but I do not like to sit, 
like puss in the corner, all the winter, to 
watch what may prove a mouse, though 
I am no mountain. 1 am rejoiced lady 
Kinnoul, and the young ladies, are with 
you. I cannot boast of the numbers that 
adorn our fire -side ; my sister and I Jire 



the principal figures ! besides, there is a 
round table, a square skreen, some books, 
and a work-basket, with a smelling bot- 
tle when morality grows musty, or a 
maxim smells too strong, as sometimes 
they will in ancient books. I had a let- 
ter to-day from Mr. Montagu, in which 
he flatters me Avith the hopes of seeing 
him at Christmas. I hear your grace's 
porter says you will not leave Welbeck 
these two months, and Elias is no lying 
man. I know, full well, however he may 
deny you by parcels, he will not thus in 
the gross : so, I imagine, you will not be 
in London this age, which makes me 
more contented with being in the coun- 
try. My lady Croakledom is croaking on 
the banks of Styx, where, with Cerberus°s 
barking mouths, and Tisiphone's belk 
chevelure she will make most pleasant 
melody ; with such a noise in his ears 
how glad would Pluto be if Orpheus 
would give him a tune once more ! Lady 
Limerick, imagining I came to town 
wdth Mr. Montagu, sent an excuse, that 
being ill, she had not been able to make 
me a visit. I guess it would raise great 
speculations why I was not come up, and 
had you been within question-shot, the 
good countess had popped off a volley 
upon you, 1 make no doubt. I hear 
lord Cobham and lord Gower are going 
to resign ; and, I hope, with less regret 
than I resign my pen ; but the letters 
are sent for. Time is a monarch that 
commands, as many sovereigns do, to 
the vexation and detriment of their sub- 
jects ; therefore, to show my loyalty to 
King Time, I must obey his minister, the 
hour, that commands my letter hence. 
My sister desires her compliments. 

I am, my dear lady duchess, your 
most grateful and affectionate, 

E. Montagu. 

LETTER Lin. 

Fro77i the- same to the same. 

Dec. 8, 1743. 
Madam, 
I MAY now wish your grace joy of my 
lord duke's recovery, which indeed has 
been happy to the greatest degree after 
so bad an accident. You have put me 
into a suflScient fright about Mrs. De- 
lany* ; by what you say, I suspect, I di- 

* Mrs. Pendarvis married Dr. Delanj-, the 
friend of Swift, 9th of June, 1743. 



Sect. III. 



RECENT. 



471 



rected my letter to Mrs. Pendarvis. I 
think myself the more capable of it, be- 
cause at Allerthorpe, when I wrote to 
acquaint my mother I could not take a 
journey to town because I was breeding, 
I signed myself Robinson, though really, 
while I wore that name, I do not re- 
member I was ever in the like condition. 
I cannot tell what to say to Mrs. Delany 
about this mistake. I am sure I ap- 
proved the match, and consented with 
my whole heart ; but for this slip of the 
pen I cannot account ; perhaps it might 
happen from the fright I was in for the 
duke ; I am sure Mr. Drummond could 
not be in a greater fright when he saw 
all the Hanoverians in a panic. I want 
to know whether the secretary confessed 
his sins in his fear ; for if a fright can 
make a minister forget his hypocrisy, 
well may it make me forget a, name. I 
hope you found lady Oxford well at Salt 
Hill. I sigh, whenever I pass by Slough, 
to think of the days I have seen. I find 
the power of BuUstrode mighty still, and 
ever grieve to think I pass by it without 
calling. I hear her grace of Kent did 
me the honour to ask a great many civil 
questions after me of Mrs. Meadows. I 
design to go to visit the old dragon as 
soon as I come to town. I am afraid 
Mr. Montagu's continuing' to vote against 
the ministry will hurt my complexion as 
bad as another lying-in. 1 have been 
petrifying my brains over a most solid 
and ponderous performance of a woman 
in this neighbourhood. Having always 
a love to see Phoebus in petticoats, I 
borrowed a book, written by an ancient 
gentlewoman skilled in Latin, dipt in 
Greek, and absorbed in Hebrew, besides 
a modern gift of tongues. By this learn- 
ed person's instruction was Dr. Pocock 
(her son) skilled in antique lore, while 
other people are learning to spell mono- 
syllables. But Hebrew being the mo- 
ther tongue, you know, it is no wonder 
he learnt it. His gingerbread was mark- 
ed with Greek characters, and his bread 
and butter, instead of glass windows, 
was printed with Arabic. He had a 
mummy for his jointed baby, and a little 
pyramid for his play-house. His copy- 
book was filled with hieroglyphics ; and 
nothing modern and vulgar could be em- 
ployed in the education of this learned 
woman's son. Mrs. Pocock lives in a 
village very near us, but has not visited 
here, so I have not had an opportunity 



to observe her conversation ; but really 
I believe she is a good woman, though 
but an indifferent author. She amuses 
herself in the country so as to be cheer- 
ful and sociable at threescore ; is always 
employed either in reading, working, or 
walking ; and I do not hear that she is 
pedantic. What use she makes of her 
Hebrew, I cannot tell ; but it is a strange 
piece, not of female, but of male curio- 
sity, to learn it. I am told she always 
carries a Greek or Hebrew bible to church. 
I desire your grace to make ten thou- 
sand apologies for me to Mrs. Delany, if 
it is really true that 1 would have robbed 
her of a good name ; but I hope you only 
said this to put me in terrors. I desire 
my best compliments to her and Dr. 
Delany, to whom I wish very well, 
though I have offered the shadow of a 
great injury in seeming to deprive them 
of each other. I send my friendly love 
to dear Donnellan, my sincere good 
wishes to my lord duke for recovering 
his mischief, and to the little ones that 
they keep free from all harm. I con- 
gratulate Mr. Achard upon the duke's 
recovery, and to Mr. Drummond I wish 
a perseverance in mirth, wit, and good 
humour. 1 am ever your grace's most 
devoted E. M. 



LETTER LIV. 

From Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu to Mrs. 
Donnellan. 



York, August, 1744. 

I Ani now writing to you from the very 
place from whence I began my journey 
of life. You will think that I may feel 
some uneasiness on the reflection of re- 
turning to this place, after so many years 
wandering through the world, with so 
little improvement and addition of me- 
rit, which is all that time leaves behind 
it. Too true it is that reflection has 
given some pain, and cost me a sigh or 
two ; but it is some comfort that my 
blank page has not been blotted Tvith 
the stains of vice ; if any good deeds 
shall ever be written there, they will be 
legible, and suffer no various interpre- 
tations even from critics. Twenty- two 
years and ten months ago I was just the 
age my son is now : as his way through 
life will lie through the high roads of 
ambition and pleasure, he will hardly 



472- 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



pass so unspotted, but, I hope, a better- 
informed, traveller than I have done 
through my little private path. His 
account will consist of many articles, 
pray God the balance may be right ! I 
would have him think joy is for the pure 
of heart, and not giddily sacriiice the 
smallest part of integrity in hope of 
making large amends by deeds of esti- 
mation. Eut thus it is always with his 
sex, and a man thinks it is no more ne- 
cessary to be as innocent as a woman, 
than to be as fair. Poor little man, may 
Heaven protect him ! I wish he may be 
of as contented a spirit at the same age 
as his mother ; and that his cheerfulness 
too may arise, not from love of himself, 
but from the possession of good and 
amiable friends. I would, to this pur- 
pose, wish him as many brothers, but I 
have some private objections arising 
from self-love against that wish, so I 
will leave that to his merit and discern- 
ment, which to me has arisen from acci- 
dent. I ought to have epistolized you 
before I came so near the end of my 
journey, but we filled up our time with 
seeing all the places that lay within our 
route ; the first was Oxford, which you 
know so well I shall say nothing about 
it, nor would the Muses permit my grey 
goose quill to describe their sacred haunt. 
From thence we went to Stowe, of which 
so much has been said and written. I 
shall only tell you how I was affected 
by the gardens, of which probably nei- 
ther verse nor prose writer would ever 
inform you. It is indeed a princely 
garden, more like, I believe, to that 
where the sapient king held dalliance 
with his fair ^Egyptian spouse, than to 
Paradise, its beauties are the effects of 
expense and taste ; the objects you see 
are various, yet the result is not variety. 
Lord Cobham has done by liis garden as 
kings do by their subjects, made differ- 
ence by title and artificial addition, where 
nature made none ; yet altogether it is a 
pleasing scene, where a philosophic mind 
would enjoy full happiness, the disap- 
pointed ambitious some consolation. The 
buildings are many of them censured by 
connoisseurs as bad ; however, their in- 
tention and use is good ; they are, for 
the most part, dedicated to the memory 
of the wise, the good, and great ; so they 
raise in the ambitious a noble emulation, 
in the humble a virtuous veneration ; 
kinds of homage that mend the heart 



that pays them. From Stowe we went 
t^ my brother Montagu's in Leicester- 
shire, where we passed a week very 
agreeably. The next place Ave saw was 
T ; the house is large, but the com- 
pany it has of late received makes one see 
it Vvdth prejudice ; the luxury of a hog- 
stye must be disgustful ; indeed I was 
glad to get out of the house, every crea- 
ture in it, and every thing one saw was 
displeasing; as to the park, it wants na- 
ture's cheerful livery, the sprightly green ; 
the famous cascade did not please me, 
who have seen some made by the boun- 
teous hand of Nature, to which man's 
magnificence is poor and chetive. From 
hence we came to York, where we have 
just been viewing the cathedral ; of all 
the gothic buildings I ever saw, the most 
noble, taken together, or considered in 
parts. Gothic architecture, like gothic 
government, seems to make strength and 
pov/er of resistance its chief pride ; this 
noble cathedral looks as if it might defy 
the consuming power of all-devouring- 
Time. We are to visit the fine assem- 
bly room before we leave York, which, I 
hear, is built in the manner of an JEgyi^- 
tian hall, or banquetting-room. Dr. 
Shaw would tell us in what place Cleo- 
patra would have chosen to sit. I must 
put an end to my letter, which has been 
something in the style of the raree-show- 
man, " you shall see what you shall see." 
I am, dear madam, your most sincere 
and faithful humble servant, 

E. MoNTAfiU. 



LETTER LV. 



Lady 



M. W. Montague io the Countess 
of—. 
Rotterdam, A\\g. 3, O. S. 1716. 
1 FLATTER uiysclf (dear sister) that I 
shall give you some pleasure in letting^ 
you know that I have safely passed the 
sea, though we had the ill fortune of a 
storm. We were persuaded by the cap- 
tain of the yacht to set out in a calm, 
and he pretended there was nothing so 
easy as to tide it over ; but, after two 
days slowly moving, the wind blew so 
hard, that none of the sailors could keep 
their feet, and we were all Sunday night 
tossed very handsomely. I never saw a 
man more frighted than the captain. 
For my part, I have been so lucky nei- 



Sect. III. 



RECENT. 



473 



ther to suffer from fear nor sea-sickness ; 
though, I confess, I was so impatient to 
see myself once more upon dry land, 
that I would not stay till the yacht 
could get to Rotterdam, but went in 
the long-boat to Helvoetsluys, where we 
had voitures to carry us to the Briel. 
I was charmed with the neatness of that 
little town ; but my arrival at Rotter- 
dam presented me a new scene cf plea- 
sure. All the streets are paved with 
broad stones, and before many of the 
meanest artificer's doors are placed seats 
of various coloiu-ed marbles, so neatly 
kept, that, I'll assure you, I walked al- 
most all over the town yesterday, bicos:- 
nito^ in my slippers, without receiving 
one spot of dirt ; and you may see 
the Dutch maids washing the pave- 
ment of the street, with more applica- 
tion than ours do our bed-chambers. 
The to\^Ta seems so full of people, with 
such busy faces all in motion, that I can 
hardly fancy it is not some celebrated 
fair ; but 1 see it is every day the same. 
It is certain no town can be more ad- 
vantageously situated for commerce. 
Here are seven large canals, on which 
the merchant-ships come up to the very 
doors of their houses. The shops and 
warehouses are of a surprising neatness 
and magnificence, filled v/ith an incredi- 
ble quantity of fine merchandize, and 
so much cheaper than what we see in 
England, that I have much ado to per- 
suade myself that I am still so near it. 
Here is neither dirt nor beggary to be 
seen. One is not shocked with those 
loathsome cripples, so common in Lon- 
don, nor teazed with the importunity of 
idle fellows and wenches, that choose to 
be nasty and lazy. The common ser- 
vants and little shop-v/omen here are 
more nicely clean than most of our la- 
dies, and the great variety of neat 
dresses (every v/oman dressing her head 
after her own fashion) is an additional 
pleasure in seeing the town. You see, 
hitherto, I make no complaints, dear sis- 
ter, and if I continue to like travelling 
as well as I do at present, I shall not re- 
pent my project. It will go a great way 
in making me satisfied with it, if it af- 
fords me an opportunity of entertaining 
you. But it is not from Holland that 
you must expect a disinterested offer. I 
can write enough in the style of Rotter- 
dam, to teU you plainly, in one word, 
that I expect returns of all the London 



news. You see I liave already learnt to 
make a good bargain, and that it is not 
for nothing I will so much as tell you I 
am your affectionate sister. 

LETTER LVL 

Ladij M. W. Montague to Mrs. S . 



Hague, Aug. 5, O S. 1716. 
I 3IAKE haste to tell you, dear madam, 
that after all the dreadful fatigues you 
threatened me with, I am hitherto very 
well pleased with my journey. We take 
care to make such short stages every day, 
that I rather fancy myself upon parties 
of pleasure than upon the road, and sure 
nothing can be more agreeable than tra- 
velling in Holland. The whole country 
appears a large garden ; the roads 'are 
well paved, shaded on each side with 
rows of trees, and bordered mtli large 
canals, full of boats passing and repass- 
ing. Every twenty paces gives you the 
prospect of some villa, and every four 
hours that of a large town, so sur- 
prisingly neat, I am sure you would be 
charmed with them. The place I am 
now at is certainly one of the finest vil- 
lages in the world. Here are several 
squares finely built, and (what I think a 
particular beauty) the whole set with 
thick large trees. The Voor-hout is, at 
the same time, the Hyde Park and Mall 
of the people of quality ; for they take 
the air in it both on foot and in coaches*. 
There are shops for wafers, cool liquors, 
&c. 1 have been to see several of the 
most celebrated gardens, but I will not 
tease you with their descriptions. I dare 
swear you think my letter already long 
enough. But 1 must not conclude with- 
out begging your pardon, for not obey- 
ing your commands, in sending the lace 
you ordered me. Upon my word, I can 
yet find none, that is not dearer than 
you may buy it in London. If you want 
any India goods, here are great variety 
of penny^vorths, and I shall follow your 
orders with great pleasure and exact- 
ness, being, dear madam, &c. &c. 

LETTER LVII. 

Laf/y M. W. Montague to Mrs. S, C. 
Kimegiien, Aag. 13, O. S 1716. 
I AM extremely sorry, my dear S., that 
your fears of disobliging your relations, 
and their fears for your health and safe- 
ty, have jiindered me from enjoying the 



474 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



happiness of your company, and you the 
pleasure of a diverting^ journey. I re- 
ceive some degree of mortification from 
every agreeable novelty, or pleasing pro- 
spect, by the reflection of your having so 
unluckily missed the delight which I 
know it would have given you. If you 
were with me in this town, you would 
be ready to expect to receive visits from 
your Nottingham friends. No two places 
were ever more resembling ; one has but 
to give the Maese the name of the Trent, 
and there is no distinguishing the pro- 
spect. The houses, like those of Not- 
tingham, are built one above another, 
and are intermixed, in the same manner, 
with trees and gardens. The tower, 
they call Julius Caesar's, has the same 
situation with Nottingham Gristle ; and 
I cannot help fancying I see from it the 
Trent field, Adboulton, places so well 
known to us. It is true, the fortifica- 
tions make a considerable diflference. 
All the learned in the art of war bestow 
great commendations on them ; for my 
part, that know nothing of the matter, 
I shall content myself with telling you, 
it is a very pretty walk on the ramparts, 
on which there is a tower, very deserved- 
ly called the Belvidere, where people go 
to drink coffee, tea, &c. and enjoy one of 
the finest prospects in the world. The 
public walks have no great beauty, but 
the thick shade of the trees, which is 
solemnly delightful. But I must not 
forget to take notice of the bridge, Avhich 
appeared very surprising to me. It is large 
enough to hold hundreds of men, with 
horses and carriages. They give the va- 
lue of an English two pence to get upon 
it, and then away they go, bridge and 
all, to the other side of the river, with 
so slow a motion, one is hardly sensible 
of any at all. I was yesterday at the 
French church, and stared very much at 
their manner of service. The parson 
clapped on a broad-brimmed hat, in the 
first place, which gave him entirely the 
air of, what d'y^ call him, in Bartholo- 
mew fair, which he kept up by extraor- 
dinary antic gestures, and preaching 
much such stuff as t'other talked to the 
puppets. However, the congregation 
seemed to receive it with great devotion ; 
and I was informed, by somi! of his flock, 
that he is a person of particular fame 
amongst them. I believe by this time 
you are as much tired with my account 
of him, as I was with his sermon ; but 



I am sure your brother will excuse a di- 
gression in favour of the church of Eng- 
land. You know, spealcing disrespect- 
fully of the Calvinists, is the same thing 
as speaking honourably of the church. 
Adieu, my dear S., always remember me, 
and be assured I can never forget you^ 
&c. &c. 

LETTER LVIII. 

LadyM. IV. 3Iontague to the Lady . 



Cologne, Aug. 16, O. S. 171G. 

If my lady could have any 

notion of the fatigues that I have suf- 
fered these two last days, I am sure she 
would own it a great proof of regard 
that T now sit down to write to her. 
We hired horses from Nimeguen hither,, 
not having the conveniency of the posty 
and found but very indifferent accom- 
modations at Reinberg, our first stage ; 
but it was nothing to what I suffered 
yesterday. We were in hopes to reach 
Cologne ; our horses tired at Stamel, 
three hours from it, where I was forced 
to pass the night in my clothes, in a 
room not at all better than a hovel ; for 
though I have my bed with me, I had 
no mind to undress where the wind came 
from a thousand places. We left this 
wretched lodging at day break, and 
about six, this morning, came safe here, 
where I got immediately into bed. I 
slept so well for three hours, that I found 
myself perfectly recovered, and have had 
spirits enough to go and see all that is 
curious in the town ; that is to sp^y, the 
churches, for here is nothing else worth 
seeing. This is a very large town, but 
the most part of it is old built. The 
Jesuit's church, which is the neatest, was 
shewed me, in a very complaisant man- 
ner, by a handsome young Jesuit ; who, 
not knowing who I was, took a liberty 
in his compliments and railleries, which 
very much diverted me, having never 
before seen any thing of that nature. I 
could not enough admire the magnifi- 
cence of the altars, the rich images of 
the saints (all massy silver), and the 
enchasures of the relics, though I could 
not help murmuring, in my heart, at 
the profusion of pearls, diamonds, and 
rubies, bestowed on the adornment of 
rotten teeth and dirty rags. I own that 
I had wickedness enough to covet St. 
Ursula's pearl necklace ; though perhaps 



Sect. III. 



RECENT 



475 



this was no wickedness at all, an image 
not being certainly one's neighbour ; but 
I went yet farther, and wished the wench 
herself converted into dressing plate. I 
should also gladly see converted into 
silver, a great St. Christopher, which I 
imagine would look very well in a cis- 
tern. These were my pious reflections ; 
though I was very well satisfied to see, 
piled up to the honour of our nation, 
the skulls of the Eleven Thousand Vir- 
gins. I have seen some hundreds of re- 
lics here of no less consequence ; but I 
will not imitate the common style of tra- 
vellers so far as to give you a list of 
them, being persuaded that you have no 
manner of curiosity for the titles given 
to jaw bones and bits of wormeaten 
wood. Adieu, I am just going to sup- 
per, where I shall drink your health in 
an admirable sort of Lorrain wine, which 
I am sure is the same you call Burgundy 
in London, &c. &c. 



LETTER LIX. 

Lady M. W. Montague to the Countess 
ofB . 

Nuremburg, Aug. 22, O. S. 1716, 
After five days travelling post, I could 
not sit down to write on any other oc- 
casion than to tell my dear lady, that I 
have not forgot her obliging command 
of sending her some account of my tra- 
vels. I have already passed a large part 
of Germany ; I have seen all that is re- 
markable in Cologne, Frankfort, Wurts- 
burg, and this place. It is impossible 
not to observe the difference between the 
free towns, and those under the govern- 
ment of absolute princes, as all the little 
sovereigns of Germany are. In the first 
there appears an air of commerce and 
plenty. The streets are well built, and 
full of people neatly and plainly dressed. 
The shops are loaded with merchandise, 
and the commonalty are clean and cheer- 
ful. In the other, you see a sort of shabby 
finery, a number of dirty people of qua- 
lity tawdered out ; narrow nasty streets 
out of repair, wretchedly thin of inha- 
bitants, and above half of the common 
sort asking alms. I cannot help fancy- 
ing one, under the figure of a clean 
Dutch citizen's wife, and the other like 
a poor town lady of pleasure, painted, 
^nd ribboned out in her head dress, with 



tarnished silver-laced shoes, a ragged 
under petticoat, a miserable mixture of 
vice and poverty. They have sumptuary 
laws in this town, which distinguish 
their rank by their dress, prevent the 
excess which ruins so many other cities, 
and has a more agreeable effect to the 
eye of a stranger than our fashions. 
I need not be ashamed to own, that I 
wish these laws were in force in other 
parts of the world. When one considers 
impartially the merit of a rich suit of 
clothes in most places, the respect and 
the smiles cf favour it procures, not to 
speak of the envy and the sighs it occa- 
sions (which is very often the principal 
charm to the wearer), one is forced to 
confess, that there is need of an uncom- 
mon understanding to resist the temp- 
tation of pleasing friends and mortifying 
rivals ; and that it is natural to young 
people to fall into a folly, which betrays 
them to that want of money, which is 
the source of a thousand basenesses. 
What numbers of men have begun the 
world with generous inclinations, that 
have after v/ards been the instruments of 
bringing misery on a whole people, being 
led by a vain expense into debts that 
they could clear no other way but by 
the forfeit of their honour, and which 
they never could have contracted, if the 
respect the multitude pays to habits, was 
fixed by law, only to a particular colour 
or cut of plain cloth. These reflections 
draw after them others that are too me- 
lancholy. I will make haste to put them 
out of your head by the farce of relics, 
with which I have been entertained in 
all Romish churches. 

The Lutherans are not quite free from 
these follies. I have seen here, in the 
principal church, a large piece of the 
cross set in jewels, and the point of the 
spear, which, tl^iey toldme, very gravely, 
was the same that pierced the side of our 
Saviour. But I was particularly diverted 
in a little Roman Catholic church which 
is permitted here, where the professors 
of that religion are not very rich, and 
consequently cannot adorn their images 
in so rich a manner as their neighbours. 
For, not to be quite destitute of all finery, 
they have dressed up an image of our 
Saviour over the altar, in a fair full- 
bottomed wig, very well powdered. I 
imagine I see your ladyship stare at this 
article, of which you very much doubt 
the veracity ; but, upon my word, I have. 



470 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



not yet made use of the privilege of a 
traveller, and my whole account is v^^rit- 
ten with the same plain sincerity of 
heart, with which 1 assure you that I 
am, dear madam, your, &c. Sec. 



LETTER LX. 

Ladi^ M, IV. .Montague to Mrs. P . 

iJatisbon, Aug. 30, O. S. 1718. 

I HAD the pleasure of receiving yours 
but the day before I left London. I 
give you a thousand thanks for your 
good wishes, and have such an opinion 
of their efficacy, that I am persuaded 1 
owe, in part, to them the good luck of 
having proceeded so far on my long 
journey without any ill accident. For I 
do not reckon it any to have been stop- 
ped a few days in this town by a cold, 
since it has not only given me an oppor- 
tunity of seeing all that is curious in it, 
but of making some acquaintance with 
the ladies, who have all been to see me 
with great civility, particularly madarae 

, the wife of our king's envoy 

from Hanover. She has carried me to 
all the assemblies ; and I have been mag- 
nificently entertained at her house, 
which is one of the finest here. You 
know that all the nobility of this place 
are envoys from different states. Here 
are a great number of them ; and they 
might pass their time agreeably enough, 
if they were less delicate on the point of 
ceremony. But instead of joining in the 
design of making the town as pleasant to 
one another as they can, and improving 
their little societies, they amuse them- 
selves no other way than with perpetual 
quarrels, which they take care to eter- 
nise, by leaving them to their succes- 
sors ; and an envoy to Ratisbon receives, 
regularly, half a dozen quarrels, among 
the perquisites of his employment. You 
may be sure the ladies are not wanting, 
on their side, in cherishing and improv- 
ing these important piques, which divide 
the town almost into as many parties as 
there are families. They choose rather 
to suffer the mortification of sitting al- 
most alone on their assembly nights, than 
to recede one jot from their pretensions. 
I have not been here above a week, and 
yet I have heard from almost every one 
of them, the whole history of their 
wrongs, and dreadful complaints of the 



injustice of their neighbours, in hopes to 
draw me to their party. But I think it 
very prudent to remain neuter, though 
if 1 was to stay amongst them, there 
would be no possibility of continuing so, 
their quarrels running so high, that they 
will not be civil to those that visit their 
adversaries. The foundation of these 
everlasting disputes turns entirely upon 
rank, place, and the title of Excellency, 
which they all pretend to, and, what is 
very hard, will give it to nobody. For 
my part, I could not forbear advertising 
them (for the public good) to give the 
title of Excellency to every body, which 
would include the receiving it from every 
body ; but the very mention of such a 
dishonourable peace was received with 
as much indignation as Mrs. Blackaire 
did the motion of a reference. And, in- 
deed, I began to think myself ill natured, 
to offer to take from them, in a town 
where there are so few diversions, so en- 
tertaining an amusement. I. know that 
my peaceable disposition already gives 
me a very ill figure, and that it is pub- 
licly whispered as a piece of impertinent 
pride in me, that I have hitherto been 
saucily civil to every body, as if I thought 
nobody good enough to quarrel with. I 
should be obliged to change my behaviour, 
if I did not intend to pursue my journey 
in a fev/ days. I have been to see the 
churches here, and had the permission of 
touching the relics, which was never suf- 
fered in places where I was not known. 
I had by this privilege, the opportunity 
of making an observation which I doubt 
not might have been made in all the 
other churches, that the emeralds and 
rubies which they shew round their relics 
and images are most of them false ; 
though they tell you that many of the 
crosses and madonnas, set round with 
these stones, have been the gifts of em- 
perors and other great princes. I do 
not doubt indeed but they were at first 
jewels of value ; but the good fathers 
have found it convenient to apply them 
to other uses, and the people are just as 
well satisfied with bits of glass amongst 
these relics. They shewed me a prodi- 
gious claw set in gold, which they called 
the claw of a griffin, and I could not for- 
bear asking the reverend priest that 
shewed it, whether the griffin was a 
saint? The question almost put him be- 
side his gravity ; but he answered, they 
only kept it as a curiosity. ! was very 



Sect. Ill 



R E C E N T. 



47? 



much scandalized at a larg-e silver image 
of tlie Trinity, where the Father is re- 
presented under the figure of a decrepit 
old man, with a beard down to his knees, 
and triple crown on his head, holding in 
his arms the Son, fixed on the cross, and 
the Holy Ghost, in the shape of a dove, 

hovering over him. Madame is 

come this minute to call me to tlie as- 
sembly, and forces me to tell you very 
abruptly, that I am ever your, &c. &c. 



LETTER LXI, 



From the sa7ne to the Countess of ■ 



Vienna, Sept. 8, O. S. 1716. 

I am now, my dear sister, safely arrived 
at Vienna, and, I thank God, have not 
at all suffered in my health, nor (what is 
dearer to me) in that of my child, by all 
our fatigues. We travelled by water 
from Ratisbon, a journey perfectly agree- 
able, down the Danube, in one of those 
little vessels, that they, very properly, 
call wooden houses, having in them all 
the conveniences of a palace, stoves in 
the chambers, kitchens, &c. They are 
rowed by twelve men each, and move 
with such an incredible swiftness, that 
in the same day you have the pleasure 
of a vast variety of prospects, and within 
the space of a few hours you have the 
pleasure of seeing a populous city, adorned 
with magnificent palaces, and the most 
romantic solitudes, which appear distant 
from the commerce of mankind, the 
banks of the Danube being charmingly 
diversified with woods, rocks, mountains 
covered with vines, fields of corn, large 
cities, and ruins of ancient castles. I 
saw the great towns ofPassau and Lintz, 
famous for the retreat of the imperial 
court, when Vienna was besieged. This 
town, which has the honour of being the 
emperor's residence, did not at all an- 
swer my expectation, nor ideas of it, 
being much less than I expected to find 
it ; the streets are very close, and so nar- 
row, one cannot observe the fine fronts 
of the palaces, though many of them 
very well deserve observation, being truly 
magnificent. They are all built of fine 
white stone, and are excessive high. For 
as the town is too little for the number 
of the people that desire to live in it, the 
builders seem to have projected to repair 



that misfortune, by clapping one town 
on the top of another, most of the houses 
being of five, and some of them of six 
stories. You may easily imagine that, 
the streets being so narrow, the rooms 
are extremely dark, and, what is an in- 
conveniency much more intolerable in 
m.j opinion, there is no house has so few 
as five or six families in it. The apart- 
ments of the greatest ladies, and even of 
the ministers of state, are divided but 
by a partition from tliat of a tailor or 
shoemaker ; and I know nobody tha,t has 
above two floors in any house, one for 
their own use, and one higher for their 
servants. Those that have houses of 
their own, let out the rest of them to 
whoever will take them ; and thus the 
great stairs (which are all of stone) are 
as common and as dirty as the street. It 
is true, when you have once travelled 
through them, nothing can be more 
surprisingly magnificent than the apart- 
ments. They are commonly a suite of 
eight or ten large rooms, all inlaid, the 
doors and windows richly carved and gilt, 
and the furniture sucli as is seldom seen 
in the palaces of sovereign princes in other 
countries. Their apartments are adorned 
with hangings of the finest tapestry of 
Brussels, prodigious large looking glasses 
in silver frames, fine japan tables, beds, 
chairs, canopies and window curtains of 
the richest Genoa damask or velvet, al- 
most covered with gold lace or embroi- 
dery. All this is made gay by pictures 
and vast jars of japan china, and large 
lustres of rock crystal. I have already 
had the honour of being invited to din- 
ner by several of the first people of qua- 
lity, and I must do them the justice to 
say, the good taste and magnificence of 
their tables very well answer to that of 
their furniture. I have been more than 
once entertained with fifty dishes of 
meat, all served in silver, and well dress- 
ed ; the dessert proportionable, served 
in the finest china. But the variety and 
richness of their wines is what appears 
the most surprising. The constant way 
is to lay a list of their names upon the 
plates of the guests along Avith the nap- 
kins, and I have counted several times, 
to the number of eighteen different sorts, 
all exquisite in their kinds. I was yes- 
terday at count Schoonbourn, the vice- 
chancellor's garden, where I was invited 
to dinner. I must own, I never saw a 
place so perfectly delightful as the Faux- 



47S 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV 



bourg of Vienna. It is very larg-e, and 
almost wholly composed of delicious pa- 
laces. If the emperor found it proper to 
permit the gates of the town to be laid 
open, that the Fauxbourgs might be 
joined to it, he would have one of the 
largest and best-built cities in Europe. 
Count Schoonbourn's villa is one of the 
most magnificent ; the furniture all rich 
brocades, so well fancied and fitted up, 
nothing can look more gay and splendid ; 
not to speak of a gallery, full of rarities 
of coral, mother-of-pearl, and throughout 
the whole house a profusion of gilding, 
carving, fine paintings, the most beau- 
tiful porcelain, statues of alabaster and 
ivory, and vast orange and lemon-trees 
in gilt pots. The dinner was perfectly 
fine and well ordered, and made still 
more agreeable by the good-humour of 
the count. I have not yet been at court, 
being forced to stay for my gown, with- 
out which there is no waiting on the 
empress ; though I am not without great 
impatience to see a beauty that has been 
the admiration of so many different na- 
tions. When I have had the honour, I 
will not fail to let you know my real 
thoughts, always taking a particular 
t pleasure in communicating them to my 
dear sister. 



LETTER LXII. 

Ladi^ M. W. Montague to Mr. P- 



Vienna, Sept. 14, O. S. 

Perhaps you will laugh at me, for 
thanking you very gravely for all the 
obliging concern you express for me. 
It is certain that I may, if I please, take 
the fine things you say to me for wit and 
raillery ,|and, it may be, it would be tak- 
ing them right. But I never, in my 
life, was half so well disposed to take 
you in earnest as I am at present, and 
that distance which makes the continua- 
tion of your friendship improbable, has 
very much increased my faith in it. I 
find that I have (as well as the rest of 
my sex), whatever face I set on it, a 
strong disposition to believe in miracles. 
Do not fancy, however, that I am in- 
fected by the air of these popish coun- 
tries ; I have, indeed, so far wandered 
from the discipline of the church of 
England, as to have been last Sunday at 
the opera, which was performed in the 



garden of the Favorita, and I was so 
much pleased with it, I have not repented 
my seeing it. Nothing of that kind ever 
was more magnificent ; and I can easily 
believe, what I am told, that the decora- 
tions and habits cost the emperor thirty 
thousand pounds sterling. The stage 
was built over a very large canal, and at 
the beginning of the second act, divided 
into two parts, discovering the water, on 
whicti there immediately came, from dif- 
ferent parts, two fleets of little gilded 
vessels, that gave the representation of 
a naval fight. It is not easy to imagine 
the beauty of this scene, which I took 
particular notice of. But all the rest 
were perfectly fine in their kind. The 
story of the opera is the enchantment of 
Alcina, which gives opportunities for 
great variety of machines and changes of 
the scenes, which are performed with a 
surprising swiftness. The theatre is so 
large that it is hard to carry the eye to 
the end of it, and the habits in the ut- 
most magnificence, to the number of one 
hundred and eight. No house can hold 
such large decorations ; but the ladies 
all sitting in the open air, exposes them 
to great inconveniences ; for there is 
but one canopy for the imperial family ; 
and the first night it was represented, 
a shower of rain happening, the opera 
was broke off, and the company crowded 
away in such confusion, that I was 
almost squeezed to death. But if their 
operas are thus delightful, their come- 
dies are, in as high a degree, ridiculous. 
They have but one play-house, where I 
had the curiosity to go to a German 
comedy, and was very glad it happened 
to be the story of Amphitryon. As that 
subject has been already handled by a 
Latin, French, and English poet, 1 was 
curious to see what an Austrian author 
would make of it. I understand enough 
of that language to comprehend the 
greatest part of it, and besides I took 
with me a lady that had the goodness to 
explain to me every word. The way is 
to take a box, which holds four, for 
yourself and company. The fixed price 
is a gold ducat. I thought the house 
very low and dark ; but I confess the 
comedy admirably recompensed that de- 
fect. I never laughed so much in my 
life. It began with Jupiter's falling in 
love out of a peep-hole in the clouds, 
and ended with the birth of Hercules. 
But Avhat was most pleasant was, the 



Sect. III. 



RECENT. 



479 



use Jupiter made of his metamorphosis ; 
for you no sooner saw him under the 
figure of Amphitryon;, but instead of 
flying" to Alcmena, with the raptures 
Mr. Dryden puts into his mouth, he 
sends for Amphitryon's tailor, and cheats 
him of a laced coat, and his banker of a 
bag of money, a Jew of a diamond ring, 
and bespeaks a great supper in his 
name ; and the greatest part of the co- 
medy turns upon poor Amphitryon's 
being tormented by these people for 
their debts. Mercury uses Sosia in the 
same manner. But I could not easily 
pardon the liberty the poet has taken of 
larding his play Avith, not only indecent 
expressions, but such gross words as I 
do not think our mob would suffer from 
a mountebank. Besides, the two Sosias 
very fairly let down their breeches in the 
direct view of the boxes, which were full 
of people of the first rank, that seemed 
very well pleased with their entertain- 
ment, and assured me this was a cele- 
brated piece. I shall conclude my letter 
with this remarkable relation, very well 
worthy the serious consideration of Mr. 
Collier. I will not trouble you with 
farewell compliments, which I think ge- 
nerally as impertinent as curtsies at leav- 
ing a room when the visit has been too 
long already. 



LETTER LXIIl. 



From the same to the Countess of 



Vienna, Sept. 14, O. S. 
Though I have so lately troubled you, 
my dear sister, with a long letter, yet I 
will keep my promise in giving you an 
account of my first going to court. In 
order to that ceremony, I was squeezed 
up in a gown, and adorned with a gorget, 
and the other implements thereunto be- 
longing, a dress very inconvenient, but 
which certainly shews the neck and 
shape to great advantage. I cannot 
forbear giving you some description of 
the fashions here, which are more mon- 
strous and contrary to all common sense 
and reason than it is possible for you to 
imagine. They build certain fabrics of 
gauze on their heads, about a yard high, 
consisting of three or four stories forti- 
fied with numberless yards of heavy 
ribbon. The foundation of this structure 
is a thing they call a hourle, which is 



exactly of the same shape and kind, but 
about four times as big as those rolls 
our prudent milk-maids make use of 
to fix their pails upon. This machine 
they cover with their own hair, which 
they mix with a great deal of false, it 
being a particular beauty to have their 
heads too large to go into a moderate 
tub. Their hair is prodigiously powder- 
ed to conceal the mixture, and set out 
with three or four rows of bodkins 
(wonderfully large, that stick out two 
or three inches from their hair) made of 
diamonds, pearls, red, green, and yellow 
stones ; that it certainly requires as much 
art and experience to carry the load up- 
right, as to dance upon May-day with 
the garland. Their whalebone petticoats 
outdo ours by several yards circum- 
ference, and cover some acres of ground. 
You may easily suppose how this extra- 
ordinary dress sets off and improves the 
natural ugliness, with which God Al- 
mighty has been pleased to endow them, 
generally speaking. Even the lovely 
empress herself is obliged to comply, in 
some degree, with these absurd fashions, 
which they would not quit for all the 
world. I had a private audience (ac- 
cording to ceremony) of half an hour, 
and then all the other ladies were per- 
mitted to come and make their court. 
I was perfectly charmed with the em- 
press ; I cannot however tell you that 
her features are regular ; her eyes are 
not large, but have a lively look full of 
sweetness ; her complexion the finest I 
ever sav/ ; her nose and forehead well 
made, but her mouth has ten thousand 
charms, that touch the soul. When she 
smiles, it is Avith a beauty and sweetness 
that forces adoration. She has a vast 
quantity of fine fair hair ; but then her 
person ! — one must speak of it poeti- 
cally to do it rigid justice ; all that the 
poets have said of the mien of Juno, the 
air of Venus, come not up to the truth. 
The Graces move with her ; the famous 
statue of Medici s was not formed Avith 
more delicate proportions : nothing can 
be added to the beauty of her neck and 
hands. Till I saw them, I did not be- 
lieve there were any in nature so per- 
fect, and I Avas almost sorry that my 
rank here did not permit me to kiss 
them ; but they are kissed suflficiently, 
for every body that Avaits on her pays 
that homage at their entrance, and when 
they take leave. When tjie ladies AA^ere 



4g0 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



come, she sat down to quinze. I could 
not play at a game 1 had never seen be- 
fore ; and she ordered me a seat at her 
right hand, and had the goodness to talk 
to me very much, vvitli that grace so 
natural to her. 1 expected every mo- 
ment when the men were to come in to 
pay their court ; but this drawing-room 
is very different from that of England ; 
no man enters it but the grand master, 
who comes in to advertise the empress 
of the approach of the emperor. His 
imperial majesty did me the honour of 
speaking to me in a very obliging mxanner, 
but he never speaks to any of the other 
ladies, and the whole passes with a 
gravity and air of ceremony that has 
something very formal in it. The em- 
press Amelia, dowager of the late em- 
peror Joseph, came this evening to wait 
on the reigning empress, followed by 
the two archduchesses her daughters, 
who are very agreeable young princesses. 
Their imperial majesties rose and went 
to meet her at the door of the room, 
after which she was seated in an armed 
chair next the empress, and in the same 
manner at supper, and there the men 
had the permission of paying their court. 
The archduchesses sat on chairs with 
backs without arms. The table was 
entirely served, and all the dishes set 
on, by the empress's maids of honour, 
which are twelve young ladies of the 
first quality. They have no salary but 
their chamber at court, where they live 
in a sort of confinement, not being 
suffered to go to the assemblies or 
public places in town, except in compli- 
ment to the wedding of a sister-maid, 
whom the empress alM^ays presents with 
her picture set in diamonds. The three 
first of them are called Ladies of the 
Key, and wear gold keys by their sides; 
but what I find most pleasant is the 
custom, which obliges them as long as 
they live, after they have left the em- 
jjress's service, to make her some present 
every year on the day of her feast. Her 
majesty is served by no married women 
but the gr ancle maitresse, who is gene- 
rally a widow of the first quality, always 
very old, and is at the same time groom 
of the stole and mother of the maids. 
The dressers are not at all in the figure 
they pretend to in England, being looked 
upon no otherwise than as downright 
chambermaids. I had an audience next 
day of the empress mother, a princess of 



great virtue and goodness, but who 
piques herself too much on a violent de- 
votion. She is perpetually performing 
extraordinary acts of penance, v/ithout 
having ever done any thing to deserve 
them. She has the same number of 
maids of honour, whom she suffers to 
go in colours ; but she herself never 
quits her mourning ; and sure nothing 
can be more dismal than the mourning 
here, even for a brother. There is not 
the least bit of linen to be seen ; all 
black crape instead of it. The neck, 
ears, and side of the face are covered 
with a plaited piece of the same stuff, 
and the face, that peeps out in the 
midst of it, looks as if it were pilloried. 
The widows wear, over and above, a 
crape forehead cloth, and in this solemn 
weed go to all the public places of di- 
version without scruple. The next day 
I was to wait on the empress Amelia, 
who is now at her palace of retirement, 
half a mile from the town. I had there 
the pleasure of seeing a diversion wholly 
new to me, but w^hich is the common 
amusement of this court. The empress 
herself was seated on a little throne at 
the end of the fine alley in her garden, 
and on each side of her were ranged two 
parties of her ladies of quality, headed 
by two young arch-duchesses, all dressed 
in their hair, full of jewels, with fine 
light guns in their hands, and at proper 
distances were placed three oval pictures, 
which were the marks to be shot at. 
The first was that of a Cupid, filling a 
bumper of Burgundy, and the motto, 
" 'Tis easy to be valiant here." The 
second a Fortune holding a garland in 
her hand, the motto, "For her whom 
Fortune favours." The third was a 
sword with a laurel wreath on the point, 
the motto, " Here is no shame to the 
vanquished." Near the empress was a 
gilded trophy wreathed with flowers, 
and made of little crooks, on which were 
hung rich Turkish handkerchiefs, tippets, 
ribbons, laces, &c. for the small prizes. 
The empress gave the first with her own 
hand, which was a fine ruby ring set 
round with diamonds in a gold snuff-box. 
There was for the second, a little Cupid 
set with brilliants, and besides these a 
set of fine china for the tea-table, en- 
chased in gold, japan trunks, fans, and 
many gallantries of the same nature. 
All the men of quality at Vienna were 
spectators ; but the ladies only had per^ 



Sect. Hi 



RECENT. 



481 



mission to shoot, and the archduchess 
Amelia carried off the first prize. I was 
very well pleased with having seen this 
entertainment, and do not know but it 
might make as good a figure as the 
prize- shooting in the ^neid, if I could 
write as well as Virgil. This is the 
favourite pleasure of the emperor, and 
there is rarely a week without some 
feast of this kind, which makes the young 
ladies skilful enough to defend a fort. 
They laughed very much to see me 
afraid to handle a gun. My dear sister, 
you will easily pardon an abrupt con- 
clusion. I believe by this time you are 
ready to think I shall never conclude at 



matter, but it is a considerable comfort 
to me to know there is upon earth such 
a paradise for old women ; and I am 
content to be insignificant at present, in 
the design of returning when I am fit to 
appear no where else. I cannot help 
lamenting on this occasion the pitiful case 
of too many English ladies, long since 
retired to prudery and ratifia, whom if 
their stars had luckily conducted hither, 
would still shine in the first rank of 
beauties. 



LETTER LXV. 

Frojti the same to Mrs J * * *. 



LETTER LXIV. 

Ladi/ M. W. Montague to the Lady R—. 

Vienna, Sept. 20, 1716, O. S. 
I AM extremely rejoiced, but not at all 
surprised, at the long, delightful letter 
you have had the goodness to send me. 
I know that you can think of an absent 
friend even in the midst of a court, and 
you love to oblige, where you can have 
no view of a return ; and I expect from 
you that you should love me, and think 
of me, when you do not see me. I have 
compassion for the mortifications, that 
you tell me befel our little old friend ; 
and 1 pity her much more, since I know 
that they are only owing to the bar- 
barous customs of our country. Upon 
my word, if she were here, she would 
have no other fault but that of being- 
something too young for the fashion, and 
she has nothing to do but to transplant 
herself hither about seven years hence, 
to be again a young and blooming beauty. 
I can assure you that wrinkles, or a 
small stoop in the shoulders, nay even 
grey hairs, are no objection to the making 
new conquests. I know you Cannot ea- 
sily figure to yourself a young fellow of 
five-and-twenty ogling my lady S-ff — k 
with passion, or pressing to hand the 

countess of O d from an opera. 

But such are the sights I see every day, 
and I do not perceive any body surprised 
at them but myself. A woman till five- 
and-thirty is only looked upon as a raw 
girl, and can possibly make no noise in 
the world till about forty. I do not know 
what your ladyship may think of this 



Vienna, Sept. 2(5, O. S. 1716 

I WAS never more agreeably surprised 
than by your obliging letter. It is a 
peculiar mark of my esteem, that I tell 
you so ; and I can assure you, that if I 
loved you one grain less than I do, I 
should be very sorry to see it so divert- 
ing as it is. The mortal aversion I have 
to writing makes me tremble at the 
thoughts of a new correspondent ; and I 
believe I disobliged no less than a dozen 
of my London acquaintance by refusing 
to hear from them, though I did verily 
think they intended to send me very 
entertaining letters. But I had rathet 
lose the pleasure of reading several witty 
things, than be forced to write many 
stupid ones. Yet, in spite of these con- 
siderations, I am charmed with the 
proof Oi your friendship, and beg a con- 
tinuation of the same goodness, though 
I fear the dulness of this will make you 
immediately repent of it. It is not from 
Austria that one can write with vivacity, 
and I am already infected with the 
phlegm of the country. Even their 
amours and their quarrels are carried on 
with a surprising temper, and they are 
never lively but upon points of ceremo- 
ny. There, I own, they shew all their 
passions ; and it is not long since two 
coaches meeting in a narrow street at 
night, the ladies in them not being able 
to adjust the ceremonial of which should 
go back, sat there with equal gallantry 
till two in the morning, and were botli 
so fully determined to die upon the 
spot rather than yield, in a point of that 
importance, that the street Avould never 
have been cleared till their deaths, if the 
emperor had not sent his guards to part 
21 



482 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



them ; and even then they refused to stir, 
till the expedient could he found out, of 
taking them hoth out in chairs, exactly 
in the same moment. After the ladies 
were agreed, it was with some difficulty 
that the pas was decided between the 
two coachmen, no less tenacious of their 
rank than the ladies. This passion is so 
omnipotent in the hreasts of the women, 
that even their husbands never die, but 
they are ready to break their hearts, be- 
cause that fatal hour puts an end to 
their rank, no widows having any place 
at Vienna. The men are not much less 
touched with this point of honour ; and 
they do not only scorn to marry, but 
even to make love to any woman of a 
family not as illustrious as their own, 
and the pedigree is much more con- 
sidered by them, than either the com- 
plexion or features of their mistresses. 
Happy are the shes that can number 
amongst their ancestors counts of the 
empire ; they have neither occasion for 
beauty, money, nor good conduct to get 
them husbands. It is true, as to money, 
it is seldom any advantage to the man 
they marry ; the laws of Austria confine 
the woman's portion to two thousand 
florins (about two hundred pounds En- 
glish), and whatever they have beside, 
remains in their own possession and dis- 
posal. Thus here are many ladies much 
richer than their husbands, who are 
however obliged to allow them pin-money 
agreeable to their quality ; and I attri- 
bute to this considerable branch of pre- 
rogative the liberty that they take upon 
other occasions. I am sure you, that 
know my laziness and extreme indiffer- 
ence on this subject, will pity me, 
entangled amongst all these ceremonies, 
which are a wonderful burthen to me, 
though I am the envy of the whole town, 
having by their own customs the pas 
before them all. They, indeed, so re- 
venge upon the poor envoys this great 
respect shewn to ambassadors, that (with 
all my indifference) I should he very 
uneasy to suffer it. Upon days of cere- 
mony they have no entrance at court, 
and on other days must content them- 
selves with walking after every soul, 
and being the very last taken notice of. 
But I must write a volume to let you 
know all the ceremonies, and I have al- 
ready said too much on so dull a subject, 
which however employs the whole care 
of the people here. I need not, after 



this, tell you how agi*eeably time slides 
away with me ; you know as well as I 
do the taste of yours, &c. &c. 



LETTER LXVI. 

Lady M. W. Montague to the Lady X — . 

Vienna, Oct. 1, O. S. 1716. 
You desire me, madam, to send you 
some account of the customs here, and 
at the same time a description of Vienna. 
1 am always willing to obey your com- 
mands ; but you must, upon this occa- 
sion, take the will for the deed. If I 
should undertake to tell you all the par- 
ticulars in which the manners here differ 
from ours, I must write a whole quire 
of the dullest stuff that ever was read, 
or printed without being read. Their 
dress agrees with the French or English 
in no one article, but wearing petticoats. 
They have many fashions peculiar to 
themselves ; they think it indecent for a 
widow ever to wear green or rose-colour, 
but all the other gayest colours at her 
own discretion. The assemblies here 
are the only regular diversion, the operas 
being always at court, and commonly on 
some particular occasion. Madam Ra- 
butin has the assembly constantly every 
night at her house ; and the other ladies, 
whenever they have a mind to display 
the magnificence of their apartments, or 
oblige a friend by complimenting them 
on the day of their saint, they declare, 
that on such a day the assembly shall be 
at their house in honour of the feast 
of the count or countess — such-a-one. 
These days are called days of gala, and 
all the friends or relations of the lady, 
whose saint it is, are obliged to appear 
in their best clothes and all their jewels. 
The mistress of the house takes no par- 
ticular notice of any body, nor returns 
any body's visit ; and, Avhoever pleases, 
may go, without the formality of being 
presented. The company are entertained 
with ice in several forms, winter and 
summer ; afterwards they divide into se- 
veral parties of ombre, piquet, or conver- 
sation, all games of hazard being forbid. 
I saw the other day the gala for count 
Altheim, thr eniperor's favourite, and 
never in my life Baw so many fine clothes 
ill-fancied. They embroider the richest 
gold stuffs ; and provided they can make 
their clothes expensive enough, that is 



Sect. III. 



a E C E N T 



483 



all the taste they shew in them. On 
other days the general dress is a scarf, 
and what you please under it. 

But now I am speaking of Vienna, I 
am sure you should expect I should say 
something of the convents : they are of 
all sorts and sizes ; but I am best pleased 
with that of St. Lawrence, where the 
ease and neatness they seem to live with 
appear to me much more edifying than 
those stricter orders, where perpetual 
penance and nastinesses must breed dis- 
content and wretchedness. The nuBS are 
all of quality. I think there are to the 
number of fifty. They have each of 
them a little cell, perfectly clean, the 
walls of which are covered with pictures, 
more or less fine-, according to their 
quality. A long white stone gallery runs 
by all of them, furnished with the pic- 
tures of exemplary sisters ; the chapel 
is extremely neat and richly adorned. 
But I could not forbear laughing at 
their shewing me a wooden head of our 
Saviour, which they assured me spoke, 
during the siege of Vienna ; and, as a 
proof of it, bid me remark his mouth, 
which had been open ever since. No- 
thing can be more becoming than the 
dress of these nuns. It is a white robe, 
the sleeves of which are turned up with 
fine white calico, and their head-dress 
the same, excepting a small veil of black 
crape that falls behind. They have a 
lower sort of serving nuns, that wait on 
them as their chamber-maids. They 
receive all visits of women, and play at 
ombre in their ch timbers , with permis- 
sion of their abbess, which is very easy 
to be obtained. I never saw an old 
woman so good-natured ; she is near 
fourscore, and yet shews very little sign 
of decay, being still lively and cheerful. 
She caressed me as if I had been her 
daughter, giving me some pretty things 
of her ovv^n work, and sweetmeats in 
abundance. The grate is not one of the 
most rigid ; it is not very hard to put a 
head through ; and I do not doubt but a 
man, a little more slender than ordinary, 
might squeeze in his whole person. The 
young count of Salamis came to the 
grate, while I was there, and the abbess 
gave him her hand to kiss. But I was 
surprised to find here the only beautiful 
young woman I have seen at Vienna, 
and not only beautiful, but genteel, wit- 
ty, and agreeable, of a great family, and 
who had been the admiration of the 



town. I could not forbear shewing my 
surprise at seeing a nun like her. She 
made me a thousand obliging compli- 
ments, and desired me to come often. 
" It will be an infinite pleasure to me 
(said she, sighing) ; but I avoid, with 
the greatest care, seeing any of my 
former acquaintance, and whenever they 
come to our convent, I lock myself in 
ray cell." I observed tears come into 
her eyes, which touched me extremely, 
and I began to talk to her in that strain 
of tender pity she inspired me with ; but 
she would not own to me that she is not 
perfectly happy. I have since endea- 
voured to learn the real cause of her re- 
tirement, without being able to get any 
other account, but that every body was 
surprised at it, and nobody guessed the 
reason. I have been several times to see 
her ; but it gives me too much melan- 
choly to see so agreeable a young crea- 
ture buried alive. I am not surprised 
that nuns have so often inspired violent 
passions ; the pity one natiu-ally feels 
for them, when they seem worthy of 
another destiny, making an easy way for 
yet more tender sentiments. I never in 
my life had so little charity for the Ro- 
man Catholic religion as since I see the 
misery it occasions ; so many poor un- 
happy women !- and then the gross su- 
perstition of the common people, who are, 
some or other of them, day and night 
offering bits of candle to the wooden 
figures, that are set up almost in every 
street. The processions I see very often 
are a pageantry, as offensive and appa- 
rently contradictory to common sense 
as the pagods of China. God knows 
whether it be the womanly spirit of 
contradiction that works in me, but 
there never, before, was such zeal against 
popery in the heart of, dear madam, 
&c. &c. 



LETTER LXVII. 

From the same to Mr. . 

Vienna, Oct. 16, O. S. 1716. 
I DESERVE not all the reproaches you 
make me. If I have been some time 
without answering your letter, it is not 
that I do not know how many thanks 
are due to you for it, or that I am stupid 
enough to prefer any amusements to the 
pleasure of hearing from you ; but after 
the professions of esteem you have so 
2 i 2 



484 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book iV, 



obligingly made me, I cannot help delay- 
ing, as long as I can, shewing you that 
you are mistaken. If you are sincere, 
when you say you expect to be extremely 
entertained by my letters, I ought to be 
mortified at the disappointment that I 
am sure you will receive when you hear 
from me ; though I have done my best 
endeavours to find out something worth 
writing to you. 1 have seen every thing 
that was to be seen, with a very diligent 
curiosity. Here are some fine villas, 
particularly the late prhice of Lichten- 
stein's ; but the statues are all modern, 
and the pictures not of the first hands. 
It is true, the emperor has some of great 
value. I was yesterday to see the reposi- 
toryj which they call his Treasure, where 
they seem to have been more diligent in 
amassing a great quantity of things, than 
in the choice of them. I spent above 
five hours there, and yet there were very 
few things that stopped me long to 
consider them. But the number is pro- 
digious, being a very long gallery filled 
on both sides, and five large rooms. 
There is a vast quantity of paintings, 
amongst which are many fine minia- 
tures ; but the most valuable pictures are 
a few of Corregio, those of Titian being 
at the Favorita. 

The cabinet of jewels did not appear 
to me so rich as I expected to see it. 
They shewed me there a cup, about the 
size of a tea-dish, of one entire emerald, 
which they had so particular a respect for, 
that only the emperor has the liberty of 
touching it. There is a large cabinet 
full of curiosities of clock-work, only 
one of which I thought worth observ- 
ing, that was a craw-fish, with all the 
motions so natural that it was hard to 
distinguish it from the life. 

The next cabinet was a large collection 
of agates, some of them extremely beau- 
tiful and of uncommon size, and several 
vases of lapis lazuli. I was surprised to 
see the cabinet of medals so poorly fur- 
nished ; 1 did not remark one of any va- 
lue, and they are kept in a most ridi- 
culous disorder. As to the antiques, 
very fev/ of them deserve that name. 
Upon my saying they were modern, I 
could not forbear laughing at the answer 
of the profound antiquary that shewed 
them, that they were ancient enough, 
for to his knowledge they had been there 
these forty years ; but the next cabinet 
diverted me yet better, being nothing 



else but a parcel of wax babies, and 
toys in ivory, very well worthy to be 
presented children of five years old. 
Two of the rooms were wholly filled 
with these trifles of all kinds, set in 
jewels, amongst which I was desired to 
observe a crucifix, that they assured me 
had spoke very wisely to the emperor 
Leopold. I will not trouble you with a 
catalogue of the rest of the lumber, but 
I must not forget to mention a small 
piece of loadstone, that held up an anchor 
of steel too heavy for me to lift. This is 
what I thought most curious in the 
whole treasure. There are some few 
heads of ancient statues; but several of 
them are defaced by modern additions. 
I foresee that you will be very little satis- 
fied with this letter ; and I dare hardly 
ask you to be good-natured enough to 
charge the dulness of it on the barren- 
ness of the subject, and to overlook the 
stupidity of your, &c. &c. 



LETTER LXVIII. 

Lady M. W. Montague to the Countess 
of . 

Prague, Nov. 17, O. S. 1716. 
1 HOPE my dear sister wants no new 
proof of my sincere affection for her ; 
but I am sure if you do, I could not 
give you a stronger than writing at this 
time, after three days, or, more pro- 
perly speaking, three nights and days, 
hard post-travelling. — Tlie kingdom of 
Bohemia is the most desert of any I have 
seen in Germany. The villages are so 
poor, and the post-houses so miserable, 
that clean straw and fair water are 
blessings not always to be met with, 
and better accommodation not to be 
hoped for. Though I carried my own 
bed with me, I could not sometimes 
find a place to set it up in ; and I ra- 
ther chose to travel all night, as cold as 
it is, wrapped up in my furs, than go 
into the common stoves, which are filled 
with a mixture of all sorts of ill scents. 

This town was once the royal seat of 
the Bohemian king, and is still the ca- 
pital of the kingdom.. There are yet 
some remains of its former splendour, 
being one of the largest towns in Ger- 
many, but, for the most part, old built 
and thinly inhabited, which makes the 
hbuses very cheap. Those people of 



1 



Sect. HI. 



RECENT. 



485 



quality, who cannot easily bear the ex- 
pense of Vienna, choose to reside here, 
where they have assemblies, music, and 
all other diversions (those of a court ex- 
cepted), at very moderate rates, all things 
here being in great abundance, especially 
the best wild-fowl I ever tasted. I have 
already been visited by some of the most 
considerable ladies, whose relations I 
know at Vienna. They are dressed after 
the fashions' there, after the manner 
that the people at Exeter imitate those 
of London : that is, their imitation is 
more excessive than the original. It is 
not easy to describe wiiat extraordinary 
figures they make. The person is so 
much lost between head-dress and pet- 
ticoat, that they have as much occasion 
to write upon their backs, " This is a 
woman," for the information of travel- 
lers, as ever sign-post painter had to 
write, " This is a bear." I will not 
forget to write to you again from Dres- 
den and Leipzig, being much more so- 
licitous to content your curiosity, than 
to indulge my own repose. I am, &c. 



LETTER LXIX. 

Fro?h the same to the same. 

Leipzig, Nov. '21, O. S. 1716, 
I BELIEVE, dear sister, you will easily 
forgive my not writing to you from 
Dresden, as I promised, when I tell you, 
that I never went out of my chaise from 
Prague to this place. You may imagine 
how heartily I was tired vith twcr/ty- 
four hours post-travelling, without sleep 
or refreshment (for I can never sleep in 
a coach, however fatigued). We passed 
by moonshine the frigiitful precipices 
that divide Bohemia from Saxony, at 
the bottom of v.hich runs the river Elbe ; 
but I cannot say that I had reason to 
fear drowning in it, being perfectly con- 
vinced, that in case of a tumble, it was 
utterly impossible to come alive to the 
bottom. In many places the road is so 
narrow, that I could not discern an 
inch of space between the wheels and 
the precipice. Yet I was so good a 

wife not to wake Mr. W y, who was 

fast asleep by my side, to make him share 
in my fears, since the danger was un- 
avoidable, till I perceived, bythebriglit 
light of the moon, our ])ostillions nod- 
ding on horseback, while the horses 



were on the full gallop. Then indeed I 
thought it very convenient to call out to 
desire them to look where they were 

going. My calling waked Mr. W y, 

and he was much more surprised than 
myself at the situation we were in, and 
assured me, that he passed the Alps five 
times in different places, without ever 
having gone a road so dangerous. I 
have been told since, that it is common 
to find the bodies of travellers in the 
Elbe ; but, thank God, that was not our 
destiny, and v/e came safe to Dresden, 
so much tired with fear and fatigue, it 
was not possible for me to compose my- 
self to write. After passing these dread- 
ful rocks, Dresden appeared to me a 
wonderfully agreeable situation, in a fine 
large plain on the banks of the Elbe. I 
was very glad to stay there a day to rest 
myself. The town is the neatest I have 
seen in Germany ; most of the houses are 
new built; the elector's palace is very 
handsome, and his repository full of 
curiosities of different kinds, with a col- 
lection of medals very much esteemed. 

Sir , our king's envoy, came to 

see me here, and madam de L- 



whom I knew in London, when her hus- 
band was minister to the king of Poland 
there. She offered me all things in her 
power to entertain me, and brought 
some ladies with her, whom she pre- 
sented to me. The Saxon ladies resem- 
ble the Austrian no more than the Chi- 
nese do those of London ; they are very 
genteelly dressed after the English and 
French modes, and have, generally, pret- 
ty faces, but they are the most deter- 
mined minaudieres in the whole world ; 
they would think it a mortal sin against 
good-breeding, if they either spoke or 
moved in a natural manner. They all 
affect a little soft lisp, and a pretty pitty- 
pat step ; which female frailties ought, 
however, to be forgiven them, in favour 
of their civility and good-nature to 
strangers, which I have a great deal of 
reason to praise. 

The countess of Cozelle is kept pri- 
soner in a melancholy castle, some leagues 
from hence ; and I cannot forbear telling 
you what I have heard of her, because it 
seems to me very extraordinary, though 
I foresee I shall swell my letter to the 
size of a packet. — She was mistress to 
the king of Poland (elector of Saxony), 
with so absolute a dominion over him, 
that never any lady liad so niiuh power 



486 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV 



in that court. They tell a pleasant story 
of his majesty's first declaration of love, 
which he made in a visit to her, bringing 
in one hand a bag of a hundred thousand 
crowns, and in the other a horse-shoe, 
which he snapped asunder before her face, 
leaving her to draw the consequences 
of such remarkable proofs of strength 
and liberality. I know not which charm- 
ed her most, but she consented to leave 
her husband, and to give herself up to 
him entirely, being divorced publicly in 
such a manner as by their laws permits 
either party to marry again, God knows 
whether it was at this time, or in some 
other fond fit, but it is certain the king 
had the weakness to make her a formal 
contract of marriage; which, though it 
could signify nothing during the life of 
the queen, pleased her so well, that she 
could not be contented without telling 
it to all the people she saw, and giving 
herself the airs of a queen. Men endure 
every thing while they are in love ; but 
when the excess of passion was cooled 
by long possession, his majesty began to 
reflect on the ill consequences of leaving 
such a paper in her hands, and desired 
to have it restored him. But she rather 
chose to endure all the most violent ef- 
fects of his anger than give it up ; and 
though she is one of the richest and 
most avaricious ladies of her country, she 
has refused the offer of the continuation 
of a large pension, and the security of a 
vast sum of money she has amassed, and 
has at last provoked the king to confine 
her person to a castle, where she endures 
all the terrors of a strait imprisonment, 
and remains still inflexible either to 
threats or promises. Her violent pas- 
sions have brought her indeed into fits ; 
which it is supposed will soon put an end 
to her life. I cannot forbear having 
some compassion for a woman that suf- 
fers for a point of honour, however mis- 
taken, especially in a country where 
points of honour are not over scrupu- 
lously observed among ladies. 

I could have wished Mr. W y's 

business had permitted him a longer stay 
at Dresden. 

Perhaps I am partial to a town where 
they profess the Protestant religion, but 
every thing seemed to me with quite 
another way of politeness than I have 
found in other places. Leipsic, where I 
am at jirescnt, is a town very consider- 
able for its trade, and I take this oppor- 



tunity of buying pages' liveries, gold 
stufi's for myself, &c. ; all things of that 
kind being at least double the price at 
Vienna, partly because of the excessive 
customs, and partly through want of 
genius and industry in the people, who 
make no one sort of thing there, so that 
the ladies are obliged to send even for 
their shoes out of Saxony. The fair 
here is one of the most considerable in 
Germany, and the resort of all the peo- 
ple of quality, as well as of the mer- 
chants. This is also a fortified town; 
but I avoid ever mentioning fortifica- 
tions, being sensible that I know not 
how to speak of them. I am the more 
easy under my ignorance, when I reflect 
that I am sure you will willingly forgive 
the omission ; for if I made you the most 
exact description of all the ravelins and 
bastions I see in my travels, I dare swear 
you will ask me what is a ravelin ? and 
what is a bastion? Adieu, my dear 
sister. 

LETTEFv LXX. 

Ladi/ M, W. Montague to the Countess 

of . 

Brunswick, Nov. 23, O. S. 1716. 
I AM just come to Brunswick, a very old 
town, but which has the advantage of 
being the capital of the duke of Wolfen- 
buttie's dominions, a family (not to speak 
of its ancient honours) illustrious, by hav- 
ing its younger branch on the throne of 
England, and having given two em- 
presses to Germany. I have not forgot 
to drink your health here in mum, which I 
think very well deserves its reputation 
of being the best in the world. This 
letter is the third I have writ to you 
during my journey ; and I declare to you, 
that if you do not send me immediately 
a full and true account of all the 
changes and chances amongst our Lon- 
don acquaintance, I will not write you 
any description of Hanover (where I 
hope to be to-night), though I know 
you have more curiosity to hear of that 
place than any other, 

LETTER LXXL 

From the same to the Countess of B. 

Hanover, Nov. 25, O. S. 1716. 
I RECEIVED your ladyship's letter but 
the day before I left Vienna, though, 



Sect. III. 



RECENT. 



487 



by the date, I ought to have had it much 
sooner ; but nothing was ever worse re- 
gulated than tlie post in most parts of 
Germany. I can assure you, the packet 
at Prague was behind my chaise, and in 
that manner conveyed to Dresden, so 
that the secrets of half the country were 
at my mercy, if I had had any curiosity 
for them. I would not longer delay my 
thanks for yours, though the number 
of my acquaintances here, and my duty 
of attending at court, leave me hardly 
any time to dispose of. 1 am extremely 
pleased that I can tell you, without flat- 
tery or partiality, that our young prince 
has all the accomplishments that it is 
possible to have at his age, with an air 
of sprightliness and understanding', and 
something so very engaging and easy in 
his behaviour, that he needs not the ad- 
vantage of his rank to appear charming. 
I had the honour of a long conversation 
with him last night, before the king 
came in. His governor retired on pur- 
pose (as he told me afterwards) that I 
might make some judgment of his ge- 
nius, by hearing him speak without con- 
straint ; and I was surprised at the quick- 
ness and politeness that appeared in every 
thing he said, joined to a person per- 
fectly agreeable, and the fine fair hair of 
the princess. 

This town is neither large nor hand- 
some : but the palace is capable of hold- 
ing a much greater court than that of 
St. James's. The king has had the good- 
ness to appoint vis a lodging in one part 
of it, without which we should have been 
very ill accommodated ; for the vast num- 
ber of English crowds the town so much, 
it is very good luck to get one sorry room 
in a miserable tavern. I dined to-day with 
the Portuguese ambassador, who thinks 
himself very happy to have two wretched 
parlours in an inn. I have now made 
the tour of Germany, and cannot help 
observing a considerable difference be- 
tween travelling here and in England. 
One sees none of those fine seats of no- 
blemen, so common among us, nor any 
thing like a country-gentleman's house, 
though they have many situations per- 
fectly fine. But the whole people are 
divided into absolute sovereignties, where 
all the riches and magnificence are at 
court, or into communities of merchants, 
such as Nuremberg and Frankfort, where 
they live always in town for the con- 
venience of trade. The king's company 



of French comedians play here every 
night. They are very well dressed, and 
some of them not ill actors. His majesty 
dines and sups constantly in public. The 
court is very numerous, and his affability 
and goodness make it one of the most 
agreeable places in the world. Dear 
madam, your L. &c. &c. 



LETTER LXXII. 

Ladi/ M. W. Montague to the Ladj/ R- 



Hanover, Oct. 1, O.S. 1716. 

I AM very glad, my dear lady R , 

that you have been so well pleased, as 
you tell me, at the report of my return- 
ing to England ; though, like other plea- 
sures, I can assure you it has no real 
foundation. I hope you know me enough 
to take my word against any report con- 
cerning me. It is true, as to distance of 
place, I am much nearer to London than 
I was some weeks ago ; but as to the 
thoughts of a return, I never was farther 
off in my life. I own, I could with great 
joy indulge the pleasing hopes of seeing 
you and the very few others that share 

my esteem ; but while Mr. W is 

determined to proceed in his design, I 
am determined to follow him. I am 
running on upon my own aifairs, that is 
to say, I am going to write very duUy, 
as most people do when they write of 
themselves. I will make haste to change 
the disagreeable subject, by telling you, 
that I am now got into the region of 
beauty. All the women have, literally, 
rosy cheeks, snowy foreheads and bosoms, 
jet eyebrows, and scarlet lips, to which 
they generally add coal-black hair. Those 
perfections never leave them till the hour 
of their deaths, and have a very fine ef-» 
feet by candle-light ; but I could wish 
they were handsome with a little more 
variety. They resemble one another as 
much as Mrs. Salmon's court of Great 
Britain, and are in as much danger of 
melting away, by too near approaching 
the fire, which they, for that reason, 
carefully avoid, though it is now such 
excessive cold weather, that I believe 
they suffer extremely by that piece of self- 
denial. The snow is already very deep, 
and the people begin to slide about in 
their traineaus. This is a favourite di- 
version all over Germany. They are 
little machines fixed upon a sledge, that 



48S 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



hold a lady and a gentleman, and are 
drawn by one horse. The gentleman 
has the honour of driving, and they move 
with a prodigious swiftness. The lady, 
the horse, and the traineau, are all as fine 
as they can be made ; and when there are 
many of them together, it is a very agree- 
able show. At Vienna, where all pieces 
of magnificence are carried to excess, 
there are sometimes machines of this 
kind, that cost five or six hundred pounds 
English. The duke of Wolfenbuttle is 
now at this court : you know he is nearly 
related to our king, and uncle to the 
reigning empress, who is, I believe, the 
most beautiful princess upon earth. She 
is now with child, which is all the con- 
solation of the imperial court for the loss 
of the archduke. I took my leave of her 
the day before I left Vienna, and she 
began to speak to me with so much grief 
and tenderness of the death of that young 
prince, I had much ado to withhold my 
tears. You know that I am not at all 
partial to people for their titles ; but I 
own that I love that charming princess 
(if I may use so familiar an expre&sion) ; 
and if 1 had not, 1 should have been 
very much moved at the tragical end of 
an only son, born after being so long de- 
sired, and at length killed by want of 
good management, weaning him in the 
beginning of the winter. Adieu, dear 

ladyR , continue to write tome, and 

believe none of your goodness is lost 
upon your, &c. 



LETTER LXXIIL 

Ladi/ M. IV. Montague to the Countess 
of . 

Blanckfnburgh, Oct. 17, O. S. 1716. 
I RECEIVED yours, dear sister, the very 
day 1 left Hanover. You may easily 
imagine I was then in too great a hurry 
to answer it ; but you see I take the first 
opportunity of doing myself that plea- 
sure. I came here the *15th, very late 
at night, after a terrible journey, in the 
worst roads and weather that ever poor 
traveller suffered . I have taken this little 
fatigue, merely to oblige the reigning 
empress, and carry a message from her 
imperialmajesty tothe duchess of Blanck- 
enburg, her mother, who is a princess 
of great address and good-breeding, and 
i|nay be still called a fine woman. It was 
i?o late wlien I came to this town, I did 



not think it proper to dijfturb the duke 
and duchess with the ncAvs of my arrival ; 
so I took up my quarters in a miserable 
inn •, but as soon as I had sent my com- 
pliments to their highnesses, they im- 
mediately sent me their own coach and 
six horses, which had however enough 
to do to draw us up the very high hill on 
which the castle is situated. The duchess^ 
is extremely obliging to me, and this 
little court is not without its diversions. 
The duke taillys at basset every nighty 
and the duchess tells me, she is so well 
pleased with my company, that it makes 
her play less than &he used to do. I 
should find it very difficult to steal time 
to write, if she was not now at church, 
where I cannot wait on her, not under- 
standing the language enough to pay 
my devotions in it. You will not forgive 
me, if I do not say something of Han- 
over : I cannot tell you that the town is 
either large or magnificent. The opera 
house, which was built by the late elec- 
tor, is much finer than that of Vienna. 
I was very sorry that the ill weather did 
not permit me to see Hernhausen in all 
its beauty ; but, in spite of the snow, I 
thought the gardens very fine. I was 
particularly surprised at the vast number 
of orange trees, much larger than any I 
have ever seen in England, though this 
climate is certainly colder. But I had 
more reason to wonder, that night, at the 
king's table, to see a present from a 
gentleman of this country, of two large 
baskets full of ripe oranges and lemons 
of diflFerent sorts, many of which were 
quite new to me ; and what I thought 
worth all the rest, two ripe ananasses, 
which, to my taste, are a fruit perfectly 
delicious. You know they are naturally 
the growth of Brazil, and I could not 
imagine how they came here but by en- 
chantment. Upon inquiry, I learnt that 
they have brought their stoves to such 
perfection, they lengthen their summer 
as long as they please, giving to every 
plant the degree of heat it would receive 
from the sun in its native soil. The ef- 
fect is very near the same ; I am sur- 
prised we do not practise, in England, 
so useful an invention. This reflection 
leads me to consider our obstinacy in 
shaking with cold, five months in* the 
year, rather than make use of stoves, 
which are certainly one of the greatest 
conveniences of life. Besides, they are 
so far from spoiling the form of a room, 



Sect. 111. 



R E C E N T. 



that they add very much to the magni- 
ficence of it, when they are painted and 
gilt, as they are at Vienna, or at Dres- 
den, where they are often in the shapes 
of China jars, statues, or fine cabinets, 
so naturally represented, that they are 
not to be distinguished. If ever I re- 
turn, in defiance to the fashion, you 
shall certainly see one in the chamber 
of, dear sister, your, &c. 

I will write often, since you desire it ; 
but I must beg you to be a little more 
particular in yours ; you fancy me at 
forty miles distance, and forget, that, 
after so long an absence, I cannot un- 
derstand hints. 

LETTER LXXIV. 

Lady M. W. Montague to the Lady . 



Vienna, Jan. 1, O. S. 1717. 
I HAVE just received here, at Vienna, 
your ladyship's compliments on my re- 
turn to England, sent me from Hanover. 
You see, madam, all things that are as- 
serted with confidence are not abso- 
lutely true ; and that you have no sort 
of reason to complain of me for making 
my designed return a mystery to you, 
when you say all the world are informed 
of it. You may tell all the world in my 
name, that they are never so well in- 
formed of my affairs as I am myself, that 
I am very positive I am at this time at 
Vienna, where the carnival is begun, and 
all sorts of diversions are carried to the 
greatest height, except that of masquing, 
which is never permitted during a war 
with the Turks. The balls are in public 
places, where the men pay a gold ducat 
at entrance, but the ladies nothing. I 
am told that these houses get sometimes 
a thousand ducats in a night. I'hey 
are very magnificently furnished, and 
the music good, if they had not that de- 
testable custom of mixing hunting-horns 
with it, that almost deafen the company. 
But that noise is so agreeable here, they 
never make a concert without them. 
The ball always concludes with English 
country-dances, to the number of thirty 
or forty couple, and so ill danced, that 
there is very little pleasure in them. 
Tliey know but half a dozen, and they 
have danced them over and over these 
fifty years. I would fain have taught 
them some new ones, but I found it 
would be some months' labour to make 
them comprehend them. Last night 



there was an Italian comedy acted at 
court. The scenes were pretty, but the 
comedy itself such intolerable low farce, 
without either wit or humour, that I 
was surprised how all the court could 
sit there attentively for four hours to- 
gether. No women are suffered to act 
on the stage, and the men dressed like 
them were such awkward figures, they 
very much added to the ridicule of the 
spectacle. What completed the diver- 
sion was the excessive cold, which was 
so great I thought I shouM have died 
there. It is now the very extremity of 
the winter here ; the Danube is entirely 
frozen, and the weather not to be sup- 
ported without stoves and furs ; but, 
hov/ever, the air so clear, almost every 
body is well, and colds not half so com- 
mon as in England. I am persuaded 
there cannot be a purer air, nor more 
wholesome, than that of Vienna. The 
plenty and excellence of all sorts of pro- 
visions are greater here than in any 
place I ever was before, and it is not 
very expensive to keep a splendid table. 
It is really a pleasure to pass through 
the markets, and see the abundance of 
what we should think rarities, of fowls 
and venison, that are daily brought in 
from Hungary and Bohemia. They 
want nothing but shell -fish, and are so 
fond of oysters, that they have them sent 
from Venice, and eat them very gree- 
dily, stink or not stink. Thus I obey 
your commands, madam, in giving you 
an account of Vienna, though I know 
you will not be satisfied with it. You 
chide me for my laziness in not telling 
you a thousand agreeable and surprising 
things, that you say you are sure I have 
seen and heard. L^pon my word, ma- 
dam, it is my regard to truth, and not 
laziness, that I do not entertain you with 
as many prodigies as other travellers 
use to divert their readers with. I might 
easily pick up wonders in every town I 
pass through, or tell you a long series 
of popish miracles ; but I cannot fancy 
that there is any thing new in letting 
you know, that priests will lie, and the 
mob believe, all the world over. Tlien 
as for news, that you are so inquisitive 
about, how can it be entertaining to 
you (that do not know the people), that 

the prince of has forsaken the 

countess of ? or that the princess 

such-a-one lias an intrigue with count 
such-a-one ? Would you have me write 



490 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



novels like the countess of D' ? 

and is it not better to tell you a plain 
truth, that I am, &c. 



LETTER LXXV. 

Ladi/ M. W. Montague to Mr. Pope. 

Vienna, Jan. 16, O. S. ]717. 

I HAVE not time to answer your letter, 
being in all the hurry of preparing for 
my journey; but I think I ought to bid 
adieu to my friends with the same so- 
lemnity as if I was going to mount a 
breach, at least, if I am to believe the 
information of the people here, who de- 
nounce all sorts of terrors to me ; and, 
indeed, the weather is at present such, 
as very few ever set out in. I am 
threatened, at the same time, with being 
frozen to death, buried in the snow, and 
taken by the Tartars, who ravage that 
part of Hungary I am to pass. It is 
true, we shall have a considerable e5co?^^e, 
so that possibly 1 may be diverted with 
a new scene, by finding myself in the 
midst of a battle. How my adventures 
will conclude, I leave entirely to Provi- 
dence ; if comically, you shall hear of 

them. Pray be so good as to tell 

Mr. I have received his letter. 

Make him my adieus ; if I live, I will 
answer it. The same compliment to 
my lady R . 



LETTER LXXVI. 



Lord Chesterfield to Dr. R. Chenevix, 
Lord Bishop of Waterford. 

London, Dec, 16, 1760. 
My dear lord, 
I MAKE no excuses for the irregularity 
of my correspondence, or the unfre- 
quency of my letters ; for my declining 
mind keeps pace with my decaying body, 
and I can no more scribere digna legi 
(write things worthy to be read), than I 
CMxfacere digna scribi (do things worthy 
to be written). My health is always 
bad, though sometimes better, and some- 
times worse, but never good. My deaf- 
ness increases, and consequently deprives 
me of the comforts of society, which 
other people have in their illnesses ; in 
short, this last stage of my life is a very 
tedious one, and the roads very bad ; the 



end of it cannot be very far oflF, and I 
cannot be sorry for it. I wait for it, im- 
ploring the mercy of my Creator, and 
deprecating his justice. The best of us 
must trust to the former, and dread the 
latter. I am, &c. 



LETTER LXXVII. 

From the same to the same. 

Blackheath, Sept. 12, 1761. 
My dear lord, 
I DO not know whether I shall give you 
a reason which you will reckon a good 
one ; but I will honestly give you the 
true one, for my writing so seldom. It 
is one of the effects, and not the least dis- 
agreeable one, of my disorder, to make 
one indolent, and unwilling to undertake 
even what one has a mind to do. I have 
often set down in the intention of writ- 
ing to you, when the apparatus of a ta- 
ble, pen, ink, and paper, has discouraged 
me, and made me procrastinate, aud say, 
like Festus, " At a convenient time will 
I speak to thee." Those who have not 
experienced this indolence and languor, 
I know have no conception of them ; 
and therefore, many people say that I 
am extremely well, because I can walk 
and speak, without knowing how much 
it costs me to do either. This was the 
case of the bishop of Ossory, who report- 
ed only from my outside, which is not 
much altered. I cannot say, however, 
that I am positively ill ; but I can posi- 
tively say, that I am always unwell. In 
short, I am in my health, what many, 
reckoned in the main good sort of peo- 
ple, are in their morals ; they commit 
no flagrant crimes, but their conscience 
secretly reproaches them with the non- 
observance or the violation of many 
lesser duties. White is recovered from 
his acute illness, and is now only infirm 
and crazy, and will be so as long as he 
lives. I believe we shall start fair. 

The bishop of Ossory told me one 
thing, that I heard with great pleasure ; 
which was, that your son did extremely 
well at the university, and answered, not 
only your hopes, but your wishes; I 
sincerely congratulate you upon it. 

The town of London and the city of 
Westminster are gone quite mad with 
the wedding and the approaching coro- 
nation. People think nor talk of no- 



Sect. III. 



RECENT. 



491 



thing else. For my part, I have not seen 
our new queen yet ; and as for the coro- 
nation, 1 am not alive enough to march, 
nor dead enough to walk at it. You can 
bear now and then a quibble, I hope ; 
but I am, without the least equivoque, 
my dear lord, your most faithful friend, 
and humble servant. 

P. S. Your lord lieutenant will be 
with you immediately after the corona- 
tion. He has heard of combinations, 
confederations, and all sorts of ations, 
to handcuff and fetter him ; but he 
seems not in the least apprehensive of 
them. 



LETTER LXXVIII. 

Fro?n the same to the same. 

Blackheath, Oct. 1, 1761. 

My dear lord, 
'I HAVE been a long time in your debt, 
but I hope that my age and infirmities 
give me some privileges to compensate a 
little for the loss of youth and health. I 
am past the age at which a Roman sol- 
dier was rude donatus, which some have 
translated, given to he rude. I adopt that 
version. Since your friendship for me 
makes you solicitous to have accounts of 
my health, I will tell you that I am nei- 
ther better nor worse than when you 
heard from me last. I am never free 
from physical ills of one kind or another, 
but use and patience make them sup- 
portable ; and I own this obligation to 
them, that they have cured me of worse 
ills than themselves. I mean moral ills ; 
for they have given me leisure to exa- 
mine and reflection to subdue, ail my 
passions. I think only of doing my duty 
to my Creator, and to my fellow-created 
beings, and 07nnis in hoc sum (this is my 
only object). 

Are you a grandfather in embryo yet ? 
That ought by this time to be manifest. 
When you shall be really so, may your 
grandchildren give you as much satis- 
faction as your own children have 
done ! 

Good night, my dear lord; I am 
most affectionately yours. 



LETTER LXXIX. 

From the same to the same. 

London, Dec. 10, 1771. 

My dear lord, 
I AM sure you will believe me when I tell 
you that 1 am sincerely sorry for your 
loss, which I received the account of 
yesterday, and upon which I shall make 
you none of the trite compliments of 
condolence. Your grief is just ; but your 
religion, of which I am sure you have 
enough (with the addition of some phi- 
losophy), will make you keep it within 
due bounds, and leave the rest to time 
and avocations. When your son was 
with me here, just before he embarked 
for France, I plainly saw that his con- 
sumption was too far gone to leave the 
least hopes of a cure ; and, if he had 
dragged on this wretched life some few 
years longer, that life could have been 
but trouble and sorrow to you both. 
This consideration alone should mitigate 
your grief, and the care of your grand- 
son will be a proper avocation from it. 
Adieu, my dear lord. May this stroke of 
adversity be the last you may ever expe- 
rience from the hand of Providence ! 

Yours most affectionately and sin- 
cerely, &c. 



LETTER LXXX. 

Dr. Swift to the Earl of Chesterfield, 

November 10, 1730. 

My lord, 
I WAS positively advised by a friend, 
whose opinion has much weight with 
me, and who has a great veneration for 
your lordship, to venture a letter of soli- 
citation : and it is the first request of 
this kind that I ever made since the 
public changes, in times, persons, mea- 
sures, and opinions, drove me into dis- 
tance and obscurity. 

There is an honest man, whose name 
is Launcelot ; he has been long a servant 
to my lord Sussex : he married a relation 
of mine, a widow, with a tolerable 
jointure ; which depending upon a lease 
which the duke of Grafton suffered to 
expire about three years ago, sunk half 
her little fortune. Mr. Launcelot had 
many promises from the duke of Dorset, 
while liis grace held that office which is 



402 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV, 



HOW' in your lordship ; but they all failed, 
after the usual fate that the bulk of court- 
suitors must expect. 

I am very sensible that I have no 
manner of claim to the least favour from 
your lordship, whom I have hardly the 
honour to be known to, although you 
were always pleased to treat me with 
much humanity, and with more distinc- 
tion than I could pretend to deserve. 
I am likewise conscious of that demerit 
which I have largely shared with all 
those who concerned themselves in a 
court and ministry, whose maxims and 
proceedings have been ever since so 
much exploded. But your lordship will 
grant me leave to say, that, in those 
times, when any persons of the ejected 
party came to court, and were of tole- 
rable consequence, they never failed to 
succeed in any reasonable request they 
made for a friend. And, when I some- 
times added my poor solicitations, I used 
to quote the then ministers a passage in 
the Gospel, the poor (meaning their own 
dependants) you have alwa;t/s with you, 
&c. 

This is the strongest argument I have, 
to entreat your lordship's favour for Mr. 
Launcelot, who is a perfect honest man, 
and as loyal as you could wish. His 
wife, my near relation, has been my 
favourite from her youth, and as de- 
serving as it is possible for one of her 
level. It is understood, that some lit- 
tle employments about the court may 
be often in your lordship's disposal ; 
and that my lord Sussex will give Mr. 
Launcelot the character he deserves ; 
and then let my petition be (to speak 
in my own trade) a drop in the 
bucket. 

Remember, my lord, that although 
this letter be long, yet what particularly 
concerns my request is but of a few 
lines. 

I shall not congratulate with your 
lordship upon any of your present great 
employments, or upon the greatest that 
can possibly be given to you ; because 
you are one of those very few, who do 
more honour to a court than you can 
possibly receive from it, which I take to 
be a greater compliment to a court 
than it is to your lordship. I am, my 
lord, &c. 



LETTER LXXXL 

the Earl of Chesterfield to Dr. Swift, 



Hague, Dec. 15, N. S, 1730. 



Sir, 



You need not have made any excuse to 
me for your solicitation : on Ithe con- 
trary, I am proud of being the first per- 
son to whom you have thought it worth 
the while to apply since those changes, 
which, you say, drove you into distance 
and obscurity. I very well know the 
person you recommend to me, having 
lodged at his house a whole summer at 
Richmond. I have always heard a very 
good character of him, which alone would 
incline me to serve him ; but your re- 
commendation, I can assure you, will 
make me impatient to do it. However, 
that he may not again meet with the 
common fate of court suitors, nor I lie 
under the imputation of making court 
promises, I will exactly explain to you ' 
how far it is likely I may be able to 
serve him. 

When first I had this office, I took the 
resolution of turning out nobody; so 
that I shall only have the disposal of 
those places that the death of the pre- 
sent possessors will procure me. Some 
old servants, that have served me long 
and faithfully, have obtained the pro- 
mises of the first four or five vacancies ; 
and the early solicitations of some of my 
particular friends have tied me down for 
about as many more. But after having 
satisfied these engagements, I do assure 
you Mr. Launcelot shall be my first care. 
I confess his prospect is more remote 
than 1 could have wished it ; but, as it 
is so remote, he will not have the unea- 
siness of a disappointment, if he gets 
nothing ; and if he gets something, Ave 
shall both be pleased. 

As for his political principles, I am 
in no manner of pain about them. Were 
he a Tory, I would venture to serve 
/him, in the just expectation, that, should 
I ever be charged with having preferred 
a Tory, the person who was the author 
of my crime would likewise be the au- 
thor of my vindication. I am, with real 
esteem, sir, your most obedient humble 
servant. 



Sect. III. 



RECENT. 



4m 



LETTER LXXXII. 

Dean Swift to the Earl of Cliesterfield. 
January lo, 1750-1. 

My lord, 
I RETURN your lordship my most hum- 
ble thanks for the honour and favour of 
your letter, and desire your justice to 
believe, that, in writing to you a second 
time, I have no design of giving you a 
second trouble. My only end at present 
is to beg your pardon for a fault of ig- 
norance. I ought to have remembered, 
that the arts of courts are like those of 
play ; where, if the most expert be ab- 
sent a few months, the whole system is 
so changed, that he hath no more skill 
than a new beginner. Yet I cannot but 
wish, that your lordship had pleased to 
forgive one, who has been an utter 
stranger to public life above sixteen years. 
Bussy Rabutin himself, the politest per- 
son of his age, when he was recalled to 
court after a long banishment, appeared 
ridiculous there : and what could I ex- 
pect from my antiquated manner of ad- 
dressing your lordship in the prime of 
your life, in the height of fortune, fa- 
vour, and merit ; so distinguished by 
your active spirit, and greatness of your 
genius ? I do here repeat to your lord- 
ship, that I lay the fault of my miscon- 
duct entirely on a friend whom I ex- 
ceedingly love and esteem, whom I dare 
not name, and who is as bad a courtier 
by nature as I am grown by want of 
practice. God forbid that your lordship 
should continue in an employment, how- 
ever great and honourable, where you 
only can be an ornament to the court so 
long, until you have an opportunity to 
provide offices for a dozen low people, 
like the poor man whom I took the li- 
berty to mention ! And God forbid, that, 
in one particular branch of the king's 
family, there should ever be such a mor- 
tality as to take away a dozen of meaner 
servants in less than a dozen years ! 

Give me leave, in further excuse of my 
weakness, to confess, that, besides some 
hints from my friends, your lordship is in 
great measure to blame, for your oblig- 
ing manner of treating me in every place 
where I had the honour to see you ; 
which I acknowledge to have been a dis- 
tinction that I had not the least pre- 
tence to, and consequently as little to 
ground upon it the request of a favour. 



x\s I am an utter stranger to the pre- 
sent forms of the world, I have imagined 
more than once, that your lordship's 
pro(;eeding with me may be a refinement 
introduced by yourself ; and that as, iu 
my time, the most solemn and frequent 
promises of great men usually failed, 
against all probable appearances, so that 
single slight one of your lordship may, 
by your generous nature, early succeed 
against all visible impossibilities. I 
am, &c. 



LETTER LXXXIIL 

Lord Chesterfield to Sir Thomas Robin- 
son, Bart. 



Elackheath, Oct. 13, 175^ 



Sir, 



What can a hermit send you from 
hence, in return for your entertaining 
letter, but his thanks ? I see nobody here 
by choice, and I hear nobody by neces- 
sity. As for the contemplations of a deaf, 
solitary, sick man, I am sure they can- 
not be entertaining to a man in health 
and spirits, as I hope you are. Since I 
saw you I have not had one hour's health : 
the returns of my vertigoes, and subse- 
quent weaknesses and languors, grow 
both stronger and more frequent ; and, 
in short, I exist to no one good purpose 
of life ; and therefore do not care how 
soon so useless and tiresome an exist- 
ence ceases entirely. This wretched si- 
tuation makes me read with the utmost 
coolness and indifference the accounts in 
the newspapers, for they are my only 
informers now you are gone, of the wars 
abroad, and changes at home. I wish 
well to my species in general, and to my 
country in particular ; and therefore la- 
ment the havoc that is already made, 
and likely to be made of the former, and 
the inevitable ruin which I see ap- 
proaching by great strides to the lat- 
ter : but, I confess, those sensations are 
not so quick in me now as formerly ; 
long illness blunts them, as well as 
others ; and perhaps too, self-love being- 
no w out of the case, I do not feel so sen- 
sibly for others as I should do if that 
were more concerned. This I know is 
wrong, but 1 fear it is nature. 

Since you are your own steward, do 
not cheat yourself, for I have known 
many a man lose more by being his own 



494 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



steward than he would have heen robbed 
of by any other ; tenants are always too 
hard for landlords, especially such land- 
lords as think they understand those 
matters and do not, which, with submis- 
sion, may possibly be your case. 

I go next week to the Bath, by orders 
of the skilful, which I obey, because all 
places are alike to me ; otherwise, I ex- 
pect no advantage from it. But in all 
places I shall be most faithfully yours. 

LETTER LXXXIV. 

Lord Chesterfield to Dr. Cheyne of Bath. 

London, April 20, 1742. 

Dear doctor. 
Your inquiries and advice concerning 
my health are very pleasing marks of 
your remembrance and friendship ; which 
I assure you I value as I ought. It is 
very true, I have during these last three 
months, had frequent returns of my gid- 
dinesses, languors, and other nervous 
symptoms, for which I have taken vo- 
mits ; the first did me good, the others 
rather disagreed with me. It is the same 
with my diet ; sometimes the lowest 
agrees, at other times disagrees with me. 
In short, after all the attention and ob- 
servation I am capable of, I can hardly 
say what does me good, and what not. 
My constitution conforms itself so much 
to the fashion of the times, that it 
changes almost daily its friends for its 
enemies, and its enemies for its friends. 
Your alkalised mercury ' and your Bur- 
gundy have proved its two most constant 
friends. I take them both now, and v/ith 
more advantage than any other medicine. 
I propose going to Spa as soon as the 
season will permit, having really re- 
ceived great benefit by those waters last 
year, and I find my shattered tenement 
admits of but half repairs, and requires 
them annually. 

The corpus sanum^ which you wish me, 
will never be my lot ; but the mens sana 
I hope will be continued to me, and then 
I shall better bear the infirmities of the 
body. Hitherto, far from impairing my 
reason, they have only made me more 
reasonable, by subduing the tumultuous 
and troublesome passions. I enjoy my 
friends and my books as much as ever, 
and I seek for no other enjoyments ; so 
that I am become a perfect philosopher ; 
but whether malgrc moi or no, I y/Hl not 



take upon me to determine, not being 
sure that we do not owe more of our 
merit to accidents than our pride and 
self-love are willing to ascribe to them. 
I read with greafc pleasure your book, 
which your bookseller sent me according 
to your directions. The physical part is 
extremely good, and the metaphysical 
part may be so too, for what I know ; 
and I believe it is ; for, as I look upon 
all metaphysics to be guess-work of ima- 
gination, I know no imagination likelier 
to hit upon the right than yours ; and 
I will take your guess against any other 
metaphysician's whatsoever. That part, 
which is founded upon knowledge and 
experience, I look upon as a work of 
public utility ; and for which, the pre- 
sent age and their posterity may be 
obliged to you, if they will be pleased to 
follow it. 



LETTER LXXXV. 



John Dunning, Esq. to a Gentleman of 
the Inner Temple; containing Direc- 
tions to the Student. 

Lincoln's Inn, March 3, 1779. 

Dear sir. 
The habits of intercourse in which I 
have lived with your family, joined to 
the regard which I entertain for your- 
self, make me solicitous, in compliance 
with your request, to give you some hints 
concerning the study of the law. 

Our profession is generally ridiculed as 
being dry and uninteresting ; but a mind 
anxious for the discovery of truth and 
information will be amply gratified for 
the toil, in investigating the origin and 
progress of a jurisprudence, which has 
the good of the people for its basis, and 
the accumulated wisdom and experience 
of ages for its improvement. Nor is 
the study itself so intricate as has been 
imagined ; more especially since the la- 
bours of some modern writers have given 
it a more regular and scientific form. 
Without industry, however, it is impos- 
sible to arrive at any eminence in prac- 
tice ; and the man who shall be bold 
enough to attempt excellence by abilities 
alone, will soon find himself foiled by 
many who have inferior understandings, 
but better attainments. On the other 
hand, the most painful plodder can never 
an'ive at celebrity by mere reading ; a 



Sect. III. 



RECENT. 



495 



man calculated for success must add to 
native genius an instinctive faculty in 
the discovery and retention of that know- 
ledge only, which can be at once useful 
and productive. 

I imagine that a considerable degree 
of learning is absolutely necessary. The 
elder authors frequently wrote in Latin, 
and the foreign jurists continue the 
practice to this day. Besides this, clas- 
sical attainments contribute much to the 
refinement of the understanding, and 
embellishment of the style. The utility 
of grammar, rhetoric, and logic, are 
known and felt by every one. Geometry 
will afford the most apposite examples of 
close and pointed reasoning ; and geo- 
graphy is so very necessary in common 
life, that there is less credit in knowing, 
than dishonour in being unacquainted 
with it. But it is history, and more par- 
ticularly that of his own country, which 
will occupy the attention, and attract 
the regard of the great lawyer, A mi- 
nute knowledge of the political revolu- 
tions and judicial decisions of our pre- 
decessors, whether in the more ancient 
or modern seras of our government, is 
equally useful and interesting. This will 
include a narrative of all the material 
alterations in the common law, and the 
reasons ; and I would always recommend 
a diligent attendance on the courts of 
justice ; as by that means the practice 
of them (a circumstance of great mo- 
ment) will be easily and naturally ac- 
quired. Besides this, a much stronger 
impression will be made on the mind by 
the statement of the case, and the 
pleadings of the counsel, than from a 
cold uninteresting detail of it in a re- 
port. But, above all, a trial at bar, or a 
special argument, should never be neg- 
lected. As it is usual on these oc- 
casions to take notes, a knowledge of 
short -hand will give such facility to your 
labours, as to enable you to follow the 
most rapid speaker with certainty and 
precision. Common-place books are con- 
venient and useful ; and as they are ge- 
nerally lettered, a reference may be had 
to them in a moment. It is usual to 
acquire some insight into real business, 
under an eminent special pleader, pre- 
vious to actual practice at the bar ; this 
idea I beg leave strongly to second, and 
indeed I have known but a. few great 
men who have not possessed this advan- 
tage. I here subjoin a list of books ne- 



cessary for your perusal and instruction, 
to which I have added some remarks ; 
and wishing that you may add to a suc- 
cessful practice, that integrity which can 
alone make you worthy of it, I remain, 
&c. &c. 

Read Hume's History of England, 
particularly observing the rise, progress, 
and declension of the feudal system. 
Minutely attend to the Saxon govern- 
ment that preceded it, and dwell on the 
reigns of Edward I , Henry VI , Henry VI I , 
Henry VIII, James I, Charles I, Charles 
II, and James II. 

Blackstone. On the second reading 
turn to the references. 

Mr. Justice Wright's learned Treatise 
on Tenures. 

Coke Littleton, especially every word 
of Fee-simple, Fee-tail, and Tenant in 
tail. 

Coke's Institutes ; more particularly 
the 1st and Ild ; and Serjeant Hawkins's 
Compendium. 

Coke's Reports — Plowden's Commen- 
tary — Bacon's Abridgement ; and First 
Principles of Equity — Pigott on Fines — 
Jleports of Croke, Burrow, Raymond, 
Saunders, Strange, and Peere Williams 
— Paley's Maxims — Lord Bacon's Ele- 
ments of the Common Law. 



LETTER LXXXVI. - 

Dr. Johnson to Mr, Elphinsion^. 

Sept. 23, 1750. 
Dear sir. 
You have, as I find, by every kind of 
evidence, lost an excellent mother, and 
I hope you will not think me incapable 
of partaking of your grief. I have a 
mother now eighty-two years of age, 
whom therefore 1 must soon lose, unless 
it please God that she rather should 
mourn for me. I read the letters in 
which you relate your mother's death to 
Mr. Strahan ; and think I do myself ho- 
nour when I tell you that I read them 
with tears ; but tears are neither to me 
nor to you of any farther use, when once 
the tribute of nature has been paid. The 
business of life summons us away from 
useless grief, and calls us to the exercise 
of those virtues of which we are lament- 

* Translator of Martial, Bossuet, &c. and for- 
merly master of an academy at Keasington. 



4^ 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



ing our deprivation. The greatest be- 
nefit, which one friend can confer upon 
another, is to guard, and incite, and ele- 
vate his virtues. This your mother will 
still perform, if you diligently preserve 
the memory of her life, and of her death : 
a life, so far as I can learn, useful, wise, 
and innocent ; and a death resigned, 
peaceful, and holy. I cannot forbear to 
mention, that neither reason nor revela- . 
tion denies you to hope that you may 
increase her happiness by obeying her 
precepts : and that she may, in her pre- 
sent state, look with pleasure upon every 
act of virtue to which her instructions 
or example have contributed. ^VTiether 
this be more than a pleasing dream, or a 
just opinion of separate spirits, is indeed 
of no great importance to us, when we 
consider ourselves as acting under the 
eye of God ; yet surely there is some- 
thing pleasing in the belief, that our 
separation from those whom we love is 
merely corporeal ; and it may be a great 
incitement to virtuous friendship, if it 
can be made probable, that union, which 
has received the divine approbation, 
shall continue to eternity. 

There is one expedient, by which you 
may, in some degree, continue her pre- 
sence. If you write down minutely what 
you remember of her from your earliest 
years, you will read it vidth great plea- 
sure, and receive from it many hints of 
soothing recollection, when time shall 
remove her yet farther from you, and 
your grief shall be matured to venera- 
tion. To this, however painful for the 
present, I cannot but advise you, as to 
a source of comfort and satisfaction in 
the time to come : for all comfort and 
all satisfaction is sincerely wished you 
by, dear sir, your, &c. 

LETTER LXXXVII. 

D?'. Johnson to Mr. Elphinston. 

Dear sir, 
I CANNOT but confess the failure of my 
correspondence ; but hope the same re- 
gard, which you express for me on every 
other occasion, will incline you to for- 
give me. I am often, very often ill : and 
when I am well, am obliged to work ; 
but, indeed, have never m.uch used my- 
self to punctuality. You are, however, 
not to make such kind of inferences, 
when I forbear to reply to your kind- 



ness^, for be assured, I never receive a 
letter from you without great pleasure, 
and a very warm sense of your generosity 
and friendship, which I heartily blame 
myself for not cultivating with more 
care. In this, as in many other cases, I 
go wrong in opposition to conviction ; 
for I think scarce any temporal good 
equally to be desired with the regard 
and familiarity of worthy men, and hope 
we shall be some time nearer to each 
other, and have a more ready way of 
pouring out our hearts. 

I am glad that you still find encou- 
ragement to persevere in your publica- 
tion*, and shall beg the favour of six 
more volumes to add to my former six, 
when you can with any convenience 
send them me. Please to present a set 
in my name to Mr. Ruddimanf, of whom 
1 hear that his learning i& not his highest 
excellence. 

I have transcribed the mottos, and 
returned them, I hope not too late, of 
which I think many very happily per- 
formed. Mr. Cave has put the last in 
the Magazine J, in which I think he did 
well. I beg of you to write soon, and 
to write often, and to write long letters ; 
which I hope in time to repay you, but 
you must be a patient creditor. I have, 
however, this of gratitude, that I think 
of you with regard, when I do not per- 
haps give the proofs which I ought of 
piety. Sir, your most obliged and most 
humble servant, &c. 

LETTER LXXXVIII. 

From the same to the Rev. Dr, Taylor. 

March 18, 1752. 

Dear sir, 
Let me have your company and your 
instruction. Do not live away from me ; 
my distress is great. 

Pray desire Mrs. Taylor to inform me 
what mourning I should buy for my mo- 
ther and miss Porter, and bring a note 
in writing with you. 

Remember me in your prayers ; for 
vain is the help of man. I am, dear 
sir, 6cc. 

* This was of the Rambler, at Edinburgh, to 
which Mr. Elphinstou translated the mottos. 

f A very learned writer, author of several 
historical and philological works. He died 
January 1757. 

+ See Gent. Mag. Oct. 1752. 



Sect. III. 



RECENT. 



497 



LETTER LXXXIX. 

Dr. Johnson to Miss Boothbj/. 

January 1, 1755. 
Dearest madam, 
Though I am afraid your illness leaves 
you little leisure for the reception of airy 
civilities, yet 1 cannot forbear to pay 
you my congratulations on the new year; 
and to declare my wishes, that your years 
to come may be many and happy. In 
this wish, indeed, I include myself, who 
have none but you on whom my heart 
reposes : yet surely I wish your good, 
even though your situation were such as 
should permit you to communicate no 
gratifications to, dearest, dearest madam, 
yours, &c, 

LETTER XC. 

From the same to the same. 

Jan. 3, 1755. 
Dearest madam. 
Nobody but you can recompense me 
for the distress which I suffered on Mon- 
day night. Having engaged Dr. Law- 
rence to let me know, at whatever hour, 
the state in which he left you, I con- 
cluded, when he staid so long, that he 
staid to see my dearest expire. I was 
composing myself as I could to hear what 
yet I hoped not to hear, when his ser- 
vant brought me word that you were 
better. Do you continue to grow bet- 
ter ? Let my dear little Miss inform me 
on a card. I would not have you write, 
lest it should hurt you, and consequently 
hurt likewise, dearest madam, your, &c. 



LETTER XCI. 

Dr. Johnson to the Right Honourable the 
Earl of Chesterfield. 

February, 1755. 

My lord, 
I HAVE been lately informed, by the pro- 
prietor of the World, that two papers, in 
which my Dictionary is recommended to 
the public, were written by your lord- 
ship. To be so distinguished, is an ho- 
nour which, being very little accustomed 
to favours from the great, I know not 
well how to receive, or in what terms to 
acknowledge. 

When, upon some slight encourage- 
ment, I first visited your lordship, I was 
overpowered, like the rest of mankind, 



by the enchantment of your address; 
and could not forbear to wish that I 
might boast myself le vainqueur du vain" 
queur de la terre; — that I might obtain 
that regard for which I saw the world 
contending ; but I found my attendance 
so little encouraged, that neither pride 
nor modesty would suffer me to continue 
it. When I had once addressed your 
lordship in public, I had exhausted all 
the art of pleasing which a retired and 
uncourtly scholar can possess. I had 
done all that I could ; and no man is well 
pleased to have his all neglected, be it 
ever so little. 

Seven years, my lord, have now past, 
since I waited in your outward rooms, or 
was repulsed from your door ; during 
which time I have been pushing on my 
work through difficulties, of which it is 
useless to complain, and have brought it, 
at last, to the verge of publication, with- 
out one act of assistance *, one word of 
encouragement, or one smile of favour. 
Such treatment I did not expect, for I 
never had a patron before. 

The shepherd in Virgil grew at last 
acquainted with Love, and found him a 
native of the rocks. 

Is not a patron, my lord, one who 
looks with unconcern on a man struggling 
for life in the water, and, when he has 
reached ground, encumbers him with 
help ? The notice which you have been 
pleased to take of my labours, had it 
been early, had been kind ; but it has 
been delayed till I am indifferent, and 
cannot enjoy it ; till I am solitary, and 
cannot impart it f ; till I am known, and 
do not want it. I hope it is no very 
cynical asperity not to confess obligations 
where no benefit has been received, or 
to be unwilling that the public should 
consider me as owing that to a patron, 
which Providence has enabled me to do 
for myself. 

Having carried on my work thus far 
Avith so little obligation to any favourer 



* The following note is subjoined by Mr. 
Langton. — Dr. Johnson, when he gave me this 
copy of his letter, desired that I would annex to 
it his information to me, that whereas it is said 
in the letter that * no assistance has been re- 
ceived,' be did once receive from lord Chester- 
field the sum of ten pounds; but as that was 
so inconsiderable a sum, he thought the men- 
tion of it could not properly find place in a 
letter of the kind that this was. 

f In this passage Dr. Johnson evidently al- 
ludes to the loss of his wife. 

2K 



498 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



SOOK IV. 



of learning, 1 shall not be disappointed 
tlioug-h I should conclude it, if less be 
possible, with less ; for I have been long 
v^^akened from that dream of hope, in 
which I once boasted myself with so 
much exultation, my lord, your lord- 
ship's most humble, most obedient ser- 
vant. 



LETTER XCII. 

Dr Johnson to Miss *-x-x-^**, 

July 19, 1755. 

Madam, 
I KNOW not how liberally your gene- 
rosity would reward those who should 
do you any service, when you can so 
kindly acknowledge a favour which I 
intended only to myself. That accident- 
ally hearing that you were in town, I 
made haste to enjoy an interval of plea- 
sure, which I found would be short, was 
the natural consequence of that self-love 
which is always busy in quest of happi- 
ness ; of that happiness which we often 
miss when we think it near, and some- 
times find when we imagine it lost. 
When I had missed you, I went away 
disappointed ; and did not know that my 
vexation would be so amply repaid by so 
kind a letter. A letter indeed can but 
imperfectly supply the place of its writer, 
at least of such a writer as you ; and a 
letter which makes me still more desire 
your.presence, is but a weak consolation 
under the necessity of living longer with- 
out you : with this however I must be for 
a time content, as much content at least 
as discontent will suffer me ; for Mr. 
Barestti being a single being in this part 
of the world, and entirely clear from all 
engagem-cnts, takes the advantage of his 
independence, and will come before me ; 
for which if I could blame him, I should 
punish him ; but my own heart tells me 
that he only does to me, what, if I could, 
I should do to him. 

I hope Mrs. , when she came to 

her favourite place, found her house dry, 
and her woods growing, and the breeze 
whistling, and the birds singing, and her 
own heart dancing. And for you, ma- 
dam, whose heart cannot yet dance to 
such music, 1 know riot what to hope ; 
indeed I could hope every thing that 
would please you, except that perhaps 
the absence of higher pleasures is neces- 
sary to keep some little place vacant 



in your remembrance for, madam, your, 
&c. 



LETTER XCIIL 

Dr. Johnson to Miss Boothhi/. 

Dec. 30, 1755. 

Dear madam. 
It is again midnight, and I am again 
alone. With what meditation shall I 
amuse this waste hour of darkness and 
vacuity? If I turn my thoughts upon 
myself, what do I perceive but a poor 
helpless being, reduced by a blast of 
wind to weakness and misery ? How my 
present distemper was brought upon me 
I can give no account, but impute it to 
some sudden succession of cold to heat ; 
such as in the common road of life can- 
not be avoided, and against which no 
precaution can be taken. 

Of the fallaciousness of hope, and the 
uncertainty of schemes, every day gives 
some new proof ; but it is seldom heed- 
ed, till something rather felt than seen 
awakens attention. This illness, in which 
I have suffered something and feared 
much more, has depressed my confidence 
and elation ; and made me consider all 
that I have promised myself, as less cer- 
tain to be attained or enjoyed. I have 
endeavoured to form resolutions of a 
better life ; but I form them weakly, 
under the consciousness of an external 
motive. Not that 1 conceive a time of 
sickness a time improper for recollection 
and good purposes, which I believe dis- 
eases and calamities often sent to pro- 
duce, but because no man can know how 
little his performance will answer to his 
promises ; and designs are nothing in 
human eyes till they are realized by exe- 
cution. 

Continue, my dearest, your prayers 
for me, that no good resolution may be 
vain. You think, I believe, better of 
me than I deserve. I hope to be in time 
what I wish to be ; and what I have 
hitherto satisfied myself too readily with 
only wishing. 

Your billet brought me what I much 
wished to have, a proof that I am still 
remembered by you at the hour in which 
I most desire it. ' 

The doctor is anxious about you. He 
thinks you too negligent of yourself ; if 
you will promise to be cautious, I will 
exchange promises, as we have already 



Sect. III. 



RECENT. 



499 



exchanged injunctions. However, do 
not write to^ me more than you can ea- 
sily bear ; do not interrupt your ease to 
write at all. 

Mr. Fitzherbert sent to-day to offer 
me some wine ; the people about me say 
I ought to accept it ; 1 shall therefore 
be obliged to him if he will send me a 
bottle. 

There has gone about a report that I 
died to-day, which I mention, lest you 
should hear it and be alarmed. You 
see that I think my death may alarm 
you ; which for me is to think very highly 
of earthly friendship. I believe it arose 
from the death of one of my neighbours. 
You know Des Cartes's argument. " I 
think, therefore I am." It is as good a 
consequence, '* I write, therefore I am 
alive." I might give another, " I am 
alive, therefore I love miss Boothby ;'* 
but that 1 hope our friendship may be 
of far longer duration than life. I am, 
dearest madam, with sincere affection, 
your, &c. 



LETTER XCIV. 

From the same to the same. 

Dec. 30. 

My sweet angel, 
I HAVE read your book, I am afraid you 
will think without any great improve- 
ment ; whether you can read my notes 
I know not. You ought not to be of- 
fended : I am, perhaps, as sincere as the 
writer. In aU things that terminate here 
I shall be much guided by your influence, 
and I should take or leave by your direc- 
tion ; but I cannot receive my religion 
from any human hand. I desire, how- 
ever, to be instructed, and am far from 
thinking myself perfect. 

1 beg you to return the book when 
you have looked into it. I should not 
have written what is in the margin, had 
I not had it from you, or had I not in- 
tended to shew it you. 

It affords me anew conviction, that in 
these books there is little new except 
new forms of expression ; which may be 
sometimes taken, even by the writer, for 
ncAv doctrines. I sincerely hope that 
God, whom you so much desire to serve 
aright, will bless you, and restore you to 
health, if he sees it best. Surely no 
human understanding can pray for any 
thing temporal, otherwise than condi- 



tionally. Dear angel, do not forget me. 
My heart is full of tenderness. 

It has pleased God to permit me to be 
much better ; which I believe will please 
you. 

Give me leave, who have thought 
much on medicine, to propose to you an 
easy, and I think a very probable reme- 
dy for indigestion and lubricity of the 
bowels. Dr. Lawrence has told me your 
case. Take an ounce of dried orange- 
peel, finely powdered, divide it into scru- 
ples, and take one scruple at a time in 
any manner ; the best way is perhaps to 
drink it in a glass of hot red-port, or to 
eat it first, and drink the wine after it. 
If you mix cinnamon or nutmeg with the 
powder, it were not worse ; but it will 
be more bulky, and so more troublesome. 
This is a medicine not disgusting, not 
costly, easily tried, and, if not found 
useful, easily left off. 

I would not have you offer it to the 
doctor as mine. Physicians do not love 
intruders : yet do not take it without his 
leave. But do not be easily put off, for 
it is, in my opinion, very likely to help 
you, and not likely to do you harm ; do 
not take too much in haste ; a scruple 
once in three hours, or about five scru- 
ples a-day, will be sufiicient to begin, or 
less if you find any aversion. I think 
using sugar with it might be bad ; if sy- 
rup, use old syrup of quinces : but even 
that I do not like. I should think better 
of conserve of sloes. Has the doctor 
mentioned the bark ? in powder you 
could hardly take it ; perhaps you might 
take the infusion. 

Do not think me troublesome. I am 
full of care. I love you and honour you ; 
and am very unwilling to lose you. A 
Dieuje vous recommende. I am, madam, 
your, &c. 

My compliments to my dear Miss. 

LETTER XCV. 

Dr. Johnson to Joseph Baretti, at Milan. 

London, June 10, 17(51. 
You reproach me very often with parsi- 
mony of writing ; but you may discover 
by the extent of my paper, that I design 
to recompense rarity by length. A short 
letter to a distant friend is, in my opinion, 
an insult like that of a slight bow or 
cursory salutation, a proof of unwilling- 
ness to do much, even where there is a 
2 K2 



500 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



necessity of doing something. Yet it 
must be remembered, that he who con- 
tinues the same course of life in the same 
place wil have little to tell. One week 
and one year are very like another. The 
silent changes made by time are not al- 
ways perceived ; and if they are not per- 
ceived, cannot be recounted. I have 
risen and lain down, talked and mused, 
while you have roved over a considerable 
part of Europe ; yet I have not envied 
my Baretti any of his pleasures, though 
perhaps I have envied others his com- 
pany ; and I am glad to have other na- 
tions made acquainted with the charac- 
ter of the English, by a traveller who 
has so nicely inspected our manners, 
and so successfully studied our litera- 
ture. 1 received your kind letter from 
Falmouth, in which you gave me notice 
of your departure for Lisbon ; and an- 
other from Lisbon, in which you told 
me that you were to leave Portugal in a 
few days. To either of these, how 
could any answer be returned ? I have 
had a third from Turin, complaining that 
I have not answered the former. Your 
English style still continues in its purity 
and vigour. With vigour your genius 
will supply it; but its purity must be 
continued by close attention. To use 
two languages familiarly, and without 
contaminating one by the other, is very 
difficult ; and to use more than two, is 
hardly to be hoped. The praises which 
some have received for their multipli- 
city of languages, may be sufficient to 
excite industry, but can hardly generate 
confidence. 

I know not whether I can heartily re- 
joice at the kind reception which you have 
found, or at the popularity to which you 
are exalted. I am willing that your me- 
rit should be distinguished ; but cannot 
wish that your affections may be gained. 
I would have you happy wherever you 
are : yet 1 would have you wish to return 
to England. If ever you visit us again, 
you will find the kindness of your friends 
undiminished. To tell you how many 
inquiries are made after you, would be 
tedious, or, if not tedious, would be vain ; 
because you may be told in a very few 
words, that all who knew you, wish 
you well ; and all that you embraced at 
your departure, will caress you at your 
return ; therefore do not let Italian 
academicians nor Italian ladies drive us 
from your thoughts. You may find 



among us what you wiU leave behind, 
soft smiles and easy sonnets. Yet I shall 
not wonder if all our invitations should 
be rejected ; for there is a pleasure in 
being considerable at home, which is not 
easDy resisted. * 

By conducting Mr. Southwell to Ve- 
nice, you fulfilled, I know, the original 
contract : yet I would wish you not 
wholly to loose him from your notice, 
but to recommend him to such acquaint- 
ance as may best secure him from suffer- 
ing by his own follies, and to take such 
general care both of his safety and his 
interest as may come within your power. 
His relations will thank you for any such 
gratuitous attention : at least, they will 
not blame you for any evil that may 
happen, whether they thank you or not 
for any good. 

You know that we have a new king 
and a new parliament. Of the new par- 
liament Fitzherbert is a member. We 
were so weary of our old king, that we 
are much pleased with his successor : of 
whom we are so much inclined to hope 
great things, that most of us begin al- 
ready to believe them. The young man 
is hitherto blameless ; but it would be 
unreasonable to expect much from the 
immaturity of juvenile years, and the 
ignorance of princely education. He has 
been long in the hands of the Scots, and 
has already favoured them more than 
the English will contentedly endure. 
But perhaps he scarcely knows whom he 
has distinguished, or whom he has dis- 
gusted. 

The artists have instituted a yearly 
exhibition of pictures and statues, in 
imitation, as I am told, of foreign Aca- 
demies. This year was the second exhi- 
bition. They please themselves much 
with the multitude of spectators, and 
imagine that the English school will rise 
in reputation. Reynolds is without a 
rival, and continues to add thousands to 
thousands, which he deserves, among 
other excellencies, by retaining his kind- 
ness for Baretti. This exhibition has 
filled the heads of the artists and lovers 
of art. Surely life, if it be not long, is 
tedious, since we are forced to call in 
the assistance of so many trifles to rid us 
of our time, of that time which never 
can return. 

I know my Baretti will not be satisfied 
with a letter in which I give him no ac- 
count of myself; yet what account shall 



Sect. III. 



RECENT. 



501 



I give of him ? I have not, since the day 
of our separation, suffered or done any 
thing considerable. The only change 
in my way of life is, that I have fre- 
quented the theati-e more than in former 
seasons. But I have gone tliither only 
to escape from myself. We have had 
many new farces, and the comedy called 
The Jealous Wife, wliich, though not 
"vvritten with much genius, was yet so 
well adapted to the stage, and so well 
exhibited by the actors, that it was 
crowded for near twenty nights. I am 
digressing from myself to the play- 
house ; but a barren plan must be filled 
with episodes. Of myself I have no- 
thing to say, but that I have hitherto 
lived without the concurrence of my 
own judgment ; yet I continue to flatter 
myself, that, when you return, you will 
find me mended. I do not wonder that, 
where the monastic life is permitted, 
every order finds votaries, and every 
monastery inhabitants. Men will sub- 
mit to any rule, by which they may be 
exempted from the tyranny of caprice 
and of chance. They are glad to sup- 
ply, by external authority, their own 
want of constancy and resolution, and 
court the government of others, when 
long experience has convinced them of 
their own inability to govern themselves. 
If I were to visit Italy, my curiosity 
would be more attracted by convents 
than by palaces ; though I am afraid 
that I should find expectation in both 
places equally disappointed, and life in 
both places supported with impatience, 
and quitted with reluctance. That it 
must be so soon quitted, is a powerful 
remedy against impatience ; but what 
shall free us from reluctance? Those 
who have endeavoured to teach us to 
die well, have taught few to die wil- 
lingly ; yet I cannot but hope that a 
good life might end at last in a contented 
death. 

You see to what a train of thou2:ht I 
am drawn by the mention of myself. Let 
me now turn my attention upon you. I 
hope you take care to keep an exact jour- 
nal, and to register all occurrences and 
observations; for your friends here ex- 
pect such a book of travels as has not been 
often seen. You have given us good 
specimens in your letters from Lisbon. 
I wish you had staid longer in Spain, 
for no country is less known to the rest 
of Europe ; but the quickness of your 



discernment must make amends for the 
celerity of your motions. He that knows 
which way to direct Ms view, sees much 
in a little time. 

Write to me very often, and I will not 
neglect to write to you ; and I may per- 
haps in time get something to write ; at 
least, you will know by my letters, what- 
ever else they may have or want, that I 
continue to be your most affectionate 
friend. 

LETTER XCVI. 

Dr. Johnson to Joseph Baretti, 



Sir, 



London, July 20, 17G'2. 



However justly you may accuse me for 
want of punctuality in correspondence, 
I am not so far lost in negligence as to 
omit the opportunity of writing to you, 
which Mr. Beauclerk's passage through 
Milan affords me. 

I suppose you received the Idlers, and 
I intend that you shall soon receive 
Shakspeare, that you may explain his 
works to the ladies of Italy, and tell them 
the story of the editor, among the other 
strange narratives with which your long 
residence in his unknown region has 
supplied you. 

As you have now been long away, I 
suppose your curiosity may pant for some 
news of your old friends. Miss Williams 
and I live much as we did. Miss Cotte- 
rel still continues to cling to Mrs. Porter, 
and Charlotte is now big of the fourth 
child. Mr. Reynolds gets six thousand a 
year. Levet is lately married, not with- 
out much suspicion that he has been 
wretchedly cheated in his match. Mr. 
Chambers is gone this day, for the first 
time, the ciicuit with the judges. Mr. 
Richardson is dead of an apoplexy, and 
his second daughter has married a mer- 
chant. 

My vanity, or my kindness, makes 
me flatter myself, that you would rather 
hear of me than of those whom I have 
mentioned ; but of myself I have very 
little which I care to tell. Last winter I 
went down to my native town, where I 
found the streets much narrower and 
shorter than I thought I had left them, 
inhabited by a new race of people, to 
whom I was very little known. My 
play-fellows were grown old, and forced 
me to suspect, that I was no longer young. 



502 



E L E G A N T E P J S T L E S. 



Book IV. 



My only remaining friend has changed 
his principles, and has become the tool 
of the predominant faction. My daugh- 
ter-in-law, from whom I expected most, 
and whom I met with sincere benevo- 
lence, has lost the beauty and gaiety of 
youth, without having gained much of 
the wisdom of age. 1 wandered about for 
five days, and took the first convenient 
opportunity of returning to a place, 
where, if there is not much happiness, 
there is at least such a diversity of good 
and evil, that slight vexations do not fix 
u])on the heart. 

I think, in a few weeks, to try another 
excursion : though to what end ? Let me 
know, my Baretti, what has been the re- 
sult of your return to your own country ; 
whether time has made any alteration 
for the better ; and whether, when the first 
raptures of salutation were over, you did 
not find your thoughts confessed their 
disappointment. 

Moral sentences appear ostentatious 
and tumid, when they have no greater 
occasions than the journey of a wit to 
his own town : yet such pleasures and 
such pains make up the general mass of 
life : and as nothing is little to him that 
feels it with great sensibility, a mind 
able to see common incidents in their 
real state, is disposed by very common 
incidents to very serious contemplations. 
Let us trust that a time will come, when 
the present moment shall be no longer 
irksome ; when we shall not borrow all 
our happiness from hope, which at last 
is to end in disappointment. 

I beg that you will shew Mr. Beau- 
clerk all the civilities that you have in 
your power ; for he has always been kind 
to me. 

I have lately seen Mr. Straicto, pro- 
fessor of Padua, who has told me of your 
quarrel with an abbot of the Celestine 
Order ; but had not the particulars very 
ready in his memory. When you write 
to Mr. Marsili, let him know that I re- 
member him with kindness. 

May you, my Baretti, be very happy 
at Milan, or some other place nearer to, 
sir, your most aflTectionate humble ser- 
vant, &c. 



LETTER XCVH. 

Dr. Johnson to Joseph Baretti. 



Dec. 21, 1762r, 



Sir, 



You are not to suppose, with all your 
conviction of my idleness, that I have 
passed all this time without writing tO' 
my Baretti. I gave a letter to Mr. Beau- 
clerk, who, in my opinion, and in hi& 
own, was hastening to Naples for the re- 
covery of his health ; but he has stoppecS 
at Paris, and I know not when he will 
proceed. Langton is with him. 

I will not trouble you with specula- 
tions about peace and war. The good of 
ill success of battles and embassies ex- 
tends itself to a very small part of do- 
mestic life ; we all have good and evil, 
which we feel more sensibly than our 
petty part of public miscarriage or pros- 
perity. I am sorry for your disappoint- , 
ment, with which you seem more touched 
than 1 should expect a man of your re- 
solution and experience to have been, 
did I not know that general truths are 
seldom applied to particular occasions ; 
and that the fallacy of our self-love ex- 
tends itself as wide as our interest or af- 
fections. Every man believes that mis- 
tresses are unfaithftd, and patrons capri- 
cious ; but he excepts his own mistress 
and his own patron. We have all learn- 
ed that greatness is negligent and con- 
temptuous, and that in courts, life is 
often languished away in ungratified ex- 
pectation ; but he that approaches great- 
ness, or glitters in a court, imagines that 
destiny has at last exempted him from 
the common lot. 

Do not let such evils overwhelm you 
as thousands have suffered and thou- 
sands have surmounted; but turn your 
thoughts with vigour to some other plan 
of life ; and keep always in your mind, 
that, with due submission to Providence, 
a man of genius has been seldom ruined 
but by himself. Your patron's weakness, 
or insensibility will finally do you little 
hurt, if he is not assisted by your own 
passions. Of your love I know not the 
propriety, nor can estimate the power ; 
but in love, as in every other passion of 
which hope is the essence, we ought al- 
ways to remember the uncertainty of 
events. There is indeed nothing that so 
much seduces reason from her vigilance, 
as the thought of i)asfeing life with an 



Sect. III. 



RECENT. 



503 



amiable woman ; and if all would happen 
that a lover fancies, I know not what 
other terrestrial happiness would de- 
serve pursuit. But love and marriage 
are different states. Those who are to 
suffer the evils together, and to suffer 
often for the sake of one another, soon 
lose that tenderness of look and that be- 
nevolence of mind which arose from the 
participation of unmingled pleasure and 
successive amusement. A woman we 
are sure will not be always fair ; we are 
not sure she will always be virtuous ; 
and man cannot retain through life that 
respect and assiduity by which he pleases 
for a day or for a month. I do not 
however pretend to have discovered that 
life has any thing more to be desired 
than a prudent and virtuous marriage ; 
therefore know not what counsel to give 
you. 

If you can quit your imagination of 
love and greatness, and leave your hopes 
of preferment and bridal raptures to try 
once more the fortune of literature and 
industry, the way through France is now 
open. We flatter ourselves that we shall 
cultivate with great diligence the arts of 
peace ; and every man will be welcome 
among us who can teach us any thing 
we do not know. For your part, you 
will find all your own friends willing to 
receive you. 

Reynolds still continues to increase in 
reputation and in riches. Miss Williams, 
who very much loves you, goes on in the 
old way. Miss Cotterel is still with Mrs. 
Porter. Miss Charlotte is married to 
Dean Lewis, and has three children. Mr. 
Levet has married a street walker. But 
the gazette of my narration must now ar- 
rive to tell you, that Bathurst went phy- 
sician to the army, and died at the Ha- 
vannah. 

I know not whether I have not sent 
you word that Huggins and Richardson 
are both dead. When we see our ene- 
mies and friends gliding away before us, 
let us not forget that we are subject to 
the general law of mortality, and shall 
soon be where our doom will be fixed for 
ever. I pray God to bless you, and am, 
sir, your most affectionate humble ser- 
vant, &c. 

Write soon. 



LETTER XCVIIl. 



Mrs. Thrak to Mr, 



-, on his marriage. 



My dear sir, 
I RECEIVED the news of your marriage 
with infinite delight, and hope that the 
sincerity with which I wish your happi- 
ness may excuse the liberty 1 take in 
giving you a few rules whereby more 
certainly to obtain it. I see you smile at 
my wrong-headed kindness, and, reflect- 
ing on the charms of your bride, cry out 
in a rapture, that you are happy enough 
without my rules. I know you are ; but 
after one of the forty years, which 1 hope 
you will pass pleasingly together, are 
over, this letter may come in turn, and 
rules for felicity may not be found unne- 
cessary, however some of them may ap- 
pear impracticable. 

Could that kind of love be kept alive 
through the married state, which makes 
the charm of a single one, the sovereign 
good would no longer be sought for ; in 
the union of two faithful lovers it would 
be found : but reason shows us that this 
is impossible, and experience informs us 
that it never was so ; we must preserve 
it as long, and supply it as happily, as we 
can. 

WTien your present violence of passion 
subsides, however, and a more cool and 
tranquil affection takes its place, be not 
hasty to censure yourself as indifferent, 
or to lament yourself as unhappy ; you 
have lost that only which it was impos- 
sible to retain, and it were graceless amid 
the pleasures of a prosperous summer to 
regret the blossoms of a transient spring. 
Neither unwarily condemn your bride's 
insipidity, till you have recollected that 
no object, however sublime, no sounds, 
however charming, can continue to 
transport us with delight when they no 
longer strike us with novelty. The 
skill to renovate the powers of pleasing 
is said indeed to be possessed by some 
women in an eminent degree, but the 
artifices of maturity are seldom seen to 
adorn the innocence of youth ; you have 
made your choice, and ought to ap- 
prove it. 

Satiety follows quick upon the heels of 
possession ; and to be happy, we must al- 
ways have something in view. The per- 
son of your lady is already all your ovnn, 
and will not grow more pleasing in your 
eyes I doubt, though the rest of your sex 



504 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



will think her handsomer for these dozen 
years. Turn, therefore, all your atten- 
tion to her mind, which will daily grow 
brighter by polishing. Study some easy 
science together, and acquire a similarity 
of tastes while you enjoy a community of 
pleasures. You will, by this means, have 
many images in common, and be freed 
from the necessity of separating to find 
amusement : nothing is so dangerous to 
wedded love as the possibility of either 
beingjhappy out of the company of the 
other ; endeavour therefore to cement 
the present intimacy on every side ; let 
your wife never be kept ignorant of your 
income, your expenses, your friendships, 
or aversions ; let her know your very 
faults, but make them amiable by your 
virtues ; consider all concealment as a 
breach of fidelity ; let her never have any 
thing to find out in your character ; and 
remember, that from the moment one of 
the partners turns spy upon the other, 
they have commenced a state of hosti- 
lity. 

Seek not for happiness in singularity ; 
and dread a refinement of wisdom as a 
deviation into folly. Listen not to those 
sages, who advise you always to scorn the 
counsel of a woman, and if you comply 
with her requests pronounce you to be 
wife-ridden. Think not any privation, 
except of positive evil, an excellence ; and 
do not congratulate yourself that your 
wife is not a learned lady, that she never 
touches a card, or is wholly ignorant 
how to make a pudding. Cards, cook- 
ery, and learning, are all good in their 
places, and may all be used with advan- 
tage. 

With regard to expense, I can only 
observe, that the money laid out in the 
purchase of distinction is seldom or ever 
profitably employed. We live in an age 
when splendid furniture and glittering 
equipage are grown too common to catch 
the notice of the meanest spectator ; and , 
for the greater ones, they only regard our 
wasteful folly with silent contempt, or 
open indignation. This may perhaps be 
a displeasing reflection, but the following 
consideration ought to make amends. 
The age we live in, pays, I think, pecu- 
liar attention to the higher distinctions 
of wit, knowledge, and virtue, to which 
we may more safely, more cheaply, and 
more honourably, aspire. The giddy flirt 
of quality frets at the respect she sees 
paid to lady Edgecumbe ; and the 



gay dunce sits pining for a partner, 
while Jones the Orientalist leads «p 
the ball. 

I said that the person of your lady 
would not grow more pleasing to you, 
but pray let her never suspect that it 
grows less so : that a woman will pardon 
an affront to her understanding much 
sooner than one to her person, is well 
known ; nor will any of us contradict the 
assertion. All our attainments, all our 
arts, are employed to gain and keep the 
heart of man ; and what mortification can 
exceed the disappointment, if the end be 
not obtained ! There is no reproof, how- 
ever pointed, no punishment, however 
severe, that a woman of spirit will not 
prefer to neglect ; and if she can endure 
it without complaint, it only proves that 
she means to make herself amends by the 
attention of others for the slights of her 
husband. For this, and for every reason, 
it behoves a married man not to let his 
politeness fail, though his ardour may 
abate ; but to retain, at least, that general 
civility towards his own lady which he is 
so willing to pay to every other, and not 
show a wife of eighteen or twenty years 
old, that every man in company can 
treat her with more complaisance than 
he who so often vowed to her eternal 
fondness. 

It is not my opinion that a young 
woman should be indulged in every wild 
wish of her gay heart or giddy head, but 
contradiction may be softened by domes- 
tic kindness, and quiet pleasures substi- 
tuted in the place of noisy ones. Public 
amusements are not indeed so expensive 
as is sometimes imagined, but they tend 
to alienate the minds of married people 
from each other. A well-chosen society 
of friends and acquaintance, more emi- 
nent for virtue and good sense than for 
gaiety and splendour, where the conver- 
sation of the day may afford comment for 
the evening, seems the most rational plea- 
sure this great town can afford ; and to 
this a game at cards now and then gives 
an additional relish. 

That your own superiority should al- 
ways be seen, but never felt, seems an 
excellent general rule. A wife should 
outshine her husband in nothing, not 
even in her dress. If she happens to have 
a taste for the trifling distinctions that 
finery can confer, suffer her not for a 
moment to fancy, when she appears in 
public, that sir Edward or the Colonel are 



Sect. III. 



RECENT. 



505 



finer gentlemen than her husband. The 
bane of married happiness among the 
city men in general has been, that find- 
ing themselves unfit for polite life they 
transferred their vanity to their ladies, 
dressed them up gaily, and sent them out 
a gallanting, while the good man was to 
regale with port wine or rum punch, 
perhaps among mean companions, after 
the counting house was shut ; this prac- 
tice produced the ridicule thrown on 
them in all our comedies and novels since 
commerce began to prosper. But now 
that I am so near the subject, a word or 
two on jealousy may not be amiss ; for 
though not a failing of the present age's 
growth, yet the seeds of it are too cer- 
tainly sown in every warm bosom for us 
to neglect it as a fault of no consequence. 
If you are ever tempted to be jealous, 
watch your wife narrowly, but never 
tease her : tell her your jealousy, but 
conceal your suspicion ; let her, in short, 
be satisfied that it is only your odd tem- 
per, and even troublesome attachment, 
that makes you follow her ; but let her 
not dream that you ever doubted serious- 
ly of her virtue, even for a moment. If 
she is disposed towards jealousy of you, 
let me beseech you to be always explicit 
with her, and never mysterious : be above 
delighting in her pain, of all things, — 
nor do your business, nor pay your visits, 
with an air of concealment, when all 
you are doing might as well be proclaim- 
ed perhaps in the parish vestry. But I 
will hope better than this of your tender- 
ness and of your virtue, and will release 
you from a lecture you have so very little 
need of, unless your extreme youth and 
my uncommon regard will excuse it. 
And now, farewell; make my kindest 
compliments to your wife, and be happy 
in proportion as happiness is wished you 
by, dear sir, &c. 



LETTER XCIX. 

Dr. Johnson d Mr. Mr. Bosivell, a la 
Cour de VEmpereur, Utrecht. 

London, Dec. 8, 1763. 
Dear sir. 
You are not to think yourself forgotten, 
or criminally neglected, that you have 
had yet no letter from me. I love to 
see my friends, to hear from them, to 
talk to them, and to talk of them : but 



it is not without a considerable effort of 
resolution that I prevail upon myself to 
write. I would not, however, gratify 
my own indolence by the omission of 
any important duty, or any office of real 
kindness. 

To tell you that I am or am not well, 
that 1 have or have not been in the 
country, that 1 drank your health in the 
room in which we sat last together, and 
that your acquaintance continue to speak 
of you with their former kindness, topics 
with which those letters are commonly 
filled which are written only for the sake 
of writing, I seldom shall think worth 
communicating ; but if I can have it in 
my power to calm any harassing disquiet, 
to excite any virtuous desire, to rectify 
any important opinion, or fortify any 
generous resolution, you need not doubt 
but I shall at least wish to prefer the 
pleasure of gratifying a friend much less 
esteemed than yourself, before the gloomy 
calm of idle vacancy. Whether I shall 
easily arrive at an exact punctuality of 
correspondence, I cannot tell. I shall, 
at present, expect that you will receive 
this in return for two which I have had 
from you. The first, indeed, gave me 
an account so hopeless of the state of 
your mind, that it hardly admitted or 
deserved an answer ; by the second I was 
much better pleased ; and the pleasure 
will still be increased by such a narrative 
of the progress of your studies, as may 
evince the continuance of an equal and 
rational application of your mind to some 
useful inquiry. 

You wUl, perhaps, wish to ask, what 
study I would recommend. I shall not 
speak of theology, because it ought not 
to be considered as a question whether 
you shall endeavour to know the will of 
God. 

I shall, therefore, consider only such 
studies as we are at liberty to pursue or 
to neglect ; and of these 1 know not how 
you will make a better choice, than by 
studying the civil law, as your father 
advises, and the ancient languages, as 
you had determined for yourself : at least 
resolve, while you remain in any settled 
residence, to spend a certain number of 
hours every day amongst your books. 
The dissipation of thought, of which you 
complam, is nothing more than the 
vacillation of a mind suspended between 
different motives, and changing its direc- 
tion as any motive gains or loses strength. 



506 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



If you can but kindle in your mind any 
strong desire, if you can but keep pre- 
dominant any wisli for some particular 
excellence or attainment, the gusts of 
imagination will break away, without any 
effect upon your conduct, and commonly 
without any traces left upon the me- 
mory. 

There lurks, perhaps, in every human 
heart a desire of distinction, which in- 
clines every man first to hope, and then 
to believe, that nature has given him 
something peculiar to himself. This 
vanity makes one mind nurse aversions, 
and another actuate desires, till they rise 
by art much above their original state of 
power ; and as affection in time im- 
proves to habit, they at last tyrannize 
over him who at first encouraged them 
only for show. Every desire is a viper 
in the bosom, who, while he was chill, 
was harmless ; but when warmth gave 
him strength, exerted it in poison. You 
know a gentleman, who, when first he 
set his foot in the gay world, as he pre- 
pared himself to whirl in the vortex of 
pleasure, imagined a total indifference 
and universal negligence to be the most 
agreeable concomitants of youth, and the 
strongest indication of an airy temper 
and a quick apprehension. Vacant to 
every object, and sensible of every im- 
pulse, he thought that all appearance of 
diligence would deduct something from 
the reputation of genius ; and hoped that 
he should appear to attain, amidst all the 
ease of carelessness, and the tumult of 
diversion, that knowledge and those ac- 
complishments which mortals of the com- 
mon fabric obtain only by mute abstrac- 
tion and solitary drudgery. He tried this 
scheme of life awhile, was made weary 
of it by his sense and his virtue ; he then 
wished to return to his studies ; and 
finding long habits of idleness and plea- 
sure harder to be cured than he expected, 
still willing to retain his claim to some 
extraordinary prerogatives, resolved the 
common consequences of irregularity 
into an unalterable decree of destiny, and 
concluded that nature had originally 
formed him incapable of rational employ- 
ment. 

Let all such fancies, illusive and de- 
structive, be banished henceforward from 
your thoughts for ever. Resolve, and 
keep your resolution ; choose, and pursue 
your choice. If you spend this day in 
study, you will find yourself still more 



able to study to-morrow ; not that you 
are to expect that you shall at once ob- 
tain a complete victory. Depravity is 
not very easily overcome. Resolution 
will sometimes relax, and diligence will 
sometimes be interrupted ; but let no 
accidental surprise or deviation, whether 
short or long, dispose you to despon- 
dency. Consider these failings as inci- 
dent to all mankind. Begin again where 
you left off, and endeavour to avoid the 
seducements that prevailed over you 
before. 

This, my dear Boswell, is advice which, 
perhaps, has been often given you, and 
given you without effect. But this ad- 
vice, if you will not take from others, 
you must take from your own reflections, 
if you purpose to do the duties of the 
station to which the bounty of Provi- 
dence has caUed you. 

Let me have a long letter from you as 
soon as you can. I hope you continue 
your journal, and enrich it with many 
observations upon the country in which 
you reside. It will be a favour if you 
can get me any books in the Frisick lan- 
guage, and can inquire how the poor 
are maintained in the Seven ProA^nces. 
I am, dear sir, your most affectionate 
servant. 



LETTER C. 

Dr. Johnson to James Boswell, Esq. 

[Net dated, but written about the 15th of 
March.] 

Dear sir, 
I AM ashamed to think that since I re- 
ceived your letter I have passed so many 
days without answering it. 

I think there is no great diflSculty in 
resolving your doubts. The reasons for 
which you are inclined to visit London, 
are, I think, not of sufficient strength to 
answer the objections. That you should 
delight to come once a year to the foun- 
tain of intelligence and pleasure is very 
natural ; but both information and plea- 
sure must be regulated by propriety. 
Pleasure, which cannot be obtained but 
by unreasonable or unsuitable expense, 
must always end in pain : and pleasure, 
which must be enjoyed at the expense of 
another's pain, can never be such as a 
worthy mind can fully delight in. 



Sect. III. 



RECENT. 



507 



What improvement you might gain 
by coming to London, you may easily 
supply or easily compensate, by enjoin- 
ing yourself some particular study at 
home, or opening some new avenue to 
information. Edinburgh is not yet ex- 
hausted ; and I am sure you will find 
no pleasure here, which can deserve 
either that you should anticipate any 
part of your future fortune, or that you 
should condemn yourself and your lady 
to penurious frugality for the rest of the 
year. 

I need not tell you what regard you 
owe to Mrs. Boswell's entreaties ; or 
how much you ought to study the happi- 
ness of her, who studies yours with so 
much diligence, and of whose kindness 
you enjoy such good effects. Life can- 
not subsist in society but by reciprocal 
concessions. She permitted you to ram- 
ble last year ; you must permit her now 
to keep you at home. 

Your last reason is so serious, that 
I am unwilling to oppose it. Yet you 
must remember, that your image of 
worshipping once a year in a certain 
place, in imitation of the Jews, is but 
a comparison, and si7nile non est idem; 
if the annual resort to Jerusalem was a 
duty to the Jews, it was a duty because 
it was commanded ; and you have no 
such command, therefore no such duty. 
It may be dangerous to receive too rea- 
dily, and indulge too fondly, opinions 
from which perhaps no pious mind is 
wholly disengaged, of local sanctity and 
local devotion. You know what strange 
effects they have produced over a great 
part of the Christian world. I am now 
writing, and you, when you read this, 
are reading, under the eye of Omnipre- 
sence. 

To what degree fancy is to be ad- 
mitted into religious offices, it would 
require much deliberation to determine. 
I am far from intending totally to ex- 
clude it. Fancy is a faculty bestowed 
by our Creator ; and it is reasonable, 
that all his gifts should be used to his 
glory, that all our faculties should co- 
operate in his worship ; but they are 
to co-operate according to the will of 
him that gave them, according to the 
order which his wisdom has esta- 
blished. As ceremonies prudential or 
convenient are less obligatory than po- 
sitive ordinances, as bodily worship is 
only the token to others or ourselves 



of mental adoration, so Fancy is al- 
ways to act in subordination to Rea- 
son. We may take Fancy for a com- 
panion, but must follow Reason as 
our guide. We may allow Fancy to 
suggest certain ideas in certain places, 
but Reason must always be heard, 
when she tells us, that those ideas and 
those places have no natural or ne- 
cessary relation. When we enter a 
church, we habitually recall to mind 
the duty of adoration, but we must not 
omit adoration for want of a temple ; 
because we know, and ought to re- 
member, that the Universal Lord is 
everywhere present ; and that, there- 
fore, to come to lona, or to Jerusalem, 
though it may be useful, cannot be ne- 
cessary. 

Thus I have answered your letter, and 
have not answered it negligently. I 
love you too well to be careless when 
you are serious. 

I think I shall be very diligent next 
week about our travels, which I have 
too long neglected. I am, dear sir, 
your most, &c. 

Compliments to madam and miss. 



LETTER CI. 

Dr. Johnson to Mr. James Macpherson. 

Mr. James Macpherson, 
I RECEIVED your fooUsh and impudent 
letter. Any violence offered me I shall 
do my best to repel ; and what I cannot 
do for myself, the law shall do for me. 
I hope I shall never be deterred from 
detecting what I think a cheat, by the 
menaces of a ruffian. 

What would you have me retract ? I 
thought your book an imposture ; I think 
it an imposture still. For this opinion 
1 have given my reason to the public, 
which I here dare you to refute. Your 
rage I defy. Your abilities, since your 
Homer, are not so formidable ; and what 
I hear of your morals inclines me to pay 
regard not to what you shall say, but to 
what you shall prove. You may print 
this if you will. 



508 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



LETTER Cn. 

Dr. Johnson to Mrs. Boswell. 

July 22, 1777. 
Madam, 
Though I am well enough pleased with 
the taste of sweetmeats, very little of 
the pleasure which I received at the 
arrival of your jar of marmalade arose 
from eating it. I received it as a token 
of friendship, as a proof of reconciliation, 
things much sweeter than sweetmeats, 
and upon this consideration I return you, 
dear madam, my sincerest thanks. By 
having your kindness I think I have a 
double security for the continuance of 
Mr. Boswell's, which it is not to be ex- 
pected that any man can long keep, when 
the influence of a lady so highly and so 
justly valued operates against him. Mr. 
Boswell will tell you, that I was always 
faithful to your interest, and always en- 
deavoured to exalt you in his estima- 
tion. You must now do the same for 
me. We must all help one another ; and 
you must now consider me as, dear 
madam, your most obliged and most 
humble servant. 

LETTER Cin. 

Dr. Johnson to Mr. Elphinston. 



Sir, 



July 27, 1773. 



Having myself suffered what you are 
now sufi'ering, I well know the weight 
of your distress, how much need you have 
of comfort, and how little comfort can 
be given, A loss, such as yours, lace- 
rates the mind, and breaks the whole 
system of purposes and hopes. It leaves 
a dismal vacuity in life, which affords 
nothing on which the affections can fix, 
or to which endeavour may be directed. 
All this 1 have known ; and it is now, in 
the vicissitude of things, your turn to 
know it. 

But in the condition of mortal beings, 
one must lose another. What would be 
the wretchedness of life, if there was not 
something always in view, some Being 
immutable and unfailing, to whose mercy 
man may have recourse ! Tov itpujrov 
xivsvta, ayiiyrj'T'ov. 

Here we must rest. The greatest Being 
is the most benevolent. We must not 
grieve for the dead as men without hope, 



because we know they are in his hands. 
We have, indeed, not leisure to grieve 
long, because we are hastening to follow 
them. Your race and mine have been 
interrupted by many obstacles, but we 
must humbly hope for an happy end. I 
am, sir, vour most humble servant. 



LETTER CIV. 

Dr. Johnson to 



Bolt Court, Aug. 30, 178(L 

Dear sir, 
Not many days ago Dr. L. showed me 
a letter, in which you make kind men- 
tion of me : I hope, therefore, you will 
not be displeased that I endeavour to 
preserve your good-will by some obser- 
vations, which your letter suggested to 
me. 

You are afraid of falling into some 
improprieties in the daily service, by 
reading to an audience that requires no 
exactness. Your fear, I hope, secures 
you from danger. They, who contract 
absurd habits, are such as have no fear. 
It is impossible to do the same thing 
very often without some peculiarity of 
manner ; but that manner may be good 
or bad, and a little care will at least pre- 
serve it from being bad ; to make it very 
good, there must, I think, be something 
of natural or casual felicity, which can- 
not be taught. 

Your present method of making your 
sermons seems very judicious. Few fre- 
quent preachers can be supposed to have 
sermons more their own than yours 
will be. Take care to register some- 
where or other the authors from whom 
your several discourses are borrowed ; 
and do not imagine tha.t you shall al- 
ways remember even what perhaps you 
now think it impossible to forget. 

My advice however is, that you at- 
tempt from time to time an original 
sermon, and in the labour of composition 
do not burden your mind with too much 
at once ; do not exact from yourself at 
one effort of excogitation propriety of 
thought and elegance of expression. 
Invent first, and then embellish. The 
production of something, where nothing 
was before, is an act of greater energy 
than the expansion or decoration of the 
thing produced. Set down diligently 
your thoughts as they rise in the first 



Sect. III. 



RECENT. 



509 



words that occur, and when you have 
matter you will easily give it form ; nor 
perhaps will this method be always ne- 
cessary, for by habit your thoughts and 
diction will flow togetbsr. 

The composition of sermons is not 
very diflicult ; the divisions not only 
help the memory of the hearer, but di- 
rect the judgment of the writer ; they 
supply sources of invention, and keep 
every part to its proper place. 

What I like least in your letter is 
your account of the manners of the 
parish ; from which I gather that it has 
been long neglected by the parson. The 
dean of Carlisle*, who was then a little 
rector in Northamptonshire, told me 
that it might be discerned whether or 
no there was a clergyman resident in a 
parish, by the civil or savage manners 
of the people. Such a congregation as 
yours stand in much need of reforma- 
tion ; and 1 would not have you think 
it impossible to reform them. A very 
savage parish was civilized by a decayed 
gentlewoman, who came among them 
to teach a petty school. My learned 
friend, Dr. Wheeler, of Oxford, when he 
was a young man, had the care of a 
neighbouring parish for fifteen pounds 
a year, which he was never paid ; but 
he counted it a convenience that it com- 
pelled him to make a sermon weekly. 
One woman he could not bring to the 
communion ; and when he reproved or 
exhorted her, she only answered that she 
was no scholar. He was advised to set 
some good woman or man of the parish, 
a little wiser than herself, to talk to her 
in language level to her mind. Such 
honest, I may call them holy artifices, 
must be practised by every clergyman, 
for all means must be tried by which 
souls may be saved. Talk to your peo- 
ple, however, as much as you can, and 
you will find that the more frequently 
you converse with them upon religious 
subjects, the more willingly they will 
attend, and the more submissively they 
will learn. A clergyman's diligence al- 
ways makes him venerable. 1 think I 
have now only to say, that in the mo- 
mentous work that you have under- 
taken I pray God to bless you. I am, sir, 
your most humble servant, 

* Now bishop of Dromore. 



LETTER CV. 

Dr. Johnson to Mrs. Thrale, on the 
Death of Mr. Thrale. 

London, April 5, 1781. 

Dearest madam. 
Of your injunctions, to pray for you and 
write to you, I hope to leave neither un- 
observed ; and I hope to find you will- 
ing in a short time to alleviate your 
trouble by some other exercise of the 
mind. I am not without my part of 
the calamity. No death since that of 
my wife has ever oppressed me like 
this. But let us remember, that we 
are in the hands of him, who knows 
when to give and when to take away ; 
who will look upon us with mercy 
through all our variations of existence, 
and who invites us to call on him in the 
day of trouble. Call upon him in this 
great revolution of life, and call with 
confidence. You will then find comfort 
for the past, and support for the future. 
He that has given you happiness in mar- 
riage, to a degree of which, without per- 
sonal knowledge, I should have thought 
the description fabulous, can give you 
another mode of happiness as a mother ; 
and, at last, the happiness of losing all 
temporal cares in the thoughts of an 
eternity in heaven. 

I do not exhort yoii to reason your- 
self into tranquillity. We must first 
pray, and then labour ; first implore the 
blessing of God, and then use those means 
which he puts into our hands. Cultivat- 
ed ground has few weeds ; a mind occu- 
pied by lawful business has little room 
for useless regret. 

We read the will to-day ; but I will 
not fill my first letter with any other 
account than that, with all my zeal for 
your advantage, I am satisfied ; and that 
the other executors, more used to con- 
sider property than I, commended it for 
wisdom and equity. Yet why should I 
not tell you, that you have five hundred 
pounds for your immediate expenses, 
and two thousand pounds a year, with 
both the houses and all the goods ? 

Let us pray for one another, that the 
time, whether long or short, that shall 
yet be granted us, may be well spent ; 
and that when this life, which at the 
longest is very short, shall come to an 
end, a better may begin, which shall 
never end. I am, dearest madam, vour, 
&c. 



510 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



LETTER CVI. 

Dr. Johnson to Mrs. Thrale. 

London, April 9, 1781. 
Dearest madam, 
That you are gradually recovering your 
tranquillity is the effect to be humbly 
expected from trust in God. Do not 
represent life as darker than it is. Your 
loss has been very great, but you retain 
more than almost any other can hope to 
possess. You are high in the opinion of 
mankind ; you have children from whom 
much pleasure may be expected; and 
that you will find many friends you have 
no reason to doubt. Of my friendship, 
be it worth more or less, I hope you 
think yourself certain, w'thout much 
art or care. It will not be easy for me 
to repay the benefits that I have receiv- 
ed ; but I hope to be always ready at 
your call. Our sorrow has diflferent ef- 
fects ; you are withdrawn into solitude, 
and I am driven into company. I am 
afraid of thinking what 1 have lost. I 
never had such a friend before. Let me 
have your prayers and those of my dear 
Queeney. 

The prudence and resolution of your 
design to return so soon to your business 
and your duty, deserves great praise ; I 
shall communicate it on Wednesday to 
the other executors. Be pleased to let 
me know whether you would have me 
come to Streatham to receive you, or 
stay here till the next day. I am, &c. 



LETTER CVII. 

Dr. Johnson to Mr. Hector in Birming- 
ham. 

[Without a date, but supposed to be about this 
time.] 

Dear sir. 
That you and dear Mrs. Careless should 
have care or curiosity about my health, 
gives me that pleasure which every man 
feels from finding himself not forgotten. 
In age we feel again that love of our 
native place and our early friends, which, 
in the bustle or amusements of middle 
life, were overborne and suspended. 
You and I should now naturally cling 
to one another : we have outlived most 
of those who could pretend to rival us 
in each other's kindness. In our walk 



through life we have dropped our com- 
panions, and are now to pick up such as 
chance may offer us, or to travel on 
alone. You, indeed, have a sister, with 
whom you can divide the day : 1 have 
no natural friend left ; but Providence 
has been pleased to preserve me from 
neglect ; I have not wanted such allevia- 
tions of life as friendship could supply. 
My health has been, from my twentieth 
year, such as has seldom afforded me a 
single day of ease ; but it is at least not 
worse ; and I sometimes make myself 
believe that it is better. My disorders 
are, however, still sufficiently oppres- 
sive. 

I think of seeing Staffordshire again 
this autumn, and intend to find my way 
through Birmingham, where 1 hope to 
see you and dear Mrs. Careless well. I 
am, sir, your affectionate friend. 



LETTER CVIII. 

Dr, Johnson to James Boswell, Esq, 

London, March 28, 1782. 

Dear sir. 
The pleasure which we used to receive 
from each other on Good-Friday and 
Easter-day, we must this year be con- 
tent to miss. Let us, however, pray for 
each other, and hope to see one another 
yet from time to time with mutual de- 
light. My disorder has been a cold, 
which impeded the organs of respira- 
tion, and kept me many weeks in a 
state of great uneasiness, but by repeated 
phlebotomy is now relieved ; and, next 
to the recovery of Mrs. Boswell, I flatter 
myself that you will rejoice at mine. 

What we shall do in the summer it is 
yet too early to consider. You want to 
know what you shall do now ; 1 do not 
think this time of bustle and confusion 
likely to produce any advantage to you. 
Every man has those to reward and 
gratify who have contributed to his ad- 
vancement. To come hither with such 
expectations at the expense of borrowed 
money, which, I find, you know not 
where to borrow, can hardly be consi- 
dered as prudent. I am sorry to find, 
what your solicitation seems to imply, 
that you have already gone the whole 
length of your credit. This is to set the 
quiet of your whole life at hazard. If you 
anticipate your inheritance, you can at 



Sect. Ill, 



RECENT. 



511 



last inherit nothing-; all that you re- 
ceive must pay for the past. You must 
get a place, or pine in penury, with the 
empty name of a great estate. Poverty, 
my dear friend, is so great an evil, and 
pregnant with so much temptation, and 
so much misery, that I cannot but 
earnestly enjoin you to avoid it. Live 
on what you have, live if you can on 
less ; do not borrow either for vanity or 
pleasure : the vanity will end in shame, 
and the pleasure in regret ; stay there- 
fore at home till you have saved money 
for your journey hither. 

* The Beauties of Johnson' are said to 
have got money to the collector ; if the 
* Deformities' have the same success, I 
shall be still a more extensive bene- 
factor. 

Make my compliments to Mrs. Bos- 
well, who is, I hope, reconciled to me ; 
and to the young people, whom I never 
have offended. 

You never told me the success of your 
plea against the solicitors. I am, dear 
sir, your most affectionate, &c. 



LETTER CIX. 

From the same to the same. 

London, Sept. 7, 17S'2. 

Dear sir, 
I HAVE struggled through this year with 
so much infirmity of body, and such 
strong impressions of fragility of life, 
that death, wherever it appears, fills me 
with melancholy ; and I cannot hear 
without emotion of the removal of any 
one, whom I have known, into another 
state. 

Your father's death had every circum- 
stance that could enable you to bear it ; 
it was at a mature age, and it was ex- 
pected ; and as his general life had been 
pious, his thoughts had doubtless for 
many years past been turned upon eter- 
nity. That you did not find him sen- 
sible must doubtless grieve you ; his dis- 
position towards you was undoubtedly 
that of a kind, though not of a fond fa- 
ther. Kindness, at least actual, is in 
our power, but fondness is not ; and if 
by negligence or imprudence you had 
extinguished his fondness, he could not 
at will rekindle it. Nothing then re- 



mained between you but mutual forgive- 
ness of each other's faults, and mutual 
desire of each other's happiness. 

I shall long to know his final disposi- 
tion of his fortune. 

You, dear sir, have now a new station, 
and have therefore new cares, and new- 
employments. Life, as Cowley seems 
to say, ought to resemble a well-ordered 
poem ; of which one rule generally re- 
ceived is, that the exordium should be 
simple, and should promise little. Begin 
your new course of life with the least 
show, and the least expense possible ; 
you may at pleasure increase both, but 
you cannot easily diminish them. Do 
not think your estate your own, while 
any man can call upon you for money 
which you cannot pay : therefore, be- 
gin with timorous parsimony. Let it 
be your first care not to be in any man's 
debt. 

When the thoughts are extended to a 
future state, the present life seems hardly 
worthy of all those principles of conduct, 
and maxims of prudence, which one ge- 
neration of men has transmitted to an- 
other ; but upon a closer view, when it 
is perceived how much evil is produced, 
and how much good is impeded by em- 
barrassment and distress, and how little 
room the expedients of poverty leave for 
the exercise of virtue ; its sorrows ma- 
nifest that the boundless importance of 
the next life enforces some attention to 
the interests of this. 

Be kind to the old servants, and se- 
cure the kindness of the agents and fac- 
tors ; do not disgust them by asperity, 
or unwelcome gaiety, or apparent sus- 
picion. From them you must learn the 
real state of your affairs, the characters 
of your tenants, and the value of your 
lands. 

Make my compliments to Mrs. Bos- 
well ; I think her expectation from air 
and exercise are the best that she can 
form. I hope she will live long and 
happily. 

I forgot whether I told you that Rasay 
has been here ; we dined cheerfully to- 
gether. I entertained lately a young 
gentleman from Coriatachat. 

I received your letters only this morn- 
ing. I am, dear sir, yours, &c. 



512 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



LETTER ex. 

Dr. Johnson to James Bosivell, Esq. 

London, Dec. 7, 1782. 

Dear sir, 
Having passed almost this whole year 
» in a succession of disorders, I went in 
October to Brighthelmston, whither I 
came in a state of so much weakness, 
that I rested four times in walking be- 
tween the inn and the lodging. By phy- 
sic and abstinence I grew better, and 
am now reasonably easy, though at a 
great distance from health. 1 am afraid, 
however, that health begins, after seventy, 
and often long before, to have a mean- 
ing different from that which it had at 
thirty. But it is culpable to murmur at 
the established order of the creation, as 
it is vain to oppose it. He that lives 
must grow old ; and he that would rather 
grow old than die, has God to thank for 
the infirmities of old age. 

At your long silence I am rather 
angry. You do not, since now you are 
the head of your house, think it worth 
your while to try whether you or your 
friend can live longer without writing, 
nor suspect, after so many years of friend- 
ship, that when I do not write to you 1 
forget you ? Put all such useless jealou- 
sies out of your head, and disdain to re- 
gulate your own practice by the practice 
of another, or by any other principle 
than the desire of doing right. 

Your oeconomy, I suppose, begins now 
to be settled : your expenses are adjusted 
to your revenue, and all your people in 
their proper places. Resolve not to be 
poor : whatever you have, spend less. 
Poverty is a great enemy to human hap- 
piness, it certainly destroys liberty, and 
it makes some virtues impracticable, and 
others extremely difl&cult. 

Let me know the history of your life 
since your accession to your estate. 
How many houses, how many cows, 
how much land in your own hand, and 
what bargains you make with your te- 
nants. 

* * * -X- ^ -x- 

Of my ' Lives of the Poets,' they have 
printed a new edition in octavo, I hear, 
of three thousand. Did I give a set to 
lord Hailes ? If 1 did not, 1 will do it 
out of these. What did you make of all 
your copy ? 



Mrs. Thrale and the three misses are 
now, for the winter, in Argyll-street. 
Sir Joshua Reynolds has been out of or- 
der, but is well again ; and I am, dear 
sir, your affectionate, humble servant. 



LETTER CXI. 

Dr. Johnson to Mrs. Thrale. 

Bolt Court, Fleet Street, June 19, 1783. 

Dearest madam, 
I AM sitting down in no cheerful soli- 
tude to write a narrative, which would 
once have affected you with tenderness 
and sorrow, but which you will perhaps 
pass over now with the careless glance 
of frigid indifference. For this diminu- 
tion of regard, however, 1 know not 
whether I ought to blame you, who 
may have reasons which I cannot know ; 
and I do not blame myself, who have 
for a great part of human life done you 
what good I could, and have never done 
you evil. 

I had been disordered in the usual 
way, and had been relieved by the usual 
methods, by opium and cathartics, but 
had rather lessened my dose of opium. 

On Monday the 1 6th I sat for my pic- 
ture, and walked a considerable way 
with little inconvenience. In the after- 
noon and evening I felt myself light and 
easy, and began to plan schemes of life. 
Thus I went to bed, ajpid in a short time 
waked and sat up, as has been long my 
custom, when I felt a confusion and in- 
distinctness in my head, which lasted I 
suppose about half a minute ; I was 
alarmed, and prayed God, that however 
he might afflict my body, he would spare 
my understanding. This prayer, that I 
might try the integrity of my faculties, 
I made in Latin verse. The lines were 
not very good, but I knew them not to 
be very good ; I made them easily, and 
concluded myself to be unimpaired in 
my faculties. 

Soon after I percei^ved that I had Suf- 
fered a paralytic stroke, and that my 
speech was taken from me. I had no 
pain, and so little dejection in this 
dreadful state, that I wondered at Say 
own apathy, and considered that per- 
haps death itself when it should come 
would excite less horror than seems now 
to attend it. ■ 



^ECT. Ill 



R E C E N T. 



513 



111 order to rouse the vocal organs I 
took two drams. Wine has heen cele- 
brated for the production of eloquence. 
I put myself into riolent motion, and I 
think repeated it ; but all was vain. I 
then went to bed, and, strange as it may 
seem, I think, slept. When I saw light, 
it was time to contrive what I should 
do. Though God stopped my speech, he 
left me my hand ; I enjoyed a mercy 
Avhich was not granted to my dear friend 
Lawrence, who now perhaps overlooks 
me as I am writing, and rejoices that I 
have what he wanted. My first note 
was necessarily to my servant, who came 
in talking, and could not immediately 
comprehend why he should read what I 
put into his hands. 

I then wrote a card to Mr. Allen, that 
I might have a discreet friend at hand 
to act as occasion should require. In 
penning his note I had some difficulty ; 
my hand, I knew not how nor why, 
made wrong letters. I then wrote to 
Dr. Taylor to come to me, and bring 
Dr. Heberden, and I sent to Dr. Brock- 
lesby, who is my neighbour. My phy- 
sicians are very friendly, and very disin- 
terested, and give me great hopes, but 
you may imagine my situation. I have 
so far recovered my vocal powers, as to 
repeat the Lord's Prayer with no very 
imperfect articulation. My memory, i 
hope, yet remains as it was ; but such an 
attack produces solicitude for the safety 
of every faculty. 

How this will be received by you I 
know not. I hope you Aviil sympathise 
with me ; but perhaps 

My mistress, gracious, mild, and good, 
Cries, Is he dumb ? 'Tis time he shou'd. 

But can this be possible ? I hope it 
cannot, i hope that what, when I could 
i>peak, I spoke of you, and to you, will 
be in a sober and serious hour remem- 
bered by you ; and surely it cannot be 
remembered but with some degree of 
kindness. I have loved you with vir- 
tuous affection ; I have honoured you 
with sincere esteem. Let not all our 
endearments be forgotten, but let me 
have, in this great distress, your pity and 
your .prayers. You see I yet turn to you 
with my complaints, as a settled and 
unalienable friend ; do not, do not drive 
me from you, for I have not deserved 
either neglect or^hatred. 

To the girls, who do not write often, 



for Susy has written only once, and miss 
Thrale owes me a letter, I earnestly re- 
commend, as their guardian and friend, 
that they remember their Creator in the 
days of their youth. 

I suppose you may wish to know how 
my disease is treated by the physicians. 
They put a blister upon my back, and 
two from my ear to my throat, one on a 
side. The blister on the back has done 
little, and those on the throat have not 
risen. I bullied and bounced (it sticks to 
our last sand), and compelled the apo- 
thecary to make his salve according to 
the Edinburgh Dispensatory, that it 
might adhere better. I have two on 
now of my own prescription. They like- 
wise give me salt of hartshorn, which I 
take with no great confidence, but am 
satisfied that what can be done is done 
for me. 

God! give me comfort and confi- 
dence in Thee : forgive my sins ; and, if 
it be thy good pleasure, relieve my dis- 
eases, for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen. 

1 am almost ashamed of this querulous 
letter ; but now it is written, let it go. 
I am, &c. 



LETTER CXIi. 

Fi^07n the same to the scifne. 

London, July 3, 17S3. 

Dear madam, 
Dr. Brocklesey yesterday dismissed 
the cantharides, and I can nov*^ find a 
soft place upon my pillow. Last night 
v/as cool, and I rested well, and this 
morning I have been a friend at a poe- 
tical difficulty. Here is now a glimpse 
of day-light again ; but how near is the. 
evening ? None can tell, and I v.ill not 
prognosticate : we all know that from 
none of us it can be far distant ; may 
none of us know this in vain ! 

I went, as I took care to boast, on 
Tuesday to the club, and hear that I 
was thought to have performed as well 
as usual. I dined on fish, with the Aving 
of a small Turkey chick, and left roast 
beef, goose, and venison pye untouched. 
I live much on peas, and never had them 
so good, for so long a time, in any year 
that 1 can remember. 

When do you go to Weymouth ? and 
Avhy do you go ? Only I suppose to a new 
place, and the reason is sufficient 
2 L 



514 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book iV. 



those who have no reason to withhold 
them. 

. * * * knows well enough how to live 
on four hundred a year, but where is he 
to have it? Had * * ^ any thing of his 
own unsettled ? 

I am glad that Mrs. Seward talks of 
me, and loves me, and have in this stiil 
scene of life great comfort in reflecting, 
that I have given very few reason to hate 
me ; I hope scarcely any man has known 
me closely but for his benefit, or cursorily 
but to his innocent entertainment. Tell 
me, you that know me best, whether 
this be true, that according to your an- 
swer I may continue my practice, or try 
to mend it. 

Along with your kind letter yesterday 
came one likewise very kind from the 
Astons at Lichfield ; but I do not know 
whether, as the summer is so far advanc- 
ed, I shall travel so far, though I am 
not without hopes that frequent change 
of air may fortify me against the winter, 
which has been, in modern phrase, of 
late years very inimical to, madam, 
your, &c. 

LETTER CXIII. 

Dr. Johnson to Miss Susannah Thrale. 

Dearest miss Susy, 
When you favoured me with your letter, 
you seemed to be in want of materials 
to till it, having met with no great ad- 
ventures, either of peril or delight, nor 
done nor suffered any thing out of the 
comm,on course of life. 

When you have lived longer, and con- 
sidered more, you will find the common 
course of life very fertile of observation 
and reflection. Upon the common course 
of life must our thoughts and our con- 
versation be generally employed. Our ge- 
neral course of life must denominate us 
wise or foolish ; happy or miserable : if 
it is well regulated, we pass on prosper- 
ously and smoothly ; as it is neglected, 
we live in embarrassment, perplexity, 
and uneasiness. 

Your time, my love, passes, I sup- 
pose, in devotion, reading, work, and 
company. Of your devotions, in which I 
earnestly advise you to be very punctual, 
you may not perhaps think it proper to 
give me an account ; and of work, unless 
I understood it better, it will be of no 
great use to say much ; but books and 



company will always supply you with ma- 
terials for your letters to me, as 1 shall 
always be pleased to know what you are 
reading, and with what you are pleased ; 
and shall take great delight in knowing 
what impression nev/ modes or new cha- 
racters make upon you, wid to observe 
with vdiat attention you dlstinguisli the 
tempers, dispositions, and abilities of 
your companions. 

A letter may be alv/ays made out of 
the books of the morning or talk of the 
evening ; and any letters from you, my 
dearest, will be welcome to your, &c. 



LETTER CXIV. 

Dr. Johnson to Mrs. Thrale. 

London, Aug. 20, 1783. 

Madam, 
This has been a day of great emotion ; 
the office of the Communion of the Sick 
has been performed in poor Mrs. Wil- 
liams's chamber. She was too weak to 
rise from her bed, and is therefore to 
be supposed unlikely to live much longer. 
She has, I hope, little violent pain, but 
is wearing out by torpid in appetence and 
wearisome decay : but all the powers of 
her mind are in their full vigour; and, 
when she has spirits enough for conver- 
sation, she possesses all the intellectual 
excellence that she ever had. Surely 
this is an instance of mercy much to be 
desired by a parting soul. 

At home I see almost all my compa- 
nions dead or dying. At Oxford I have 
just left ¥/lieeler, the man with whom I 
most delighted to converse. The sense 
of my own diseases, and the sight of the 
v/orld sinking round me, oppress me per- 
haps too much. I hope that all these ad- 
monitions v/ill not be in vain, and that I 
shall learn to die as dear Williams is dy- 
ing, who was very cheerful before and 
after this awful solemnity, and seems to 
resign herself witli calmness and hope „ 
upon Eternal Mercy. 1 

I read your last kind letter with great 
delight; but when I came to love and 
honour, what sprung in my mind ? — How 
loved, how honoured once, avails thee 
not. 

I sat to Mrs. Reynolds yesterday for 
my picture, perhaps the tenth time, and 
I sat near three hours with the patience 
of mortal born to bear ; at last she declared 



Sect. III. 



RECENT. 



it quite finished, and seems to think it 
fine. I told her it was Johnson's grimly 
Ghost. It is to be engraved, and I think 
in glided, &c. will be a good inscription. 
I am, madam, your, &c. 



LETTER CXV. 

From the same to the same. 

London, Sept. 22, 1783. 

Dear madam, 
Happy are you that have ease and leisure 
to want intelligence of air-balloons. 
Their existence is, I believe, indubita- 
ble ; but I know not that they can pos- 
sibly be of any use. The construction is 
this : — The chymical philosophers have 
discovered a body (which I have forgot- 
ten, but will inquire) which, dissolved by 
an acid, emits a vapour lighter than the 
atmospherical air. This vapour is caught, 
among other means, by tying a bladder, 
compressed upon the bottle in which 
the dissolution is performed ; the vapour 
rising swells the bladder, and fills it. The 
bladder is then tied and removed, and 
another applied, till as much of this 
light air is collected as is wanted. Then 
a large spherical case is made, and very 
large it must be, of the lightest matter 
that can be found, secured by some me- 
thod, like that of oiling silk, against 
all passage of air. Into this are emptied 
all the bladders of light air, and if there 
is light air enough it mounts into the 
clouds; upon the same principle as abot- 
tle, filled with water, will sink in water, 
but a bottle filled with ether would float. 
It rises till it comes to air of equal tenuity 
with its own, if wind or Avater does not 
spoil it on the way. Such, madam, is an 
air-balloon. 

Meteors have been this autumn very 
often seen, but I have never been in their 
way. 

Poor Williams has, I hope, seen the end 
of her afilictions. She acted with pru- 
dence, and she bore with fortitude. She 
has left me. 

" Thou thy weary task hast done, 

Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages." 

Had she had good humour and prompt 
elocution, her universal curiosity and 
comprehensive knowledge would have 
made her the delight of all that knew her. 
She left her little to your charity-school. 



The complaint about which you in- 
quire is a sarcocele ; I thought it a hy- 
drocele, and heeded it but little. Punc- 
ture has detected the mistake : it can be 
safely suffered no longer. Upon inspec- 
tion, three days ago, it was determined 
extrema ventura. If excision should be 
delayed, there is danger of a gangrene. 
You would not have me, for fear of pain, 
perish in putrefaction. I shall, I hope, 
with trust in Eternal Mercy, lay hold of 
the possibility of life which yet remains. 
My health is not bad ; the gout is now 
trying at my feet. My appetite and di- 
gestion are good, and my sleep better 
than formerly : I am not dejected, and I 
am not feeble. There is, however, dan- 
ger enough in such operations at seven- 
ty-four. 

Let me have your prayers and those of 
the young" dear people. I am, dear ma- 
dam, your, &c. 

Write soon and often. 



LETTER CXVL 

From die same to the same. 

London, Nov. 13, 1783. 
Dear madam. 
Since you have written to me with the 
attention and tenderness of ancient time, 
your letters give me a great part of the 
pleasure which a life of solitude admits. 
You will never bestow any share of your 
good-will on one who deserves better. 
Those that have loved longest love 
best. A sudden blaze of kindness may 
by a single blast of coldness be extin- 
guished ; but that fondness which length 
of time has connected with many circum- 
stances and occasions, though it may for 
a while be suppressed by disgust or re- 
sentment, with or without a cause, is 
hourly revived by accidental recollection. 
To those that have lived long together, 
every thing heard and every thing seen 
recals some pleasure communicated, or 
some benefit conferred, some petty quar- 
rel, or some slight endearment. Esteem 
of great powers, or amiable qualities 
newly discovered, may embroider a day 
or a week, but a friendship of twenty 
years is interwoven with the texture of 
life. A friend may be often found and 
lost, but an old friend never can be 
found, and Nature has provided that he 
cannot easily be lost. 

2L2 



516 



ELEGANT E P i 8 T L E S. 



Book IV. 



I have not forgotten the Davenants, 
though they seem to have forg-otten me. 
I hegan very early to tell them what they 
have commonly found to be true. I am 
sorry to hear of their buildmg. I have 
always warned those whom 1 loved 
against that mode of ostentatious waste. 

You seem to mention lord Kilmurry 
as a stranger. We were at his house in 
Cheshire ; and he one day dined with sir 
Lynch. What he tells of the epigram is 
not true, but perhaps he does not know 
it to be false. Do not you remember 
how he rejoiced in having no park? he 
could not disoblige his neighbours by 
sending them no venison. 

The frequency of death, to those who 
look upon it in the leisure of Arcadia, is 
very dreadful. We all know what it 
should teach us ; let us all be diligent to 
learn. Lucy Porter has lost her brother. 
But whom I have lost — let me not now 
remember. Let not your loss be added 
to the mournful catalogue. Write soon 
again to, madam, your, &c. 



LETTER CXVIL 

Dr, Johnson to Mrs. Chapone. 

Nov. 28, 1783. 

Madam, 
By sending the tragedy to me a second 
time* I think that a very honourable 
distinction has been she\sai me ; and I did 
not delay the perusal, of which I am 
now to tell the effect. 

The construction of the play is not 
completely regular ; the stage is too of- 
ten vacant, and the scenes are not suffi- 
ciently connected. This, hovrever, would 
be caUed, by Dryden, only a mechanical 
defect ; which takes away little from the 
power of the poem, and which is seen 
rather than felt. 

A rigid examiner of the diction might, 
perhaps, wish some words changed, and 
some lines more vigorously terminated. 
But from such petty imperfections what 
writer was ever free ? 

The general form and force of the dia- 
logue is of more importance. It seems to 
want that quickness of reciprocation 
which characterizes the English drama, 
and is not always sufficiently fervid or 
animated. 

* Dr. Johnson, having been very ill when the 
tragedy was first sent to him, had declined the 
consideration of it. 



Of the sentiments, I remember not 
one that 1 wished omitted. In the 
imagery I cannot forbear to distinguish 
the comparison of joy succeeding grief, 
to light rushing on the eye accustomed 
to darkness. It seems to have all that 
can be desired to make it please. It is 
new, just, and delightful f. 

With the characters, either as con- 
ceived or preserved, I have no fault to 
find ; but was much inclined to congra- 
tulate a writer, who, in defiance of pre- 
judice and fashion, made the archbishop 
a good man, and scorned all thoughtless 
applause, which a vicious churchman 
would have brought him. 

The catastrophe is affecting. The fa- 
ther and daughter both culpable, both 
wretched, and both penitent, divide be- 
tween them our pity and our sorrow. 

Thus, madam, I have performed what 
I did not willingly undertake, and could 
not decently refuse. The noble writer 
will be pleased to remember, that sincere 
criticism ought to raise no resentment, 
because judgm^ent is not under the con- 
trol of will ; but involuntary criticism, 
as it has still less of choice, ought to be 
more remote from possibility of offence. 
I am, &c. 



LETTER CXVIIl. 

Dr. Johnson to Mrs. Thrale. 

London, Dec. 27, 1733. 

Dear madam. 
The wearisome solitude of the long 
evenings did indeed suggest to me the 
convenience of a club in my neighbour- 
hood, but I have been hindered from at- 
tending it by want of breath. If I can 
complete the scheme, you shall have the 
names and the regulations. 

The time of the year, for I hope the 
fault is rather in the weather than in me, 
has been very hard upon me. The mus- 
cles of my breast are much convulsed. 
Dr. Heberden recommends opiates, of 
which I have such horror, that 1 do not 

f " I could have borne my woes ; that 
stranger Joy 
Wounds while it smiles : —The long imprison'd 

wretch, 
Emerging from the night of his damp cell. 
Shrinks from the sun's bright beams ; and that 

which flings 
Gladness o'er all, to him is agony." 



m 



Sect. III. 



R E C E N T. 



517 



think of them but iji extremes. I was, 
however, driven to them last night for 
refuge, and, having taken the usual quan- 
tity, durst not go to bed, for fear of that 
uneasiness to which a supine posture ex- 
poses me, but rested all night in a chair 
with much relief, and have been to-day 
more Ttarm, active, and cheerful. 

You have more than once wondered at 
my complaint of solitude, when you hear 
that I am crowded with visits. Inopeni 
me copia fecit. Visitors are no proper 
companions in the chamber of sickness. 
They come vvhen I could sleep or read, 
they stay till I am weary, they force me 
to attend when my mind calls for relax- 
ation, and to speak when my powers will 
hardly actuate my tongue. The amuse- 
ments and consolations of languor and 
depression are conferred by familiar and 
domestic companions, which can be vi- 
sited or called at will, and can occasion- 
ally be quitted or dismissed, who do not 
obstruct accommodation by ceremony, or 
destroy indolence by awakening effort. 

Such society I had with Levet and 
Williams ; such I had where — I am never 
likely to have it more. 

1 wish, dear lady, to you and my dear 
girls many a cheerful and pious Christ- 
mas. I am, your, &c. 



LETTER CXIX. 

Fro7n the same to the same. 

London, Jan. 12, 1784. 

Dear madam. 
If, as you observe, my former letter was 
written with trepidation, there is little 
reason, except the habit of enduring, 
why this should shew more steadiness. I 
am confined to the house ; 1 do not know 
that any thing grows better ; my physi- 
cians direct me to combat the hard wea- 
ther with opium ; I cannot well support 
its turbulence, and yet cannot forbear it, 
for its immediate effect is ease ; having 
kept me waking all the night, it forces 
sleep upon me in the day, and recom- 
jienses a night of tediousness with a day 
of uselessness. My legs and my thighs 
grow very tumid : in the mean time my 
appetite is good, and if my physicians do 
not flatter me death is rushing upon me. 
But this is the hand of God. 

The first talk of the sick is commonly 
of themselves ; but if they talk of nothing 



else, they cannot complain if they are soon 
left without an audience. 

You observe, madam, that the balloon 
engages all mankind, and it is indeed a 
wonderful and unexpected addition to 
human knowledge ; but we have a daring 
projector, who, disdaining the help of 
fumes and vapours, is making better 
than Dsedalean wings, with which he will 
master the balloon and its companions 
as an eagle masters a goose. It is very 
seriously true, that a subscription of eight 
hundred pounds has been raised for the 
wire and workmanship of iron wings ; 
one pair of which, and I think a tail, are 
now shewn in the Hay-market, and they 
are making another pair at Birmingham. 
The whole is said to v/eigh tvvo hundred 
pounds — no specious preparation for fly- 
ing ; but there are tliose v^^ho expect to 
see him in the sky. When I can leave the 
house I v/ill tell you more. 

I had the same old friends to dine with 
me on Wednesday, and may say, that 
since I lost sight of you I have had one 
pleasant day. I am, madam, your, &c. 

Pray send me a direction to sir 

Musgrave in Ireland. 



-LETTER CXX. 

From the same to the same. 

London, Jan. 21, 1784. 

Dear madam. 
Dr. Heberden this day favoured me 
with a visit ; and after hearing what I 
had to tell him of miseries and pains, 
and comparing my present with my past 
state, declared me vv^ell. That his opi- 
nion is erroneous, I know with too much 
certainty ; and yet was glad to hear it, as 
it sets extremities at a greater distance : 
he, who is by his physician thought well, 
is at least not thought in immediate dan- 
ger. They, therefore, whose attention to 
me makes them talk of my health, will, 
I hope, soon not drop, but lose their 
subject. But, alas ! I had no sleep last 
night, and sit now panting over my pa- 
per. Dahit Deus his quoque finem. I 
have really hope from spring; and am 
ready, like Almanzor, to hid the sun fly 
swiftly, and leave weeks and months be- 
hind him. The sun has looked for six 
thousand years upon the world to little 
purpose, if he does not know that a sick 
man is almost as impatient as a lover. 



518 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV, 



Mr.Cator g-ives such an account of miss 
Cecy, as you and all of us must delight 
to hear. Cator has a rough, manly, in- 
dependent understanding, and does not 
spoil it by complaisance ; he never speaks 
merely to please, and seldom is mistaken 
in things which he has any right to know. 
I think well of her for pleasing him, and 
of him for being pleased: and, at the 
close, am delighted to find him delighted 
with her excellence. Let your children, 
dear madam, be his care, and your plea- 
sure : close your thoughts upon them ; 
and, when sadfancies are excluded, health 
and peace will return together. I am, 
dear madam, your old friend. 



LETTER CXXL 

D7\ Johnson to Mrs. Thrale. 

London, Feb. 9, 1784. 
Dear madam. 
The remission of the cold did not con- 
tinue long enough to afford me much 
relief. You are, as I perceive, afraid of 
the opium ; I had the same terror, and 
admitted its assistance only under the 
pressure of insupportable distress, as of 
an auxiliary too powerful and too dan- 
gerous. But in this pinching season I 
cannot live without it ; and the quan- 
tity v/hich I take is less than it once was. 
My physicians flatter me, that the sea- 
son is a great part of my disease; and 
that when y/arm weather restores perspi- 
ration, this watery disease will evaporate. 
1 am at least willing to flatter myself. 

I have been forced to sit up many 
nights by an obstinate sleeplessness,which 
makes the time in bed intolerably tedious, 
and which continues my drowsiness the 
following day. Besides, I can sometimes 
sleep erect, when I cannot close my eyes 
in a recumbent posture. I have just be- 
spoke a flannel dress, which I can easily 
slip off and on, as I go into bed, or get 
out of it. Thus pass my days and nights 
in morbid wakefulness, in unseasonable 
sleepiness, in gloomy solitude, with un- 
welcome visitors, or ungrateful exclu- 
sions, in variety of wretchedness. But I 
snatch every lucid interval, and animate 
myself with such amusements as the 
time offers. 

One thing, which I have just heard, 
you will think to surpass expectation. 
The chaplain of the factory at Peters- 



burg relates, that the Rambler is now, 
by the command of the empress, trans- 
lating into Russian ; and has promised, 
when it is printed, to send me a copy. 

Grant, O Lord, that all, who shall 
read my pages, may become more obe- 
dient to thy laws ; and when the wretch- 
ed writer shall appear before thee, extend 
thy mercy to him, for the sake of Jesus 
Christ. Amen. I am, madam, your, 
&c. 



LETTER CXXII. 

Dr. Johnson to the Rev. Dr. Taylor, 
Ashbourne, Derbyshire. 

London, Easter-Monday, April 12, 17&4. 

Dear sir. 
What can be the reason that I hear 
nothing from you ? I hope nothing dis- 
ables you from writing. What I have 
seen, and what I have felt, gives me rea- 
son to fear every thing. Do not omit 
giving me the comfort of knowing, that 
after all my losses I have got a friend 
left. 

I want every comfort. My life is very 
solitary and very cheerless. Though it 
has pleased God wonderfully to deliver 
me from the dropsy, I am yet very weak, 
and have not passed the door since the 
13th of December. I hope for some 
help from warm weather, which will 
surely come in time. 

I could not have the consent of the 
physicians to go to church yesterday ; I 
therefore received the Holy Sacrament at 
home, in the room where I communicated 
with dear Mrs. Williams, a little before - 
her death. O, my friend, the approach 1 
of death is very dreadful. I am afraid to ■ 
think on that which I know I cannot 
avoid. It is vain to look round and 
round for that help which cannot be had. 
Yet, we hope and hope, and fancy that 
he who has lived to-day may live to- 
morrov/. But let us learn to derive our 
hope only from God. 

In the mean time, let us be kind to 
one another. I have no friend now liv- 
ing, but you and Mr. Hector, that was 
the friend of my youth. Do not neglect, 
dear sir, yours affectionately, &c. 



Sect. 111. 



RECENT. 



519 



LETTER CXXIII. 

Dr. Johnson to Lord Chancellor Thurloiu. 

Sept. l7Sk 

My lord, 
After a long and not inattentive obser- 
vation of mankind, the generosity of 
your lordship's offer raises in me not less 
vronder than gratitude. Bounty so libe- 
rally bestOY^ed I should gladly receive if 
my condition made it necessary ; for to 
such a mind who would not be proud to 
own his obligations ? But it has pleased 
God to restore me to so great a measure 
of health, that if I should now appropri- 
ate so much of a fortune destined to do 
good, I couM not escape from myself the 
charge of ad^^ancing a falsa claim. IViy 
journey to the continent, though I once 
thought it necessary, was never much 
encouraged by my physicians, and I vv^as 
very desirous that your lordship should 
be told of it by sir Joshua Reynolds as an 
event very uncertain ; for if I grew much 
better I should not be willing, if much 
worse, not able to migrate. 

Your lordship was first solicited with- 
out my knowledge ; but when I was told 
that you vrere pleased to honour me with 
your patronage, I did not expect to hear 
of a refusal ; yet as I have had no long 
time to brood hope, and have not rioted 
in imaginary opulence, this cold recep- 
tion has been scarce a disappointment ; 
and from your lordship's kindness I have 
received a benefit which only men like 
you are able to bestow. I shall now live 
mihi carior^ with a higher opinion of my 
own merit. I am, my lord, your lord- 
ship's most obliged, most grateful, and 
most humble servant. 



LETTER CXXIV, 



to the Rev. Dr. Home, 



Bliss 

President of Magdalen College, Oxford. 

Nov. 6. 
My dear sir, 
With a heart almost broken with grief, 
I am going, I fear, to trouble you by 

pouring it forth. I have lost my , 

my best friend, and every thing that was 

* The writer of this letter was an elegant 
and accomplished young lady of the first dis- 
tinction in Ireland, who had not completed her 
17th year at the time of her father's death. 



most valuable to me in the world ! Per- 
haps, ere this, the melancholy tidings 
have reached your ear. 

On Saturday morning last, the — of 

, he yielded his soul into the hands 

of his Maker. O, sir ! paint to your 
imagination the woe and distraction that 
entered this house in the moment of his 
dissolution ! Had you heard the piercing 
cries that were uttered ! But what do I 
say? God forbid that your tender, your 
m.ost affectionate heart should have been 
a vv'itness of the scene ! 

I was hardly able to bear the thoughts 
of surviving him ; but, thank God, I 
am in some degree composed. I most 
earnestly repent of my sin, in forgetting 
for a moment that from His hand I re- 
ceived good, and why not evil when he 
thought fit ? Pray, sir, pardon the liberty 
I have taken in writing to you ; but 
allow me to apologize in some measure, 
by telling you, that the day before my 

dearest grew ill, he desired me 

to write. As you may remember, he 
owed you a letter. " Perhaps," said he, 



smiling, '^ it may please the dear ." 

You will, no doubt, Avonder what could 
take him off so suddenly. It was a dis- 
order on the brain ; not water, but some- 
thing occasioned by a fullness in the head. 
He died on the sixth day after he was 
seized. The day he was first affected he 
came down to breakfast ; but alas ! he 
had totally lost his senses. Think what 
I must have felt ! The physicians all 
agreed, and all thought till the very last, 
that his bodily ailments were not fatal, 
but that his understanding was gone for 
ever. Was it not a blessing then that 
God did not ordain him to outlive him- 
self ! I have been since thinking, that I 
was permitted to see him in that most 
melancholy state to fiU my heart with this 
subject of thankfulness. 

And let me cast my thoughts on that 
most amazing and blessed change he has 
undergone ; from a world of pains and 
vexations, at best, to join that blessed 

spirit, my dearest , and make one 

of that angelic choir that cease not day 
and night to sing their hallelujahs. How 
this idea transports me from the world ! 
God grant it may influence my life; that, 
when I come to die, it may be the death 
of the righteous, which is only to be at- 
tained by living their life ! 

Will you be so kind as to present my 
most affectionate respects to and 



520 



E L E G A N T E P 1 S T L £ S. 



Book IV. 



your 



? You will break these most 



dismal tidings to them ; I am sure they 
will sympathize in my affliction. 

Perhaps, were I critically to trace the 
source of my troubling you with this let- 
ter, self might be found to be the cause. 
I flatter myself that you v/ill favour me 
with a line to the afflicted. What con- 
solation must flow from your pen ! And 
suffer me to assure you, that, next to 
tliat dear parent who is laid in the dust, 
1 have reverenced, loved, and honoured 
you. If you can pardon me for thus 
troubling you, and should wish to hear 

now and then how the mourners at 

go on, how happy would it make me to 
letyouknow! but this rests in your own 
power. I fear you will repent of your 
former condescension towards me, since 
this is the effect of it. 

My poor is most deeply afflicted ; 

my happiness must 7ioiv rest upon his 
good conduct, and I think he will not 
disappoint me : thus, as one prop is 
withdrawn, the heart of man fondly 
clings to another. 

Mrs. is getting much better. 

Ever since we came home this year we 
have been in daily expectation of her de- 
cease. Good God ! what an amazement 
it is to her to find herself alive, surviving 
lier ! She bears it like a Chris- 
tian ; says, she need not take her leave, so 
soon to follow. Farewell, most honoured 
sir. Believe me to remain your most 
dutiful, most afflicted servant. 



LETTER CXXV. 

Dr. Home, Dean ofCanterhmy *, to Miss 
, in ansiver to the above. 

Canterbury, Nov. 11. 

My dear madam. 
Little did I think a letter from 



would afflict my soul, but yours i-eceived 
this morning has indeed done it. Seeing 
your hand, and a black seal, my mind 
foreboded what had happened : 1 made 
an attempt to read it to my wife and 
daughters, but — it would not do — 1 got 
no further than the first sentence, burst 
into a flood of tears, and was obliged to 
retreat into the solitude of my study, un- 
fit for any thing, but to think on what 
had happened ; then to fall upon my 

* His lordship was at the time dean of Can- 
terbury. 



knees, and pray, that God would ever- 
more pour down his choicest blessings 
on the children of my departed friend, 
and as their *' father and their mother 
had forsaken them," that He would 
" take them up," and support them in 
time and eternity. Even so ! Amen. 

You ask coKQfort of me, but your truly 
excellent letter has suggested comfort 
to me, from all the proper topics ; and 1 
can only reflect it back to you again. 
All things considered, the circumstance 
which first marked the disorder may be 
termed a gracious dispensation. It at 
once rendered the event, one may say, 
desirable ^yv\iiQh otherwise carried so much 
terror and sorrow in the face of it. No- 
thing else in the world could so soon and 
so efl'ectually have blunted the edge of 
the approaching calamity, and reconciled 
to it minds full of the tenderest love and 
affection. To complete the consolation 
that only remained, which we all know 

to be the fact, Mr. stood always 

so prepared, so firm in his faith, so con- 
stant in his Christian practice of every 
duty, that he could not be taken by sur- 
prise, or off his guard : the stroke must 
be to himself a blessing, whenever^ or 
however, it came. His death was his 
birth day ; and, like the primitive Chris-^ 
tians, we should keep it as such, as a day 
of joy and triumph. Bury his body, but 
embalm his example, and let it diffuse 
his fragrance among you from genera- 
tion to generation. Call him blessed, 
and endeavour to be like him ; like him 
in piety, in charity, in friendship, in 
courteousness, in temper, in conduct, in 
word, and in deed. His virtues compose 
a little volume, which your brother should 
carry in his bosom ; and he will need na 
other, if that be well studied, to make 
him the gentleman and the Christian. 
You, my dear madam, will, I am sure, 
go on with diligence to finish the fair 
transcript you have begun, that the world 
around you may see, and admire. 

Do not apologize for writing ; but 
let me hear what you do, and what plan 
of life your brother thinks of pursuing. 
With kindest compliments from the sym- 
pathizing folks here, believe me, ever, 
my dear madam, your faithful friend and 
servant. 



Sect. ilL 



R E C E N T. 



5n 



LETTER CXXVI. 

Lord Li/ttJeton to Sir Thomas Lyttkton, 
at Hagley. 

London, Feb. 4, 1728. 

Dear sir, 
I AM mighty glad you have made choice 
of so agreeable a place as Lorrain to send 
me to. I shall be impatient to hear 
that you have got a servant for me, that 
my stay here may be the shorter : in the 
mean while, you may be sure, I shall 
not neglect to make the best use of my 
time. 

I am proud that the D approves 

my verses ; for her judgment does great 
honour to those that please her. The 
subject is Blenheim castle ; 1 would have 
sent you a copy of them, but have not 
yet had time to transcribe them ; you 
shall, therefore, receive them inclosed in 
my next letter. 

The news you tell me of does 

not a little please me ; whatever does him 
honour in your opinion is of advantage 
to me, as it will render the friendship 
that is between us more agreeable to you ; 
for my satisfaction in his acquaintance 
has been always checked, by observing 
you had not that esteem for him as I could 
wish you might have for all my friends : 
but 1 hope he will deserve it better every 
day, and confirm himself in my good 
opinion by gaining yours. 

T am glad that you are pleased with 
my Persian Letters, and criticism upon 
Voltaire ; but, with submission to your 
judgment, 1 do not see how what I have 
said of Milton can destroy all poetical 
license. That term indeed has been so 
much abused, and the liberty it allows 
has been pleaded in defence of such ex- 
travagant fictions, that one would almost 
wish there were no such words. But yet 
this is no reason why good authors may 
not raise and animate their works with 
flights and sallies of imagination, provid- 
ed they are cautious of restraining them 
within the bounds of justness and proprie- 
ty ; for nothing can license a poet to of- 
fend against Truth and Reason, which 
are as much the rules of the sublime as 
less exalted poetry. We meet with a 
thousand instances of the true nobleness 
of thought in Milton, where the liberty 
you contend for is made use of, and yet 
nature very strictly observed. It would 
be endless to point out the beauties of this 



kind in the Paradise Lost, Avhere the 
boldness of his genius appears without 
shocking us^with the least impropriety : 
we are surprised, we are warmed, we 
are transported ; but we are not hurried 
out of our senses, or forced to believe 
impossibilities. The sixth book is, I 
fear, in many places, an exception to 
this rule ; the poetlca lieentia is stretched 
too far, and the just is sacrificed to the 
ivondcrful ; (you will pardon me, if I 
talk too much in the language of the 
schools.) To set this point in a clearer 
light, let us compare the fiction in los 
Lusiados, of the giant that appears to the 
Portuguese, and the battle of the ang'els 
in Milton. The storms, the thunders, 
and the lightnings, that hang about 
him, are proper and natural to that 
mountain he represents ; we are pleased 
with seeing him thus armed, because 
there is nothing in the description tliat 
is not founded upon truth : but how do 
swords, and coats of mail, and cannons j 
agree with angels ? Such a fiction can 
never be beautiful, because it wants pro- 
bability to support it. We can easily 
imagine the Cape, extending its narrow 
arms over the sea, and guarding it from 
invaders ; the tempests, that mariners al- 
v/ays meet with upon that coast, render 
such a supposition very just : but with 
what grounds of reason can we suppose, 
that the angels, to defend the throne of 
God, threw mountains upon the heads 
of the rebel army ? 

" Non tali auxilio, nee defensoribus istis, 
Numen eget.'' 

The liberty in one fable is restrained to 
nature and good sense ; in the other, it 
is wild and unbounded, so as frequently 
to lose sight of both. — Pardon the free- 
dom I have taken, to contradict your 
opinion and defend my own ; for I shall 
be very ready to give it up to you, if after 
this you continue to think me in the 
wrong. It is prudent to argue with 
those who have such regard to our judg- 
ment as to correct it. 

You ended a letter of good news very 
ill, in telling me that you had got the 
head-ach ; I can have but very little 
pleasure in any thing, though it be ever 
so agreeable, when I know that you are 
ill. I am, dear sir, your dutiful son, &c. 



522 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



LETTER CXXVn. 

Lord Lyttltton to Sir Thomas Lytlleton. 
Luneviile, Juiy 8, 1728. 

Dear sir, 
I HEARTILY congratulate you upon my 
sisters marriage, and wish you may dis- 
pose of all your children as much to your 
satisfaction and their own. Would to 
God Mr. P — had a fortune equal to his 
brother's, that he might make a pre- 
sent of it to my pretty little M — ! but 
unhappily they have neither of them any 
portion but an uncommon share of 
merit, which the world will not think 
them much the richer for. i condole 

with poor Mrs. upon the abrupt 

departure of her intended husband ; to 
be sure, she takes it much to heart ; for 
the loss of an only lover, when a lady 
is past three-and-twenty, is as afflicting 
as the loss of an only child after fiity-iive. 

You tell me my mother desires a par- 
ticular journal of my travels, and the 
remarks I have made upon them, after 
the manner of the sage Mr. Bromley. 
Alas ! I am utterly unfit for so great a 
work ; my genius is light and super- 
ficial, and lets slip a thousand observa- 
tions which would make a figure in his 
book. It requires much industry and 
application, as well as a prodigious me- 
mory, to know how many houses there 
are in Paris ; how many vestments in a 
procession ; how many saints in the 
Romish Calendar, and hov/ many mira- 
cles to each saint ; and yet to such a 
pitch of exactness the curious travellers 
must arrive, who would imiitate Mr. 
Bromley. Not to mention the pains 
he must be at in examining all the tombs 
in a great church, and faithfully tran- 
scribing the inscriptions, though they 
had no better author than the sexton or 
curate of the parish. For my part, I 
was so shamefully negligent as not to 
set down how many crosses are in the 
road from Calais to Luneviile ; nay, I 
did not so much as take an inventory of 
the relics in the churches I went to see. 
You may judge by this what a poor ac- 
count I shall give you of my travels, and 
how ill the money is bestowed that you 
spent upon them. But, however, if my 
dear mother insists upon it, I shall have 
so much complaisance for the curiosity 
natural to her sex, as to write her a 
particular of what rarities I have seen ; 



but of all ordinary spectacles, such as 
miracles, raree-shov»^s, and the like, I 
beg her permission to be silent. I am, 
dear sir, your dutiful son, &c. 

LETTER CXXVIII. 

From ihc same to the same. 

Luneviile, Jul)' 2J. 
Dear sir, 
1 THANK you for so kindly forgiving 
the piece of negligence I acquainted 
you of in my last. Young fellows are 
often gnilty of voluntary forgetfulness 
in those aifairs ; but, I assure you, mine 

was quite accidental. Mr. J) tells 

you true, that 1 am weary of losing 
money at cards ; but it is no less cer- 
tain, that without them I shall soon be 
weary of Lorrain. The spirit of qua- 
drille has possessed the land from morn- 
ing till midnight ; there is nothing else 
in every house in town. 

This court is fond of strangers, but 
with a proviso that strangers love qua- 
drille. Would you win the hearts of the 
maids of honour, you must lose your mo- 
ney at quadrille ; v/ould you be thought 
a well-bred man, you must play genteelly 
at quadrille ; would you get a reputation 
of good sense, shew judgment at qua- 
drille : however, in summer, one may 
contrive to pass a day without quadrille ; 
because there are agreeable promenades, 
and little parties out of doors ; but in 
the winter you are reduced to play at it, 
or sleep like a fly till the return of spring. 
Indeed in the morning the duke hunts ; 
but my malicious stars have so contrived 
it, that I am no more a sportsman than 
a gamester. There are no men of learn- 
ing in the v/hole country ; on the con- 
trary, it is a character they despise. A 
man of quality caught me the other day 
reading a Latin author ; and asked me 
with an air of contempt, whether I w^as 
designed for the church. All this would 
be tolerable, if I was not doomed to con- 
verse with a set of English, who are still 
more ignorant than the French ; and 
from whom, with my utmost endeavours, 
I cannot be absent six hours in the day. 

Lord is the only one among them 

who has common sense ; and he is so 
scandalously debauched in his principles 
as well as practice, that his conversation 
is equally shocking to my morals and 
my reason. 



! 



Sect. III. 



RECENT. 



523 



My only improvement here is in the 
company of the duke and prince Craon, 
and in the exercise of the academy : T 
have heen absent from the last near three 
weeks, by reason of a sprain I got in the 
sinews of my leg", which is not yet quite 
recovered. My duty to my dear mo- 
ther ; I hope you and she continue well. 
I am, sir, your dutiful son. 



LETTER CXXTX. 

Fro7n the same to the sajiie. 

Luneville, August 18. 
Dear sir, 
I WROTH to you last post, and have 
since received yours of the 20th. Your 
complaints pierce my heart. Alas! sir, 
what pain must it give me to think that 
my improvement put you to any degree 
of inconvenience? And perhaps, after 
all, I may return, and not answer your 
expectations. This thought gives me 
so much uneasiness, that I am ready to 
wish you would recal me, and save the 
charge of travelling: but, no ; the world 
would judge perversely, and blame you 
for it ; I must go on, and you must sup- 
port me like your son. 

I have observed, with extreme afflic- 
tion, how much your temper is altered 
of late, and your cheerfulness of mind 
impaired. My heart has ached within 
me, when I have seen you giving your- 
self up to a melancholy diffidence, which 
makes you fear the worst in every thing, 
and seldom indulge those pleasing hopes 
which support and nourish us. O my 
dear sir, how happy shall I be, if I am 
able to restore you to your former 
gaiety ! People, that knew you some 
years ago, say that you was the most 
cheerful man alive. How much beyond 
the possession of any mistress will be 
the pleasure I shall experience, if by 
marrying well, I can make you such 
once more ! This is my wish, my ambi- 
tion, the prayer I make to Heaven as 
often as I think on my future life. But, 
alas ! I hope for it in vain, if you suf- 
fer your cares and inquietudes to de- 
stroy your health : what will avail my 
good intentions, if they are frustrated by 
your death ? You will leave this world 
without ever knowing whether the pro- 
mises of your son were the language of 
a grateful heart, or the lying protesta- 



tions of a hypocrite ; God in Heaven for- 
bid it should be so ! May he preserve 
your health, and prolong your days, to 
receive a thousand proofs of the lasting 
love and duty of the most obliged of 
children ! We are all bound to you, sir, 
and will, I trust, repay it in love and 
honour of you. Let this support and 
comfort you, that you are the father of 
ten children, among whom there seems 
to be but one soul of love and obedience 
to you. This is a solid, real good, which 
you will feel and enjoy, vviien other plea- 
sures have lost their taste : your heart 
will be warmed by it in old age, and you 
will find yourself richer in these trea- 
sures than in the possession of all you 
have spent upon us. I talk, sir, from 
the fulness of my heart ; and it is not 
the style of a dissembler. Do not, my 
dear sir, suffer melancholy to gain too 
far upon you : think less of those cir- 
cumstances which disquiet you, and re- 
joice in the many others which ought 
to gladden you : consider the reputa- 
tion you have acquired, the glorious re- 
putation of integrity, so uncommon in 
this age I Imagine that your posterity 
will look upon it as the noblest for- 
tune you can leave them, and that your 
children's children will be incited to vir- 
tue by your example. 1 do not know, 
sir, whether you feel this ; I am sure I 
do, and glory in it. Are you not happy 
in my dear mother? Was ever wife so 
virtuous, so dutiful, so fond? There is 
no satisfaction beyond this, and I know 
you have a perfect sense of it. All these 
advantages, well weighed, will make 
your misfortunes light; and, I hope, the 
pleasure arising from them will dispel 
that cloud which hangs upon you, and 
sinks your spirits. I am, dear sir, your 
dutiful son. 



LETTER CXXX. 

Fro??i the same to the same. 

Soissons, Nov. 20. 
Dear sir, 
This is one of the agreeablest towns 
in France. The people are infinitely 
obliging to strangers. We are of all 
their parties, and perpetually share with 
them in their pleasures. I have learnt 
more French since I came here, than I 
should liave picked up in a twelvemonth 



524 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



at Lorrain. The desire of a further pro- 
gress and improvement in that tongue 
has led me into some thoughts relating 
to the continuation of my travels, which 
I beg leave to lay before you. 

If you send me to Italy next spring, as 
you once designed to do, one great in- 
convenience will arise, viz. that, before 
I am perfect in speaking French, I must 
apply myself to Italian, from which it 
may probably come to pass, that I shall 
not know much of either. I should, 
therefore, think it more for my advan- 
tage to make the tour of France before 
I set out for Italy, than after I come 
back. 

There is another reason, which at 
least will weigh with my dear mother ; 
that is, that, after the month of May, 
when the violent heats begin, Rome 
(where it will be necessary to settle first, 
upon account of the purity of the lan- 
guage, which is spoke corruptly in other 
places) is so unwliolesome as to en- 
danger the life of any foreigner unac- 
customed to that air ; and therefore 
most travellers go thither about Sep- 
tember, and leave it towards April. I 
fancy these two objections to the fore- 
going scheme will incline you rather to 
give into mine, which is as follows : Sup- 
pose 1 stay here till after February ; I 
may in March, April, May, and June 
see Orleans, Lyons, and Bourdeaux ; 
and pass July, August, and September, in 
the southern provinces. The air of those 
countries is so pure, that the greatest 
heats do nobody any harm. From Pro- 
vence to Genoa is the shortest road I can 
take for Italy, and so through- Tuscany 
to Rome, where I shall arrive about De- 
cember, having seen what is curious in 
my way. 

I may pass two months at Rome, and 
go from thence to Naples, the most de- 
lightful part of Italy, and the finest air ; 
allowing me three months in that coun- 
try, I may take a little voyage to Mes- 
sina, and from thence to Malta, which 
lays just by. From Naples I may travel 
along the coasts of the Adriatic Sea, by 
Ancona and Loretta, to Venice ; where, 
if I stay but to the end of July, I shall 
have August, September, and October, 
to see Padua, Verona, Milan, and the 
other parts of Italy that lie N. W. of the 
Venetian Gulf. In the winter I may 
settle at Sienna, where there is a good 
academy, and where they are not trou- 



bled with any English. From thence I 
may go to Turin, if you please, and 
stay there till April. After which, to 
avoid returning through Provence a se- 
cond time, I may go by Lauzanne and 
Berne to Franche Compte, and so by 
Dijon to Paris. When 1 am there, it 
will be wholly in your breast how long 
you would have me stay abroad, and 
whether I should come home the shortest 
way, or have the pleasure of seeing Hol- 
land. This, sir, is the plan that I offer 
to you ; which, I hope, you will ap- 
prove of in the main, and agree to for 
mc. I do not pretend to have laid it so 
exact as never to depart from it ; but I 
am persuaded that, generally speaking, 
I shall find it agreeable and commo- 
dious. I have not brought Lorrain 
into it, because it lies quite out of the 
way, and because (to say the truth) I 
am unwilling to go thither. I know, 
my dear sir, i should acquaint you with 
my reasons for the dislike I have ex- 
pressed against that place. This is not 
so easy an eclair cissement as you may 
think it. Our notions of places and of 
persons depend upon a combination of 
circumstances, many of which are in 
themselves minute, but have weight 
from their assemblage with the rest. 
Our minds are like our bodies : they 
owe their pain or pleasure to the good 
or ill assortment of a thousand causes, 
each of which is a trifle by itself. How 
small and imperceptible are the quali- 
ties in the air, or soil, or climate, where 
we live ; and yet how sensible are the 
impressions they make upon us, and 
the delights or uneasiness they create ! 
So it is with our minds, from the little 
accidents that concur to soothe or to 
disorder them. But in both, the im- 
pressions are more strong, as the frames 
which they act upon are more delicate 
and refined. I must therefore impute 
many of my complaints to the natural 
delicacy of my temper ; and, I flatter 
myself, you will not think that reason 
the worst I could have given you. . But 
there are others, more gross and evi- 
dent, v/hich I have already in part in- 
formed you of, and which 1 shall here 
set forth more at large. 

It is natural for us to hate the school 
in which we take the first lessons of 
any art. The reason is, that the awk- 
wardness we have shewn in such be- 
ginnings lessens us in the eyes of people 



Sect. III. 



RECENT. 



525 



there, and tlie disadvantageous preju- 
dice it has given of us is never quite to 
be got over. 

Luneville was my school of breeding, 
and I was there more unavoidably sub- 
ject to quelques heUes d'ecoiier, as the 
politesse practised in that place is fuller 
of ceremony than elsev/here, and has a 
good deal peculiar to itself. 

The memory of these mistakes, though 
lost perhaps in others, hangs upon my 
mind when I am there, and depresses 
my spirits to such a degree, that I am 
not like myself. One is never agreeable 
in company where one fears too much 
to be disapproved ; and the very notion 
of being ill received has as bad an effect 
upon our gaiety as the thing itself. This 
is the first and strongest reason why I 
despair of being happy in Lorrain. I 
have already complained of the foppish 
ignorance and contempt for all I have 
been taught to value, that is so fashion- 
able there. You have heard me describe 
the greater part of the English I knew 
there, in colours that ought to make you 
fear the infection of such company for 
your son. 

But, supposing no danger in this 
brutal, unimproving society, it is no 
little grievance ; for to what barbarous 
insults does it expose our morals and 
understanding! A fool, with a majo- 
rity on his side, is the greatest tyrant in 
the world. Do not imagine, dear sir, 
that I am setting up for a reformer of 
mankind, because I express some im- 
patience at the folly and immorality of 
my acquaintance. I am far from ex- 
pecting they should all be wits, much 
less philosophers. My own weaknesses 
are too well knoAvn to me, not to pre- 
judice me in favour of other people's 
when they go but to a certain point. 
There are extravagances that have al- 
ways an excuse, sometimes a grace at- 
tending them. Youth is agreeable in 
its sallies, and would lose its beauty if it 
looked too grave ; but a reasonable 
head and an honest heart are never to 
be dispensed with. Not that I am so 
severe upon Luneville and my English 
friends, as to pretend there are not men 
of merit and good sense among them. 
There are some undoubtedly ; but all I 
know are uneasy at finding themselves 
in such ill company. I shall trouble 
you no farther upon this head. If you 
«nter into my way of thinking,, what I 



have said will be enough : if you do 
not, all I can say will have no effect. I 
should not have engaged in this long 
detail, but that I love to open my heart 
to you, and make you the confident of 
all my thoughts. Till I have the honour 
and happiness of conversing with you 
in a nearer manner, indulge me, dear 
sir, in this distant way of conveying my 
notions to you, and let me talk to 
you as I would to my dearest friend, 
without awe, correctness, or reserve. 
Though I have taken up so much of 
your time before, I cannot help giving 
myself the pleasure of acquainting you 
of the extraordinary civilities 1 receive 
from Mr. Poyntz. He has in a man- 
ner taken me into his family. I have 
the honour of his conversation at all 
hours, and he delights to turn it to my 
improvement. He was so good as to 
desire me to ask your leave to pass the 
winter with him, and to encourage me 
to do it, promised me that I should not 
be without my share of public business. 
The first packet that comes from Foun- 
tainbleau I expect to be employed ; which 
is no small pleasure to me, and will, I 
hope, be of service. 

Do not you think, sir, it would be 
proper for you to write to Mr. Poyntz, 
to thank him for the honours he has 
done me ; and to desire him to excuse it, 
if his civilities make me troublesome to 
him longer than you designed? You 
know so well how to do those things, 
that I am persuaded it v/ould have a 
good effect. 

The only news J have to tell you, is a 
secret intelligence from Vienna, that 
count Zinzerdorff is going out of favour; 
this is of consequence to the negocia- 
tions, but you must not mention it : 
while I am not trusted with affairs you 
shall know all 1 hear ; but afterwards 
nil jiatri quidem. I was saying to Mr. 
Poyntz, that Ripperda was undoubtedly 
very happy to come out of prison into 
the land of liberty; he replied, that, 
whatever the duke might think, he was 
in danger of going to prison again. 

This was said some time ago, and 
things may have altered since. I remain, 
dear sir, your dutiful son, &c. 



526 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



LETTER CXXXL 



LETTER CXXXn. 



Lord Littleton to Sir Thomas Littleton. S. Poi/iitz, Esq. to Sir Thomas Littleton. 



Talis, Jan. 22, 1729. 

Dear sir, 
I HAVE SO much to thank you for, that 
1 have not words to do it ; so kind a 
compliance with all my wishes surpasses 
my acknowledgment. Your two letters 
to Mr. Poyntz had their effect, and were 
answered with a profusion of civilities, 
and marks of friendship and esteem ; 
but the enclosed will instruct you better 
in the obligations I have to you and 
him. How happy I am in your per- 
mission to quit Lorrain, you may judge 
by my letter on that head. I think you 
have mistaken my sense in some argu- 
ments made use of there ; but it is need- 
less to set you right. Your kindness 
and indulgence to my desires is an argu- 
ment more persuasive than all the rest, 
and in which only I confide. 

I have lately, sir, spent more than I 
could wish, and the necessity of doing 
it gives me no small uneasiness ; but it 
is an undoubted fact, that without shew 
abroad there is no improvement. You 
yourself confess it, when you say, the 
French are only fond of strangers who 
have money to pay them for their com- 
pliments. You express a great uneasi- 
ness, for fear I should grow fond of 
games of chance. I have sometimes 
risqued a little at them, but without 
any passion or delight. Gaming is too 
unreasonable and dishonest for a gen- 
tleman, who has either sense or honour, 
to addict himself to it ; but, to set you 
quite easy in that point, I give you my 
word and honour, and desire no par- 
don if I recede from it, that I never will 
addict myself to this destructive passion, 
which is such a whirlpool, that it ab- 
sorbs all others. It is true I have been 
a sufferer at quadrille, and must ever 
suffer on : for point de societe sans cela; 
c'est un article preliminaire a tout C07n- 
merce avcc le beau monde. I may ven- 
ture to assure you, that ail thoughts of 
peace are not laid aside, as you appre- 
hend. I remain, dear sir, your dutiful 
son, &c. 



Paris, Jan. 29, 1729. 



Sir, 



I HAVE received your two kind letters, 
in which you are pleased very much to 
overvalue the small civilities it has lain 
in my power to show Mr. Lyttleton. I 
have more reason to thank you, sir, for 
giving me so convincing a mark of your 
regard, as to interrupt the course of his 
travels on my account, which will lay 
me under a double obligation to do all 
I can towards making his stay agree- 
able and useful to him ; though I shall 
still remain the greater gainer by the 
pleasure of his company, which no ser- 
vices of mine can sufficiently requite. ^ 
He is now in the same house with me, 
and by that means more constantly 
under my eye than even at Soissons : 
but I should be very unjust to him, if I 
left you under the imagination, that his 
inclinations stand in the least need of 
any such ungenerous restraint. Depend 
upon it, sir, from the observation of one 
who would abhor to deceive a father in 
so tender a point, that he retains the 
same virtuous and studious dispositions, 
which nature and your care planted in 
him, only strengthened and improved 
by age and experience ; so that, I dare 
promise you, the bad examples of Paris, 
or any other place, will never have any 
other effect upon him, but to confirm 
him in the right choice he has made. 
Under these happy circumstances, he 
can have little occasion for any other 
advice, but that of sustaining the cha- 
racter he has so early got, and of sup- 
porting the hopes he has raised. I wish 
it were in my power to do him any part 
of the service you suppose me capable 
of. I shall not be wanting to employ 
him, as occasion offers ; and to assist 
him with my advice where it may be 
necessary, though your cares (which he 
ever mentions with the greatest grati- 
tude) have made this task very easy. He 
cannot fail of making you and himself 
happy, and of being a great ornament to 
our country, if, with that refined taste 
and delicacy of genius, he can but recal 
his mind, at a proper age, from the plea- 
sures of learning, and gay scenes of ima- 
gination, to the dull road and fatigue of 
business. This I have sometimies taken 



Sect. lil. 



RECENT. 



527 



tlie liberty to hint to liim, though his 
own good judgment made it very unne- 
cessary. 

Though I have only the happiness of 
knowing you, sir, by your reputation, 
and by this common object of our friend- 
ship and affections, your son ; I heg you 
would be persuaded that I am, with the 
most particular respect, sir, your most 
humble and obedient servant, &c. 



and v/ere the principal cause of the de- 
lays and difficulties that retard the public 
peace. The vigorous resolutions of both 
houses, to support his m?^!esty in his 
councils, vail, no doubt, undeceive them, 
and contribute very much to bring affairs 
to that decision we desire. Adieu, my 
dear sir ; and believe me to be your du- 



LETTER CXXXIII. 
Loi^d Lyitleton to Sir Thomas Lyttkton. 
Paris, Feb. 17. 

Dear sir, 
I MADE your compliments to Mr. Poyntz 
as handsomely as I could, and read him 
that part of your letter, wiiere you leave 
it to his determination how long I shall 
stay with him, provided it be no ways 
inconvenient. He assured me, with the 
same obliging air of sincerity and good- 
ness as you are charmed with in his let- 
ter, that it was not in the least so ; and 
that my company again at Soissons would 
be the greatest relief and pleasure to him ; 
with many other kind expressions, which 
you would be glad to hear, but which I 
cannot repeat. I have a thousand thanks 
to pay you, sir, for so kindly preventing 
my desires, \ and continuing me in the 
possession of a happiness, which I was 
afraid was almost at an end. The time 
I spend with Mr. Poyntz is certainly the 
most agreeable, as well as the most im- 
proving, part of my life. He is a se- 
cond father to me, and it is in his so- 
ciety that I am least sensible of the want 
of yours. , 

I find you are uneasy at the situation 
the king's speech has left us in ; but de- 
pend upon it, notwithstanding the little 
triumph that the enemies of the govern- 
ment may shew upon the present seeming 
uncertainty of affairs, they will be con- 
cluded to their confusion, and to the 
honour of the councils they oppose. The 
greatest mischief that has been done us, 
and which perhaps you are not sensible 
of, was full of false and malicious insi- 
nuations, which, being translated and 
shewn to foreign ministers, unacquaint- 
ed with the lenity of our constitution 
and the liberty of scandal it allows, made 
them think that the nation would dis- 
avow the measures taken by the court. 



LETTER CXXXJV. 
From the same to the same, 

Paris, March 11. 

Dear sir, 
The affair of the Gosport man-of-war 
has raised a most extravagant spirit of 
resentment in the French. They talk 
of nothing less than hanging their own 
officer, and seem to expect that ours 
should come off as ill. I have talked to 
his excellency about it : he says he has 
had no account of it from England ; but 
desires me to tell you, that he is in hopes 
the French officer has made a false rcr 
port ; and that, if nothing very extraor- 
dinary has been done, as the case must 
have happened frequently, he should 
think it very proper, that as many pre- 
cedents as can be found should be col- 
lected and sent him over. He appre- 
hends, as much as you, a popular decla- 
mation from the Craftsman on this un- 
lucky subject. The embarkation you 
speak of is uncertain (as far as I can 
know from him), and intended only to 
reinforce our garrisons. Perhaps there 
may be more in it, which he does not 
think fit to trust me with, though I 
hardly imagine so ; because I have 
such marks of his confidence as con- 
vince me he does not doubt of my dis- 
cretion. 

Love to my brother ; I dare 

say he will be a gainer in the end by 
this Avarm action, though it happened 
to be ill-timed. I am glad the young 
fellow has so much of the martial spirit 

in him. What you tell me of 

amazes me. I shall obey your advice, 
in being cautious how I think any man 
my friend too soon ; since he, whose af- 
fection I was so sure of, has so injurious- 
ly convinced me of my mistake. I con- 
fess, I thought malice or ill-nature as 

great strangers to him as to poor ; 

but wdiat are the judgments of young 



528 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



men? Indeed, my dear sir, we are very 
silly fellows. 

I cannot help transcribing a few lines 
of my sister's letter of the 10th, to shew 
you that your goodness to your children 
meets at least with a grateful return : — 

"We should pass our time but ill, if 
the good-humour of my mother did not 
make us all cheerful, and make amends 
for the loss of those diversions, which 
London would afford us. The oftener 
I converse with her, the more I love her • 
and every one of her actions shews me 
a virtue 1 wish to imitate. This you 
must be sensible pf as well as I : but 
there is such a pleasure in praising 
those we love, that I must dwell a little 
upon the subject, which, I dare say, will 
be as grateful to you as it is to me. 
How happy are we v/itli such parents ! 
When I see my father almost spent with 
the cares of his family ; my dear mother 
confined here, for the good of her chil- 
dren ; I am overpowered with gratitude 
and love ! May you and they continue 
well ! and I want. nothing else to com- 
plete my happiness." 

This, sir, is a faithful extract, and 
speaks the language of all our hearts. 
Adieu, dear sir. I remain your dutiful 
son, &c. 

LETTER CXXXV. 
Lord Lyttleton to Sir Thomas Lytlleton. 
Haute Fontaine, near Soissons, May 27. 

Dear sir, 

I HAVE letters from my lord 

and his governor, in which they both 
express the highest sense of the friend- 
ship you have shewn them, and acknow- 
ledge the advantages they ov/e to it ; 
my lord, particularly, is charmed with 
the good-natured service you did his re- 
lation, and speaks of it as the greatest 
obligation. My friend Ascough too 
boasts of your protection, and professes 
that veneration for your character, that 
it makes me proud of being your son. 
It is now my duty to return you thanks 
for all these favours bestowed on others, 
and meant to me ; and I do it with all 
the pleasure of a grateful mind, which 
finds itself honoured in the obligation. 
I believe, there is no young man alive, 
who has more happiness to boast of 
than myself; being blessed with a sound 



constitution, affectionate friends, and 
an easy fortune ; but of all my advan- 
tages, there is none of which I have so 
deep a sense as the trust and amiable 
harmony between the best of fathers and 
myself. 

This is so much the dearer to me, as 
indeed it is the source of all the rest ; and 
as it is not to be lost by misfortune, but 
dependent upon my own behaviour, and 
annexed to virtue, honour, and reputa- 
tion, I am persuaded, that no weak- 
nesses or failings, which do not injure 
them, will occasion the withdrawing it 
from me ; and therefore I consider it as 
secure, because I have used my mind to 
look upon dishonesty and shame as 
strangers it can never be acquainted 
with : such an opinion is not vanity, 
but it is setting those two things at a 
necessary distance from us ; for it is 
certain, that the allov/ing a possibility 
of our acting wickedly, or meanly, is 
really making the first step towards it. 
I have received many civilities from Mr. 
Stanhope, who is here with Mr. Poyntz. 
Mr. Walpole has invited me to Com- 
peigne, where I am going for two or 
three days. Affairs are nov/ almost at a 
crisis, and there is great reason to ex- 
pect they v/ill take a happy turn. Mr. 
Walpole has a surprising influence over 
the cardinal ; so that whether peace or 
war ensue, we may depend upon our 
ally. In truth, it is the interest of the 
French court to be faithful to their en- 
gagements, though it may not entirely 
be the nation's. Emulation of trade 
might incline the people to wish the 
bond that ties them to us were broke ; 
but the mercantile interest has at no 
time been much considered by this court. 
If you reflect upon the apprehensions of 
the government from the side of Spain, 
and their very reasonable jealousy of 
the emperor, you will not wonder at 
their managing the friendship, and ad- 
hering to the alliance of Great Britain. 
The supposition, that present advantage 
is the basis and end of state engage- 
ments, and that they are only to be 
measured by that rule, is the foundation 
of all our suspicions against the firm- 
ness of our French ally. But the maxim 
is not just. Much is given to future 
hopes ; much obtained by future fears ; 
and security is, upon many occnsions, 
sought preferably to gain. I remain, 
dear sir, your dutiful son, &c. 



Sect. III. 



RECENT. 



52^ 



LETTER CXXXVI. 

From the same to tJie same. 

Paris, Sept. 8. 

Dear sir, 
Sunday, by four o'clock, we had the 
good news of a dauphin, and since that 
time I have thought myself in Bedlam. 
The natural gaiety of the nation is so 
improved on this occasion, that they are 
all stark mad with joy, and do nothing 
but dance and sing about the streets by 
hundreds and by thousands. The ex- 
pressions of their joy are admirable : one 
fellow gives notice to the public, that he 
designs to draw teeth for a week toge- 
ther upon the Pont Neuf, gratis. The 
king is as proud of what he has done, as 
if he had gained a kingdom ; and tells 
every body that he sees, qu'il sgaura hien 
faire des fils tant quit voudra. We are 
to have a fine fire-work to-morrow, his 
majesty being to sup in town. 

The duke of Orleans was sincerely, 
and without any affectation, transported 
at the birth of the dauphin. 

The succession was a burthen too 
heavy for his indolence to support, and 
he piously sings hallelujah for his happy 
delivery from it. The good old cardinal 
cried for joy. 

It is very late, and I have not slept 
these three nights for the squibs and 
crackers, and other noises that the peo- 
ple make in the streets, so must beg 
leave to conclude, with assuring that I 
am, dear sir, your affectionate and duti- 
ful son. 



of my dear friend, Mr. Poyntz, of whose 
favours to me I have so deep a sense, 
that I cannot too often express my ac- 
knowledgments. The time I have en- 
joyed his company has been spent so 
happily, and so much to my honour and 
advantage, that I do not know how to 
reconcile my thoughts to a period of it. 
It is not so much the liveliness of his 
wit, and uncommon strength of his 
judgment, that charm me in his conver- 
sation, as those great and noble senti- 
ments, which would have been admired 
by ancient Rome, and have done honour 
to the most virtuous ages. 

He is going to his country-seat ; 
where I hope the air, and a little repose 
from the fatigue of business, will en- 
tirely restore his health. I shall ob- 
serve your caution against grapes, new 
wine, and pretty women, though they 
are all very tempting, but dangerous 
things . 

I have time for no more now, but to 
assure you of my duty and affection. I 
have written to my lord Cobham upon 
my going to Italy. His excellency 
thanks you for your letter, and will write 
to you as soon as he gets to Haute Fon- 
taine. I have the pleasure of being able 
to assure you, that the final project of a 
treaty sent to Spain is entirely satisfac- 
tory and honourable, and that it con- 
tains a fuU redress and reparation for all 
abuses, grievances, and wrongs. I am, 
dear sir, with due respect, your most 
dutiful son. 



LETTER CXXXVIII. 



LETTER CXXXVI I. 

Fro?Ji the same to the same 

Paris, Oct. 6. 
Dear sir, 
I HAVE the greatest- thanks to return 
you for the many proofs of confidence 
and affection you gave me in your last, 
and shall labour to deserve that good" 
ness, which is so kind and complaisant 
to my desires. I shaU, in obedience to 
your orders, set out for Italy to-mor- 
row, where I hope to make such im- 
provements as wiU answer the expense 
of the journey ; but, whatever advantage 
or pleasure I may propose, I cannot, 
without a sensible affliction, takejeave 



S. Poj/ntz, Esq. to Sir Tho?nas Lyttleton. 



Sir, 



Haute Fontaine, Oct, 18. 



Mr. Lyttleton will have acquainted 
you with my removing to this place, the 
day before he left Paris, for the benefit 
of the air, and exercise of the country, 
which has almost restored me to health. 
The first use I make of it, sir, is to re- 
turn you my sincere thanks, for making 
me so long happy In his good company ; 
which I may with great truth say, has 
contributed more than any thing else to 
make the tediousnessof this splendid ba-i 
nishment supportable to me, and to sof- 
ten the impressions which the many per- 
verse turns of the negociations must 
2M 



530 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



have made upon my mind. I wish it 
had been in my power to make equal 
returns : his good-nature disposes him 
to over-value them, such as they were ; 
but I can only hope that our future 
acquaintance may afford me an oppor- 
tunity of discharging some part of the 
debt. 

His behaviour has continued the same 
as I described it last winter ; and I am 
morally sure will never alter, in any 
country, or any part of life, for the 
worse. His health is liable to frequent 
interruptions, though not dangerous 
ones, nor of any long continuance. 
They seem to proceed chiefly from an 
ill digestion, which, I believe, may 
sometimes be occasioned by the vivacity 
of his imagination's pursuing some 
agreeable thought too intensely, and 
diverting the spirits from their proper 
function, even at meals ; for we have 
often been obliged at that time to recal 
him from reveries, that made him almost 
absent to his company, though without 
the least tincture of melancholy. 

I mention this last circumstance as a 
peculiar felicity of his temper; melan- 
choly and spleen being the rock on 
which minds of so delicate a texture as 
his are most in danger of splitting. I 
have seen two or three instances of it 
myself in young gentlemen of the 
greatest hopes ; and the epistles written 
by Languett, to sir Philip Sidney, upon 
ah acquaintance, contracted, like ours, 
abroad, bring his particular case to my 
mind. 

No young gentleman ever promised 
more ; but, returning to England, con- 
scious of his own worth, and full of more 
refined notions of honour, virtue, and 
friendship, than were to be met with in 
courts and parliaments, and in that 
mixed herd of men with whom business 
must be transacted, he conceived a total 
disgust for the world ; and, retiring into 
the country, sat down with patience to 
consume the vigour of his imagination 
and youth in writing a trifling romance. 
I can, with pleasure, assure you, that I 
see no symptom of this kind in Mr. 
Lyttleton ; his mind is ever cheerful 
and active, and full of such a benevo- 
lence towards his friends and relations 
in England, as well as such zeal for the 
honour and interests of his country, as, 
I verily believe, will never let him sink 
down into indolence and inaction. How- 



ever, this sickness of the mind, and an 
ill state of bodily health, which naturally 
influence and promote one the other, 
are the two points most necessary to 
guard against, in a nature the most 
exempt from faults I ever met with. 

1 ought to ask pardon for indulging 
this liberty, if 1 were not writing to the 
best of fathers ; though this very cir- 
cumstance makes all my care super- 
fluous. But the friendship your son 
has expressed for me ever since his being 
here, and more particularly in my late 
illness, and at parting, is too strong 
upon my mind, to suffer me to suppress 
any hint that may be of the most distant 
use to him, or may convince you of the 
sincerity of that respect with which I 
am, sir, your most humble and obedient 
servant. 



LETTER CXXXIX. 

Lord Littleton to Sir Thomas Lyttleton. 

Jan. 17, 1747. 

Dear sir. 
It is a most sensible and painful addi- 
tion to my concern and affliction for my 
dear wife, to hear of your being so bad 
with the stone ; and, loaded as my heart 
is with my other grief, I cannot help 
writing this, to tell you how much I feel 
for you, and how ardently I pray to God 
to relieve you. 

Last night all my thoughts were em- 
ployed on you ; for, when I went to 
bed, my poor Lucy was so much better, 
that we thought her in a fair way of re- 
covery ; but my uneasiness for you kept 
me awake great part of the night, and, 
in the morning, I found she had been 
much worse again, so that our alarm 
was as great as ever : she has since 
mended again, and is now pretty near 
as you heard last post ; only that such 
frequent relapses give one more cause 
to fear, that the good symptoms, which 
sometimes appear, will not be lasting. 
On the other hand, by her struggling 
so long, and her pulse recovering itself 
so well as it does, after such violent 
flurries and such great sinkings, one 
would hope that nature is strong in her, 
and will be able at last to conquer her 
illness. 

Sir Edward Hulse seems now inclined 
to trust to that, and to trouble her with 



I 



Sect. III. 



RECENT. 



531 



no more physic; upon which condition 
alone she has been persuaded to take 
any food to-day. Upon the whole, her 
case is full of uncertainty, and the doc- 
tors can pronounce notfcing positirely 
about her ; but they rather think it 
will be an affair of time. For my 
own health, it is yet tolerably good, 
though my heart has gone through as 
severe a trial as it can well sustain ; 
more indeed than I thought it could 
have borne : and you may depend upon 
it, dear sir, that I will make use of all 
the supports that religion or reason can 
give me, to save me from sinking under 
it. I know the part you take in my 
life and health ; and I know it my duty 
to try not to add to your other pains 
that of my loss, which thought has as 
great an effect upon me as any thing 
can ; and I believe God Almighty sup- 
ports me above my own strength, for the 
sake of my friends who are concerned 
for me, and in return for the resignation 
Avith which I endeavour to submit to his 
will. If it please him, in his infinite 
mercy, to restore my dear wife to me, 
I shall most thankfully acknowledge his 
goodness ; if not, I shall most humbly 
endure his chastisement, which 1 have 
too much deserved. 

These are the sentiments with which 
my mind is replete ; but, as it is still a 
most bitter cup, how my body will bear 
it, if it must not pass from me, it is im- 
possible for me to foretel ; but I hope 
the best. I once more pray God to re- 
lieve you from that dreadful distemper 
with which you are afflicted. 

Gilbert West would be happy in the 
reputation his book has gained him, if 
my poor Lucy was not so ill. However, 
his mind leans always to hope ; which 
is an. advantage both to him and me, as 
it makes him a better comforter. To 
be sure we ought not yet to despair ; 
but there is much to fear, and a most 
melancholy interval to be supported, 
before any certainty comes — God send 
it may come well at last ! I am, dear 
sir, your most afflicted, but most affec- 
tionate son. 



LErrER CXL. 

The late Bishop Home to a young Clergy' 
man. 

Dear , 



I AM much pleased to hear you have been 
for some time stationary at Oxford ; a 
place where a man may best prepare 
himself to go forth as a burning and shi- 
ning light into a world where charity is 
waxed cold, and where truth is well-nigh 
obscured. Whenever it pleases God to 
appoint you to the government of a pa- 
rish, you will find work enough to employ 
you ; and therefore, before that time 
comes, you should be careful to provide 
yourself with all necessary knowledge, 
lest, by-and-by, when you should be 
building, you should have your materials 
to look for, and bring together ; besides, 
that the habit of studying and thinking, 
if it be not got in the first part of life, 
rarely comes afterwards. A man is mi- 
serably drawn into the eddy of worldly 
dissipation, and knows not how to get 
out of it again, till, in the end, for want 
of spiritual exercises, the faculties of the 
soul are benumbed, and he sinks into in- 
dolence, till the night cometh, lohen no 
man can work. Happy, therefore, is the 
man, who betimes acquires a relish for 
holy solitude, and accustoms himself to 
bear the yoke of Christ's discipline in his 
youth ; who can sit alone, and keep si- 
lence, and seek wisdom diligently where 
she may be found, in the Scriptures of 
faith, and in the writings of the saints. 
From these flowers of Paradise he ex- 
tracts the honey of knowledge and di- 
vine love, and therewith fills every cell of 
his understanding and affections. The 
winter of affliction, disease, and old age, 
will not surprise such an one in an un- 
prepared state. He ivill not be con- 
founded in the perilous time ; and in the 
days of dearth he will have enough to 
strengthen, comfort, and support him 
and his brethren. Precious beyond ru- 
bies are the hours of youth and health ! 
LetKone of them pass unprofitably away ; 
for surely they make to themselves wings, 
and are as a bird cutting swiftly the air, 
and the trace of her can no more be 
found. If well spent, they fly to heaven 
with news that rejoice angels, and meet 
us again as witnesses for us at the tri- 
bunal of our Lord. When the graces of 
time run into the glories of eternity, how 
2M2 



532 



ELEGANT E P I S T I. E S. 



Book IV, 



trifling will the labour then seem that has 
procured us (through grace) everlasting 
rest, for which the apostles toiled night 
and day, and the martyrs loved not their 
lives unto death ! 

These, my dear , are my senti- 
ments ; would to God my practice were 
more conformable to them than it is, 
that I might he less unworthy to advise 
and exhort others ! but I trust the per- 
suasion I haye of the truth of what is 
said above (which every day's experience 
more and more confirms) will influence 
my conduct in this particular^ and make 
me more watchful in time to come. In 
the mean season, I cannot forbear press- 
ing the same upon you, as 1 should do 
with my dying breath ; since, upon the 
due proportioning and employing our 
time, all our progress in grace and know- 
ledge depends. 

If there be any thing with regard to 
the choice or matter of your studies, in 
which I can assist you, let me know, as 
you can have no doubt of my being, in 
all things, most afl^ectionately yours. 



FROM THE 



LETTRES OF WILLIAM COWPER, ESQ. 



a single man) but few better. 1 am not 
quite alone, having brought a servant 
with me from St. Alban's, who is the very 
mirror of fidelity and afi'ection for his 
master. And whereas the Turkish Spy 
says, he kept no servant because he would 
not have an enemy in his house, I hired 
mine because I would have a friend. 
Men do not usually bestow these enco- 
miums on their lackeys, nor do they 
usually deserve them ; but I have had 
experience of mine, both in sickness and 
in health, and never saw his fellow. 

The river Ouse (I forget how they spell 
it) is the most agreeable circumstance in 
this part of the world ; at this town it is 
I believe as wide as the Thames at Wind- 
sor ; nor does the silver Thames better 
deserve that epithet, nor has it more 
flowers upon its banks, these being at- 
tributes, which, in strict truth, belong to 
neither. Fluellen would say, they are as 
like as my fingers to my fingers, and 
there is salmon in both. It is a noble 
stream to bathe in, and I shall make that 
use of it three times a week, having in- 
troduced myself to it for the first time 
this morning. 

I beg you will remember me to all my 
friends, which is a task will cost you no 
great pains to execute — particularly re- 
member me to those of your own house, 
and believe me your very afl'ectionate. 



LETTER CXLI. 

To Joseph Hill, Esq. 

Huntingdon, June 24, 1765. 

Dear Joe, 
The only recompence I can make you 
for your khid attention to my affairs, 
during my illness, is to tell you, that by 
the mercy of God I am restored to per- 
fect health, both of mind and body. 
This, I believe, will give you pleasure, 
and I would gladly do any thing from 
which you could receive it. 

I left St. Alban's on the seventeeflth, 
and arrived that day at Cambridge, spent 
some time there with my brother, and 
came hither on the twenty-second. I 
have a lodging that puts me continually 
in mind of our summer excursions ; we 
liave had many worse, and except the 
size of it (which however is sufficient for 



LETl^ER CXLII. 

To Lady Hesketh. 

July 12, 1765. 
My dear cousin. 
You are very good to me, and if you 
will only continue to write at such 
intervals as you find convenient, 1 shall 
receive all that pleasure, which I pro- 
posed to myself from our correspondence. 
I desire no more than that you would 
never drop me for any length of time to- 
gether, for I shall then think you only 
write because something happened to 
put you in mind of me, or for some other 
reason equally mortifying. I am not 
however so unreasonable as to expect 
you should perform this act of friendship 
so frequently as myself ; for you live in a 
world swarming with engagements, and 
my hours are almost all my own. You 
must every day be employed in doing 



Sect. III. 



RECENT. 



533 



what is expected from you by a thousand 
others, and I have nothing to do but 
what is most agreeable to myself. 

Our^mentioning Newton's Treatise on 
the Prophecies, brings to my mind an 
anecdote of Dr. Young, who you know 
died lately at Welwyn. Dr. Cotton, who 
was intimate with hini, paid him a visit 
about a fortnight before he was seized 
with his last illness. The old man was 
then in perfect health ; the antiquity of 
his person, the gravity of his utterance, 
and the earnestness with which he dis- 
coursed about religion, gave him, in the 
Doctor's eye, the appearance of a pro- 
phet. They had been delivering their 
sentiments upon this book of Newton, 
when Young closed the conference thus : 
— " My friend, there are two considera- 
tions upon which my faith in Christ is 
built as upon a rock : the fall of man, 
the redemption of man, and the resur- 
rection of man, the three cardinal arti- 
cles of our religion, are sucli as human 
ingenuity could never have invented, 
therefore they must be divine. The other 
argument is this — If the prophecies have 
been fulfilled (of which there is abun- 
dant demonstration), the Scripture must 
be the word of God ; and if the Scrip- 
ture is the word of God, Christianity 
must be true." 

This treatise on the Prophecies serves 
a double purpose : it not only proves the. 
truth of religion, in a manner that never 
has been, nor ever can be controverted ; 
but it proves likewise, that the Roman 
Catholic is the apostate and anti-chris- 
tian church, so frequently foi'etold both 
in the Old and New Testaments. Indeed 
so fatally connected is the refutation of 
Popery with the truth of Christianity, 
when the latter is evinced by the com- 
pletion of the prophecies, that in pro- 
portion as light is thrown upon the one, 
the deformities and errors of the other 
are more plainly exhibited. But I leave 
you to the book itself : there are parts 
of it which may possibly aflford you less 
entertainment than the rest, because you 
have never been a school-boy ; but in the 
main it is so interesting, and you are so 
fond of that which is so, that I am sure 
you win like it. 

My dear cousin, — how happy am I in 
having a friend, to whom I can open my 
heart upon these subjects ! I have many 
intimates in the world, and have had 
manv more than I shall have hereafter, 



to whom a long letter, upon these most 
important articles, would appear tiresome 
at least, if not impertinent. But I am 
not afraid of meeting with that reception 
from you, who have never yet made it 
your interest, that there should be no 
truth in the word of God. May this 
everlasting truth be your comfort while 
you live, and attend you with peace and 
joy in your last moments !"; I love you 
too well not to make this a part of my 
prayers ; and when I remember my friends 
on these occasions, there is no likelihood 
that you can be forgotten. Yours, ever. 

P. S. — Cambridge. — I add this post- 
script at my brother's rooms. He de- 
sires to be affectionately remembered to 
you, and if you are in town about a 
fortnight hence, when he proposes to be 
there himself, will take a breakfast with 
you; 



LETTER CXLIil. 

To the same. 

Sept. 4, 1765. 
Though I have some very agreeable 
acquaintance at Huntingdon, my dear 
cousin, none are so agreeable as the ar- 
rival of your letters. I thank you for that 
which I have just received from Drox- 
ford, and particularly for that part of it, 
where you give me an unlimited liberty 
upon the subject I have already so often 
written upon. Whatever interests us 
deeply, as naturally flows into the pen 
as it does from the lips, when every re- 
straint is taken away, and we meet with 
a friend indulgent enough to attend to 
us. How many, in all that variety of 
characters with whom I am acquainted, 
could I find, after the strictest search, 
to whom I could write as I do to you ? 
I hope the number will increase ; I am 
sure it cannot easily be diminished. 

Poor —-- ! I have heard the whole 

of his history, and can only lament, 
what I am sure I can make no apology 
for. Two of my friends have been cut 
off during my illness, in the midst of 
such a life as it is frightful to reflect 
upon ; and here am I, in better health 
and spirits than I can almost remember 
to have enjoyed before, after having 
spent months in the apprehension of in- 
stant death. How mvsterious are the 



534 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



ways of Providence ! Why did I receive 
grace and mercy ? Why was I preserved, 
afflicted for my good, received, as I trust, 
into favour, and blessed with the great- 
est happiness I can ever l^now or hope 
for in this life, v/hile these were over- 
taken by the great arrest, unawakened, 
unrepenting, and every way unprepared 
for it ? His infinite wisdom, to v»^hose 
infinite mercy I owe it all, can solve 
these questions, and none beside him. 
If a free-thinker, as many a man mis- 
cals himself, could be brought to give a 
serious answer to them, he would cer- 
tainly say " Without doubt, sir, you 

was in great danger, you had a narrow 
escape, a most fortunate one indeed." 
How excessively foolish, as well as shock- 
ing ! As if life depended upon luck ; and 
all that we are or can be, all that we 
have or hope for, could possibly be refer- 
red to accident. Yet to this freedom of 
thought it is owing, that he, who, as our 
Saviour tells us, is thoroughly apprised 
of the death of the meanest of his crea- 
tures, is supposed to leave those, whom 
he has made in his own image, to the 
mercy of chance : and to this therefore 
it is likev/ise ov/ing, that the correction 
which our heavenly Father bestows upon 
us, that we may be fitted to receive his 
blessing, is so often disappointed of its 
benevolent intention, and that men de- 
spise the chastening of the Almighty. 
Fevers and all diseases are accidents ; and 
long life, recovery at least from sickness, 
is the gift of the physician ! No man 
can be a greater friend to the use of 
means upon these occasions than myself, 
for it were presumption and enthusiasm 
to neglect them. God has endued them 
with salutary properties, on purpose that 
we might avail ourselves of them, other- 
wise that part of his creation were in 
vain. But to impute our recovery to 
the medicine, and to carry our views no 
further, is to rob God of his honour, and 
is saying in effect, that he has parted 
with the keys of life and death, and, by 
giving to a drug the power to heal us, 
has placed our lives out of his own reach. 
He that thinks thus, may as well fall 
upon his knees at once, and return thanks 
to the medicine that cured him ; for it 
was certainly more immediately instru- 
mental in his recovery, than either the 
apothecary or the doctor. My dear cou- 
sin, — a firm persuasion of the superinten- 
dence of Providence, over all our con- 



cerns, is absolutely necessary to our hap- 
piness. Without it, we cannot be said 
to believe in the Scripture, or practise 
any thing like resignation to his will. 
If I am convinced that no affliction can 
befal me without the permission of God, 
I am convinced likewise, that he sees, 
and knows, that I am afflicted : believ- 
ing this, I must in the same degree be- 
lieve, that if I pray to him for deliver- 
ance, he hears me ; I must needs know, 
likewise, with equal assurance, that if he 
hears, he will also deliver me, if that will 
upon the whole be most conducive to my 
happiness ; and if he does not deliver me, 
I may be well assured that he has none 
but the most benevolent intention in de- 
clining it. He made us, not because we 
could add to his happiness, which was 
always perfect, but that we might be 
happy ourselves ; and will he not in all 
his dispensations towards us, even in 
the minutest, consult that end for which 
he made us ? To suppose the contrary, 
is (which we are not always aware of) 
affronting every one of his attributes ; 
and at the same time the certain conse- 
quence of disbelieving his care for us is, 
that we renounce utterly our dependence 
upon him. In this view it will appear 
plainly, that the line of duty is not 
stretched too tight, when we are told, 
that we ought to accept every thing at 
his hand as a blessing, and to be thank- 
ful even while we smart under the rod of 
iron with which he sometimes rules us. 
Without this persuasion, every blessing, 
however we may think ourselves happy 
in it, loses its greatest recommendation, 
and every affliction is intolerable. Death 
itself must be welcome to him who has 
this faith ; and he, who has it not, jnust 
aim at it, if he is not a madman. You 
cannot think how glad I am to hear you 
are going to commence lady and mistress 
of Freemantle*. I know it well, and 
could go to it from Southampton blind- 
fold. You are kind to invite me to it, 
and I shall be so kind to myself as to 
accept the invitation ; though I should 
not, for a slight consideration, be pre- 
vailed upon to quit my beloved retire- 
ment at Huntingdon. Yours ever. 

* Freemantle, a villa near Southampton. 



1 



Sect. III. 



RECENT. 



535 



LETIER CXLIV. 

7b Lady Hesketh. 

Huntingdon, Sept. 14, 1765. 
My dear cousin, 
The longer 1 live here, the better I like 
the place, and the people who belong to 
it. I am upon very good terms with no 
less than five families, besides two or 
three odd scrambling fellows like myself. 
The last acquaintance I made here is 
with the race of the Unwins, consisting 
of father and mother, son and daughter, 
the most comfortable, social folks you 
ever knew. The son is about twenty- 
one years of age, one of the most un- 
reserved and amiable young men I ever 
conversed with. He is not yet arrived 
at that time of life, when suspicion re- 
commends itself to us in the form of 
wisdom, and sets every thing, but our 
own dear selves, at an immeasurable dis- 
tance from our esteem and confidence. 
Consequently he is kno^n almost as soon 
as seen ; and having nothing in his heart 
that makes it necessary for him to keep 
it barred and bolted, opens it to the pe- 
rusal even of a stranger. The father is 
a clergyman, and the son is designed for 
orders. The design however is quite his 
own, proceeding merely from his being, 
and having always been, sincere in his 
belief and love of the Gospel. Another 
acquaintance I have lately made, is with 
a Mr. Nicholson, a North-country di- 
vine j very poor, but very good, and very 
happy. He reads prayers here twice 
a-day, all the year round, and travels on 
foot to serve two churches every Sunday 
through the year, his journey out and 
home again being sixteen miles. I sup- 
ped with him last night. He gave me 
bread and cheese, and a black jug of ale 
of his own brewing, and doubtless brewed 
by his own hands. Another of my ac- 
quaintance is Mr. , a thin, tall, old 

man, and as good as he is thin. He 
drinks nothing but water, and eats no 
flesh, partly (I believe) from a religious 
scruple (for he is very religious), and 
partly in the spirit of a valetudinarian. 
He is to be met with every morning of 
his life, at about six o'clock, at a foun- 
tain of very fine water, about a mile from 
the town, which is reckoned extremely 
like the Bristol spring. Being both early 
risers, and the only early walkers in the 
place, we soon became acquainted. His 



great piety can be equalled by nothing, 
but his great regularity ; for he is the 
most perfect time-piece in the world. I 
have received a visit likewise from Mr. 

. He is very much a gentleman, 

well-read, and sensible. I am persuaded, 
in short, that if I had had the choice of 
all England where to fix my abode, I 
could not have chosen better for myself, 
and most likely I should not have chosen 
so well. 

You say, you hope it is not necessary 
for salvation to undergo the same afflic- 
tions that I have undergone. No ! my 
dear cousin, God deals with his children 
as a merciful father ; Jie does not, as he 
himself tells us, afflict w^illingly the sons 
of men. Doubtless there are many who, 
having been placed, by his good provi- 
dence, out of the reach of any great evil, 
and the influence of bad example, have, 
from their very infancy, been partakera 
of the grace of his holy Spirit, in such a 
manner as never to have allowed them- 
selves in any grievous offence against 
him. May you love him more and more, 
day by day ; as every day, while you think 
upon him, you will find him more worthy 
of your love : and may you be finally ac- 
cepted by him fo^* his sake, whose inter- 
cession for all his faithful servants cannot 
but prevail ! Yours ever. 



LETTER CXLV. 

To the same. 

Huntingdon, Oct. 10, 1765. 

My dear cousin, 
I SHOULD grumble at your long silence, 
if I did not know, that one may love 
one's friends very well, though one is not 
always in a humour to write to them. 
Besides, I have the satisfaction of being 
perfectly sure, that you have at least 
twenty times recollected the debt you 
owe me, and as often resolved to pay it: 
and perhaps, while you remain indebted 
to me, you think of me twice as often as 
you would do if the account was clear. 
These are the reflections with which I 
comfort myseK under the affliction of 
not hearing from you : my temper does 
not incline me to jealousy, and if it did, 
I should set all right by having recourse 
to what I have already received from you. 

I thank God for your friendship, and 
for every friend I have : for all the pleas- 



536 



E L E G A N T EPISTLES. 



Book IV^ 



ing- circumstances here, for my health 
of body, and perfect serenity of mind. 
To recollect the past, and compare it 
with the present, is all I have need of to 
fill me with gratitude ; and to be grate- 
ful is to be happy. Not that I think 
myself sufficiently thankfiil, or that I 
ever shall be so in this life. The warm- 
est heart perhaps only feels by fits, and is 
often as insensible as the coldest. This 
at least is frequently the case with mine, 
and oftener than it should be. But the 
mercy that can forgive iniquity, will 
never be severe to mark our frailties. 
To that mercy, my dear cousin, I com- 
mend you, with earnest wishes for your 
welfare, and remain your ever affec- 
tionate. 



LETTER CXLVL 

To Majo7' Cotvper. 

Huntingdon, Oct. 18, 1765. 
My dear major, 
I HAVE neither lost the use of my fin- 
gers nor my memory, though my un- 
accountable silence might incline you to 
suspect that I had lost both. The his- 
tory of those things which have, from 
time to time, prevented my scribbling, 
would not only be insipid, but extremely 
voluminous, for which reasons they will 
not make their appearance at present, 
nor probably at any time hereafter. If 
my neglecting to write to you were a 
proof that I had never thought of you, 
and that had been really the case, five 
shillings a piece would have been much 
too little to give for the sight of such a 
monster ! but I am no such monster, nor 
do I perceive in myself the least tendency 
to such a transformation. You may re- 
collect that I had but very uncomfortable 
expectations of the accommodations I 
should meet with at Huntingdon. How 
much better is it to take our lot, where 
it shall please Providence to cast it, with- 
out anxiety ! Had I chosen for myself, 
it is impossible I could have fixed upon a 
place so agreeable to me in all respects. 
I so much dreaded the thought of having 
a new acquaintance to make, with no 
other recommendation than that of be- 
ing a perfect stranger, that I heartily 
wished no creature here might take the 
least notice of me. Instead of which, in 
about two months after my arrival, I be- 



came known to all the visitable people 
here, and do verily think it the most 
agreeable neighbourhood I ever saw. 

Here are three families who have re- 
ceived me with the utmost civility, and 
two in particular have treated me with 
as much cordiality as if their pedigree 
and mine had grown upon the same 
sheep-skin. Besides these, there are three 
or four single men, who suit my tem- 
per to a hair. The town is one of the 
neatest in England ; the country is fine 
for several miles about it, and the roads, 
which are all turnpike, and strike out 
four or five different ways, are perfectly 
good all the year round. I mention this 
latter circumstance chiefly because my 
distance from Cambridge has made a 
horseman of me at last, or at least is 
likely to do so. My brother and I meet 
every v/eek,byan alternate reciprocation 
of intercourse, as Sam Johnson would 
express it ; sometimes I get a lift in a 
neighbour's chaise, but generally ride. 
As to my own personal condition, I am 
much happier than the day is long, and 
sun- shine and candle-light alike see me 
perfectly contented. I get books in 
abundance, as much company as I choose, 
a deal of co?)iforiable leisure, and enjoy 
better health, I think, than for many 
years past. What is there wanting to 
make me happy ? Nothing, if I can but 
be as thankful as I ought : and I trust 
that He, who has bestowed so many 
blessings upon me, will give me grati- 
tude to crown them all. I beg you will 
give my love to my dear cousin Maria, 
and to everybody at the Park. If Mrs. 
Maitland is with you, as I suspect by a 
passage in lady Hesketh's letter to me, 
pray remember me to her very affec- 
tionately. And believe me, my dear 
friend, ever yours. 



LETTER CXLVII. 

To Mrs. Cowper. 

My dear cousin, 
I HAVE not been behind-hand in i^e- 
proaching myself with neglect, but de- 
sire to take shame to myself for my un- 
profitableness in this, as well as in all 
other respects. I take the next immedi- 
ate opportunity however of thanking you 
for yours, and of assuring you, that in- 
stead of being surpriseji at your silence. 



Segt. III. 



RECENT. 



537 



I rather wonder that you, or any of my 
friends, have any room left for so care- 
less and negligent a correspondent in 
your memories. I am obliged to you 
for the intelligence you send me of my 
kindred, and rejoice to hear of their wel- 
fare. He, who settles the bounds of our 
habitations, has at length cast our lot at 
a great distance from each other ; but I 
do not therefore forget their former 
kindness to me, or cease to be interested 
in their well-being. You live in the cen- 
tre of a world I know you do not delight 
in. Happy are you, my dear friend, in 
being able to discern the insufficiency of 
all it can afford, to fill and satisfy the 
desires of an immortal soul. That God, 
who created us for the enjoyment of him- 
self, has determined in mercy that it 
shall fail us here, in order that the blessed 
result of all our inquiries after happiness 
in the creature, may be a warm pursuit, 
and a close attachment to our true in- 
terests, in fellowship and communion 
with Him, through the name and media- 
tion of a dear Redeemer. I bless his 
goodness and grace, that I have any 
reason to hope I am a partaker with you 
in the desire after better things than are 
to be found in a world polluted with sin, 
and therefore devoted to destruction. 
May He enable us both to consider our 
present life in its only true light, as an 
opportunity put into our hands to glorify 
him amongst men, by a conduct suited 
to his word and will. I am miserably 
defective in this holy and blessed art ; but 
I hope there is at the bottom of all my 
sinful infirmities, a sincere desire to live 
just so long as I may be enabled, in some 
poor measure, to answer the end of my 
existence in this respect, and then to 
obey the summons, and attend him in a 
world, where they, who are his servants 
here, shall pay him an unsinful obedience 
for ever. Your dear mother is too good 
to me, and puts a more charitable con- 
struction upon my silence than the fact 
will warrant. I am not better employed 
than I should be in corresponding with 
her. I have that within, which hinders 
me wretchedly, in every thing that I 
ought to do, but is prone to trifle, and 
let time and every good thing run to 
waste. I hope however to write to her 
soon. 

My love and best wishes attend Mr. 
Cowper, and all that inquire after me. 
May God be with you, to bless you, and 



do you good, by all his dispensations ! 
Don't forget me when you are speaking 
to our best friend before his mercy-seat. 
Yours ever. 

N. B. I am not married. 



LETTER CXLVIII. 

To the same. 

Oliiey, Aug-. 31, 1769. 
My dear cousin, 
A LETTER from your brother Frederic 
brought me yesterday the most afflict- 
ing intelligence that has reached me 
these many years . I pray to God to com- 
fort you, and to enable you to sustain 
this heavy stroke, with that resignation 
to his will which none but Himself can 
give, and which he gives to none but his 
own children. How blessed and happy 
is your lot, my dear friend, beyond the 
common lot of the greater part of man- 
kind ; that you know what it is to draw 
near to God in prayer, and are acquaint- 
ed with a throne of grace ! You have 
resources in the infinite love of a dear 
Redeemer, which are withheld from mil- 
lions : and the promises of God, which 
are Yea and Amen in Jesus, are sufficient 
to answer all your necessities, and to 
sweeten the bitterest cup which your 
heavenly Father will ever put into your 
hand. May He now give you liberty to 
drink at these wells of salvation, till you 
are filled with consolation and peace, in 
the midst of trouble. He has said. When 
thou passest through the fire, I will be 
with thee ; and when through the floods, 
they shall not overflow thee. You have 
need of such a word as this, and he knows 
your need of it, and the time of necessity 
is the time, when he will be sure to ap- 
pear in behalf of those who trust in him. 
I bear you and yours upon my heart 
before him, night and day ; for I never 
expect to hear of distress, which shall 
call upon me with a louder voice to pray 
for the sufferer. I know the Lord hears 
me for myself, vile and sinful as I am, 
and believe, and am sure, that he will 
hear me for you also. He is the friend 
of the widow, and the father of the fa- 
therless, even God in his holy habitation ; 
in all our afflictions he is afflicted, and 
chastens us in mercy. Surely he will 
sanctify this dispensation to you, do you 



538 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



great and everlasting good by it, make 
the world appear like dust and vanity in 
your sight, as it truly is; and open to 
your vievi^ the glories of a better country, 
where there shall be no more death, 
neither sorrow, nor pain ; but God shall 
wipe away all tears from your eyes for 
ever. Oh that comfortable word! " I 
have chosen thee in the furnaces of af- 
fliction ; " so that our very sorrows are 
evidences of our calling, and he chastens 
us because we are his children. 

My dear cousin, — I commit you to the 
word of his grace, and to the comforts of 
his holy Spirit. Your life is needful for 
your family ; may God, in mercy to 
them, prolong it ; and may he preserve 
you from the dangerous effects which a 
stroke like this might have upon a frame 
so tender as yours. I grieve with you, 
I pray for you : could I do more, I 
would ; but God must comfort you. 
Yours, in our dear Lord Jesus. 



LETTER CXLIX. 

To the Rev. William Unwin, 

Sept. 21, 1779. 
A MI CO mio, be pleased to buy me a 
glazier's diamond pencil. I have glazed 
the two frames designed to receive my 
pine-plants. But I cannot mend the 
kitchen windows, till by the help of that 
implement I can reduce the glass to its 
proper dimensions . If I were a plumber, 
I should be a complete glazier ; and pos- 
sibly the happy time may come, when I 
shall be seen trudging away to the neigh- 
bouring towns with a shelf of glass hang- 
ing at my back. If government should 
impose another tax upon that commo- 
dity, I hardly know a business in which 
a gentleman might more successfully 
employ himself. A Chinese, of ten 
times my fortune, would avail himself 
of such an opportunity without scruple ; 
and why should not I, who want money 
as muth as any mandarin in China ! 
Rousseau would have been charmed to 
have seen me so occupied, and would 
have exclaimed, with rapture, " that he 
had found the Emilius, who (he sup- 
posed) had subsisted only in his own 
idea." I would recommend it to you 
to follow my example. You will pre- 
sently qualify yourself for the task ; and 



may not only amuse yourself at home, 
but may even exercise your skill in 
mending the church windows ; which, a& 
it would save money to the parish, would 
conduce, together with your other minis- 
terial accomplishments, to make you ex- 
tremely popular in the place. 

I have eight pair of tame pigeons. 
When I first enter the garden in the 
morning, I find them perched upon the 
wall, waiting for their breakfast, for I 
feed them always upon the gravel walk. 
If your wish should be accomplished, 
and you should find yourself furnished 
with the wings of a dove, I shall undoubt- 
edly find you amongst them ; only be 
so good, if that should be the case, to 
announce yourself by some means or 
other, for I imagine your crop will re- 
quire something better than tares to 
fill it. 

Your mother and I, last week, made 
a trip in a post-chaise to Gayhurst, the 
seat of Mr. Wright, about four miles off. 
He understood that I did not much affect 
strange faces, and sent over his servant 
on purpose to inform me, that he was 
going into Leicestershire, and that, if 1 
chose to see the gardens, I might gratify 
myself, without danger of seeing the pro- 
prietor. I accepted the invitation, and 
was delighted with all I found there. 
The situation is happy, the gardens ele- 
gantly disposed, the hot-house in the 
most flourishing state, and the orange- 
trees the most captivating creatures of 
the kind I ever saw. A man, in short, 
had need have the talents of Cox or 
Langford, the auctioneers, to do the 
whole scene justice. Our love attends 
you all. Yours. 



LETTER CL. 

To the same. 

Oct. 31, 1779. 

My dear friend, 
I WROTE my last letter merely to in- 
form you, that I had nothing to say, in 
answer to which you have said nothing. 
I admire the propriety of your conduct, 
though I am a loser by it. I will en- 
deavour to say something now, and shall 
hope for something in return. 

I have been well entertained with John- 
son's biography, for which I thank you : 



Sect. III. 



RECENT. 



539 



with one exception, and that a swinging 
one, 1 think he has acquitted himself 
Avith his usual good sense and sufl&ciency. 
His treatment of Milton is unmerciful 
to the last degree. He has belaboured 
that great poet's character with the most 
industrious cruelty. As a man, he has 
hardly left him the shadow of one good 
quality. Churlishness in his private life , 
and a rancorous hatred of every thing 
royal in his public, are the two colours 
with which he has smeared all the can- 
vass. If he Imd any virtues, they are not 
to be found in the Doctor's picture of 
him : and it is well for Milton, that some 
sourness in his temper is the only vice 
with which his memory has been charged ; 
it is evident enough, that if his biographer 
could have discovered more, he would 
not have spared him. As a poet, he has 
treated him with severity enough, and 
has plucked one or two of the most 
beautiful feathers out of his muse's wing, 
and trampled them under his great foot. 
He has passed sentence of condemna- 
tion upon Lycidas, and has taken occa- 
sion, from that chai-ming poem, to ex- 
pose to ridicule (what is indeed ridicu- 
lous enough) the childish prattlement of 
pastoral compositions, as if Lycidas was 
the prototype and pattern of them all. 
The liveliness of the description, the 
sweetness of the numbers, the classical 
spirit of antiquity, that prevails in it, go 
for nothing. I am convinced, by the 
way, that he has no ear for poetical num- 
bers, or that it was stopped, by prejudice, 
against the harmony of Milton's. Was 
there ever any thing so delightful as the 
music of the Paradise Lost ? It is like 
that of a fine organ ; has the fullest and 
the deepest tones of majesty, with all the 
softness and elegance of the Dorian flute. 
Variety without end, and never equalled, 
unless perhaps by Virgil. Yet the Doc- 
tor has little, or nothing, to say upon 
this copious theme : but talks something 
about the unfitness of the English lan- 
guage for blank verse, and how apt it is, 
in the mouth of some readers, to dege- 
nerate into declamation. 

I could talk a good while longer, but 
I have no room ; our love attends you. 
Yours affectionately. 



LETTER CLI. 

To the same. 



Dec. 2, 1779. 



My dear friend, how quick is the suc- 
cession of human events! The cares ■ 
of to-day are seldom the cares of to- 
morrow ; and when we lie down at night, 
we may safely say, to most of our trou- 
bles — " Ye have done your worst, and 
we shall meet no more." 

This observation was suggested to me 
by reading your last letter, which, though 
I have written since I received it, I have 
never answered. Wlien that epistle pass- 
ed under your pen, you were miserable 
about your tithes, and your imagination 
was hung round with pictures, that ter- 
rified you to such a degree, as made even 
the receipt of money burthensome. But 
it is all over now. You sent away your 
farmers in good-humour (for you can 
make people merry whenever you please), 
and now you have nothing to do, but to 
chink your purse, and laugh at what is 
past. Your delicacy makes you groan 
under that which other men never feel, 
or feel but lightly. A fly, that settles 
upon the tip of the nose, is troublesome ; 
and this is a comparison adequate to the 
most that mankind in general are sensible 
of, upon such tiny occasions. But the 
flies that pester you, always get between 
your eye-lids, where the annoyance is 
almost insupportable. 

I would follow your advice, and en- 
deavour to furnish lord North with a 
scheme of supplies for the ensuing year, 
if the difficulty I find in answering the 
call of my own emergencies did not 
make me despair of satisfying those of 
the nation. I can say but this : If I had 
ten acres of land in the world, whereas 
I have not one, and in those ten acres 
should discover a gold-mine, richer than 
all Mexico and Peru, when I had reserved 
a few ounces for my own annual supply, 
I would willingly give the rest to govern- 
ment. My ambition would be more 
gratified by annihilating the national in- 
cumbrances, than by going daily down 
to the bottom of a mine, to wallow in 
my own emolument. This is patriotisiB 
— you will allow ; but, alas, this virtue 
is for the most part in the hands of those 
who can do no good with it ! He that 
has but a single handful of it, catches so 
greedily at the first opportunity of grow- 



540 



ELEGANT EPISTLES, 



Book fV. 



ing' rich, that his patriotism drops to the 
^ound, and he grasps the gold instead 
of it. He that never meets with such an 
opportunity, holds it fast in his clenched 
fists, and says — " Oh, how much good 
I would do, if I could ! " 

Your mother says — " Pray send my 
dear love." There is hardly room to 
add mine, but you will suppose it. 
Yours. 



LETTER CLII. 

To the Rev. John Neii'ton. 

May 3, 17S0. 

Dear sir, 
You indulge in such a variety of sub- 
jects, and allow me such a latitude 
of excursion in this scribbling employ- 
ment, that I have no excuse for silence. 
I am much obliged to you for swallow- 
ing such boluses as I send you, for the 
sake of my gilding, and verily believe, I 
am the only man alive from whom they 
would be welcome to a palate like yours. 
I wish I could make them more splendid 
than they are, more alluring to the eye, 
at least, if not more pleasing to the taste ; 
but my leaf-gold is tarnished, and has 
received such a tinge from the vapours 
that are ever brooding over my mind, 
that I think it no small proof of your 
partiality to me, that you will read my 
letters. I am not fond of long-winded 
metaphors ; I have always observed, that 
they halt at the latter end of their pro- 
gress, and so does mine. 1 deal much 
in ink indeed, but not such ink as is em- 
ployed by poets, and writers of essays. 
Mine is a harmless fluid, and guilty of 
no deceptions, but such as may prevail, 
without the least injury to the person 
imposed on. I draw mountains, valleys, 
woods, and streams, and ducks, and dab- 
chicks. I admire them myself, and Mrs. 
Unwin admires them ; and her praise, 
and my praise, put together, are fame 
enough for me. Oh! I could spend 
whole days, and moon-light nights, in 
feeding upon a lovely prospect : My eyes 
drink the rivers as they flow. If every 
human lacing upon earth could think for 
one quarter of an hour, as I have done 
for many years, there might, perhaps, 
be many miserable men among them, 
but not an unawakened one would be 
found, from the Arctic to the Antarctic 



circle. At present, the difference be- 
tween them and me is greatly to their 
advantage. I delight in baubles, and 
know them to be so ; for rested in, and 
viewed without a reference to their 
Author, what is the earth, what are the 
planets, what is the sun itself, but a 
bauble ? Better for a man never to have 
seen them, or to see them with the eyes 
of a brute, stupid and unconscious of 
what he beholds, than not to be able to 
say, " The maker of all these wonders 
is my friend ! " Their eyes have never 
been opened, to see that they are trifles ; 
mine have been, and will be till they are 
closed for ever. They think a fine estate, 
a large conservatory, a hot-house, rich 
as a West-Indian garden, things of con- 
sequence ; visit them with pleasure, and 
muse upon them with ten times more. 
I am pleased with a frame of four lights, 
doubtful whether the few pines it con- 
tains will ever be worth a farthing ; 
amuse myself with a green-house which 
lord Bute's gardener could take upon 
his back, and walk away with ; and when 
I have paid it the accustomed visit, and 
watered it, and given it air, I say to my- 
self — ' ' This is not mine ; 'tis a play- 
thing lent me for the present; I must 
leave it soon." 



LETTER CLIII. 

To the Rev. William Unwin. 

May 8, 1780. 
My dear friend. 
My scribbling humour has of late been 
entirely absorbed in the passion for land- 
scape drawing. It is a most amusing 
art, and, like every other art, requires 
much practice and attention. 

Nil sine magno 
Vila labore dedit mortalibus. 

Excellence is providentially placed be- 
yond the reach of indolence, that success 
may be the reward of industry, and that 
idleness may be punished with obscurity 
and disgrace. So long as I am pleased 
with an employment, I am capable of 
unwearied application, because my feel- 
ings are all of the intense kind : 1 never 
received a little pleasure from any thing 
in my life ; if I am delighted, it is in the 
extreme. The unhappy consequence 
of this temperature is, that my attach- 



Sect. Ill, 



RECENT. 



541 



ment to any situation seldom outlives 
the novelt}^ of it. That nerve of my ima- 
gination, that feels the touch of any par- 
ticular amusement, twangs under the 
energy of the pressure with so much ve- 
hemence, that it soon becomes sensible 
of weariness and fatigue. Hence I draw 
an unfavourable prognostic, and expect 
that 1 shall shortly be constrained to look 
out for something else. Tlien perhaps 
I may string the harp again, and be able 
to comply with your demand. 

Now for the visit you propose to pay 
us, and propose not to pay us : the hope 
of which plays upon your paper, like a 
jack-o -lantern upon the ceiling. This 
is no mean simile, for Virgil (you re- 
member) uses it. 'Tis here, 'tis there, 
it vanishes, it returns, it dazzles you, a 
cloud interposes, and it is gone. How- 
ever just the comparison, I hope you will 
contrive to spoil it, and that your final 
determination will be to come. As to 
the masons you expect, bring them with 
you — bring brick, bring mortar, bring 
every thing, that would oppose itself to 
your journey — all shall be welcome. I 
have a green-house that is too small, 
come and enlarge it ; build me a pinery ; 
repair the garden wall, that has great 
need of your assistance ; do any thing, 
you cannot do too much. So far from 
thinking you and your train trouble- 
-some, we s?iall rejoice to see you, upon 
these, or upon any other terms you can 
propose. But, to be serious, you will 
do weU to consider, that a long summer 
is before you, that the party will not 
have such another opportunity to meet 
this great while ; that you may finish 
your masonry long enough before mnter, 
though you should not begin this month ; 
but that you cannot always find your 
brother and sister Powley at Olney. 
These, and some other considerations, 
such as the desire we have to see you, 
and the pleasure we expect from seeing 
you altogether, may, and, I think, ought 
to overcome your scruples. 

From a general recollection of Lord 
Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, I 
thought, (and, I remember, I told you 
so,) that there was a striking resemblance 
between that period, and the present. 
But I am now reading, and have read, 
three volumes of Hume's History, one of 
which is engrossed entirely by that sub- 
ject. There, I see reason to alter my 
opinion, and the seeming resemblance 



has disappeared, upon a more particular 
information. Charles succeeded to a 
long train of arbitrary princes, whose 
subjects had tamely acquiesced in the 
despotism of their masters, till their pri- 
vileges were aU forgot. He did but tread 
in their steps, and exemplify the princi- 
ples in which he had been brought up, 
when he oppressed his people. But just 
at that time, unhappily for the monarch, 
the subject began to see, and to see that 
he had a right to property and freedom. 
This marks a sufficient difference between 
the disputes of that day and the present. 
But there was another main cause of 
that rebellion, which, at this time, does 
not operate at all. The king was de- 
voted to the hierarchy ; his subjects were 
puritans, and would not bear it. Every 
circumstance of ecclesiastical order and 
discipline was an abomination to them, 
and, in his esteem, an indispensible duty ; 
and, though at last he was obliged to 
give up many things, he would not abolish 
episcopacy ; and, till that were done, his 
concessions could have no conciliating 
effect. These two concurring causes 
were indeed sufficient to set three king- 
doms in a flame. But they subsist not 
now, nor any other, I hope, notwith- 
standing the bustle made by the patriots, 
equal to the production of such terrible 
events. Yours, my dear friend. 



LETTER CLIV. 

To Mrs. Cowper. 

May 10, 1780. 
My dear cousin, 
I DO not write to comfort you : thaCt 
office is not likely to be well performed 
by one w ho has no comfort for himself ; 
nor to comply with an impertinent 
ceremony, which in general might well 
be spared upon such occasions : but 
because I would not seem indifferent to 
the concerns of those J have so much 
reason to esteem and love. If I did not 
sorrow for your brother's death, I should 
expect that nobody would for mine ; 
when I knew him, he was much beloved, 
and, I doubt not, continued to be so. 
To live and die together is the lot of a 
few happy families, who hardly know 
what a separation means, and one se- 
pulclare serves them all ; but the ashes 
of our kindred are dispersed indep^^. 



542 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



Wliether the American g-ulph has swal- 
lowed up any other of my relations, 1 
know not ; it has made many mourners. 
Believe me, my dear cousin, though 
after a long silence, which perhaps no- 
thing less than the present concern could 
have prevailed with me to interrupt, as 
much as ever, your affectionate kins- 
man. 



LETTER CLV. 

To the Rev. William Unxpin. 

July 27, 1780. 

My dear friend, 
As two men sit silent, after having 
exhausted all their topics of conver- 
sation ; one says, "It is very fine wea- 
ther ;" and the other says, " Yes ;" 
one hlows his nose, and the other 
ruhs his eye-brows (by the way, this 
is very much in Homer's manner) ; such 
seems to be the case between you and 
me. After a silence of some days, I 
wrote you a long something, that (I sup- 
pose) was nothing to the purpose, be- 
cause it has not afforded you materials 
for an answer. Nevertheless, as it of- 
ten happens in the case above stated, 
one of the distressed parties, being deeply 
sensible of the awkwardness of a dumb 
duet, breaks silence again, and resolves 
to speak, though he has nothing to say ; 
so it fares with me. I am with you again 
in the form of an epistle, though, consi- 
dering my present emptiness, I have rea- 
son to fear that your only joy upon the 
occasion will be, that it is conveyed to 
yon in a frank. 

When I began, 1 expected no inter- 
ruption. But if I had expected inter- 
ruptions without end, I should have been 
less disappointed. First came the bar- 
ber ; who, after having embellished the 
outside of my head, has left the inside 
just as unfurnished as he found it. Then 
came Olney bridge, not into the house, 
but into the conversation. The cause 
relating to it was tried on Tuesday at 
Buckingham. The judge directed the 
jury to find a verdict favourable to Ol- 
ney. The jury consisted of one knave, 
and eleven fools. The last mentioned 
followed the afore mentioned, as sheep 
follow a bell-wether, and decided in di- 
rect opposition to the said judge. Then 
a flaw was discovered in the indictment. 



The indictment was quashed, and an order 
made for a new trial. The new trial 
will be in the King's Bench, where said 
knave and said fools will have nothing 
to do with it. So the men of Olney fling 
up their caps, and assure themselves of 
a complete victory. A victory will save 
me and your mother many shillings, 
perhaps some pounds, which, except 
that it has afforded me a subject to write 
upon, was the only reason why I said so 
much about it. I know you take an 
interest in all that concerns us, and will 
consequently rejoice with us, in the pro- 
spect of an event in which we are con- 
cerned so nearly. Your's affectionately. 



LETTER CLVI. 

To the same. 

Aug. 6, 1780. 
My dear friend. 
You like to hear from me. This is a 
very good reason why I should write ; 
but I have nothing to say. This seems 
equally a good reason why I should not ; 
yet if you had alighted from your 
horse at our door this morning, and at 
this present writing, being five o'clock 
in the afternoon, had found occasion 
to say to me ; " Mr. Cowper, you have 
not spoke since I came in, have you 
resolved never to speak again ? " It 
would be but a poor reply, if, in answer 
to the summons, I shoidd plead inability 
as my best and only excuse. And this, 
by the way, suggests to me a seasonable 
piece of instruction, and reminds me of 
what I am very apt to forget, when I 
have any epistolary business in hand ; 
that a letter may be written upon any 
thing or nothing, just as that any thing 
or nothing happens to occur. A man 
that has a journey before him twenty 
miles in length, which he is to perform 
on foot, will not hesitate, and doubt, 
whether he shall set out or not, because 
he does not readily conceive how he shall 
ever reach the end of it ; for he knows, 
that by the simple operation of moving 
one foot forward first, and then the 
other, he shall be sure to accomplish it. 
So it is in the present case, and so it is 
in every similar case. A letter is writ- 
ten as a conversation is maintained, or a 
journey performed, not by preconcert- 
ed or premeditated means, a new con- 



Sect. III. 



RECENT. 



543 



trivance, or an invention never heard of 
before ; but merely by maintaining a pro- 
gress, and resolving, as a postillion does, 
having once set out, never to stop, till 
we reach the appointed end. If a man 
may talk without thinking, why may he 
not write upon the same terms ? A grave 
gentleman of the last century, a tie- 
wig, square-toe, Steinkirk figure, would 
say ; " My good sir, a man has no right 
to do either." But it is to be hoped, 
that the present century has nothing to 
do with the mouldy opinions of the last ; 
and so good Sir Launcelot, or Sir Paul, 
or whatever be your name, step into 
your picture-frame again, and look as 
if you thought for another century, and 
leave us moderns in the mean time to 
think when we can, and to write whether 
we can or not, else we might as well be 
dead as you are. 

When we look back upon our fore- 
fathers, we seem to look back upon the 
people of another nation, almost upon 
creatures of another species. Their vast 
rambling mansions, spacious halls, and 
painted casements, the gothic porch, 
smothered with honeysuckles, their little 
gardens, and high walls, their box-edg- 
ings, balls of holly, and yew-tree statues, 
are become so entirely unfashionable 
now, that we can hardly believe it pos- 
sible, that a people, who resembled us so 
little in their taste, should resemble us 
in any thing else. But in every thing 
else, I suppose, they were our counter- 
parts exactly ; and time, that has sewed 
up the slashed sleeve, and reduced the 
large trunk hose to a neat pair of silk 
stockings, has left human nature just 
where it found it. The inside of the 
man at least has undergone no change. 
His passions, appetites, and aims, are 
just what they ever were. They wear 
perhaps a handsomer disguise than they 
did in days of yore ; for philosophy and 
literature will have their effect upon the 
exterior ; but, in every other respect, a 
modern is only an ancient in a different 
dress. Yours. 

LETTER CLVII. 

To Mrs. Cowper. 

Aug. 31,1780. 
My dear cousin, 
I AM obliged to you for your long letter, 
which did not seem so, and for your 



short one, which was more than I had 
any reason to expect. Short as it was, 
it conveyed to me two interesting articles 
of intelligence ; an account of your re- 
covering from a fever, and of lady Cow- 
per's death. The latter was, I suppose, 
to be expected ; for by what remem- 
brance I have of her ladyship, who was 
never much acquainted with her, she had 
reached those years, that are always 
found upon the borders of another world. 
As for you, your time of life is compara- 
tively of a youthful date. You may 
think of death as much as you please 
(you cannot think of it too much), but I 
hope you will live to thin!-; of it many 
years. 

It costs me not much difficulty to sup- 
pose, that my friends, who were already 
grown old'when I saw them last, are old 
still ; but it costs me a good deal some- 
times to think of those, who were at that 
time young, as being older than they 
were. Not having been an eye-witness 
of the change that time has made in 
them, and my former idea of them not 
being corrected by observation, it re- 
mains the same ; my memory presents 
me with this image unimpaired, and, 
while it retains the resemblance of what 
they were, forgets that, by this time, the 
picture may have lost much of its like- 
ness, through the alteration that suc- 
ceeding years have made in the original. 
I know not what impressions Time may 
have made upon your person, for while 
his claws (as our grannams called them) 
strike deep furrows in some faces, he 
seems to sheath them with much tender- 
ness, as if fearful of doing injury, to 
others. But though an enemy to the 
person, he is a friend to the mind, and 
you have found him so. Though, even 
in this respect, his treatment of us de- 
pends upon what he meets with at our 
hands ; if we use him well, and listen 
to his admonitions, he is a friend indeed ; 
but otherwise the worst of enemies, who 
takes from us daily something that we 
valued, and gives us nothing better in 
its stead. It is well with them who, like 
you, can stand a tip-toe on the moun- 
tain-top of human life, look down with 
pleasure upon the valley they have pass- 
ed, and sometimes stretch their wings 
in joyful hope of a happy flight into eter- 
nity. Yet a little while, and your hope 
will be accomplished. 

When you can favour me with a little 



544 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV 



account of your own family, without in- 
convenience, I shall be glad to receive 
it ; for though separated from my kin- 
dred by little more than half a century 
of miles, I know as little of their con- 
cerns as if oceans and continents were 
interposed between us. Yours, my dear 
cousin. 

LETTER CLVin. 

To the Rev. William Unwin, 

Set t. '3, nSO. 

My dear friend, 
I AM glad you are so provident, and 
that while you are young you have 
furnished yourself with the means of 
comfort in old age. Your crutch and 
your pipe may be of use to you (and 
may they be so), should your years be 
extended to an antediluvian date ; and 
for your perfect accommodation, you 
seem to want nothing but a clerk called 
Snuffle, and a sexton of the name of 
Skeleton, to make your ministerial equip- 
age complete. 

1 think I have read as much of the 
first volume of the Biographia as I shall 
ever read. I find it very amusing ; more 
so perhaps than it would have been had 
they sifted their characters with more 
exactness, and admitted none but those 
who had in some way or other entitled 
themselves to immortality, by deserving 
well of the public. Such a compilation 
would perhaps have been more judicious, 
though I confess it would have afforded 
less variety. The priests and monks of 
earlier, and the doctors of later days, 
who have signalized themselves by no- 
thing but a controversial pamphlet, long 
since thrown by, and never to be perused 
again, might have been forgotten, with- 
out injury, or loss to the national cha- 
racter for learning or genius. This ob- 
servation suggested to me the following 
lines, which may serve to illustrate my 
meaning, and at the same time to give 
my criticism a sprightlier air. 

Oh fond attempt to give a deathless lot 
To names ignoble, born to be forgot; 
In vain, recorded in historic page, 
They court the notice of a future age ; 
Those twinkliag, tiny, lustres of the land, 
Drop one by one, from Fame's neglecting hand j 
Lethean gulfs receive them as they fall, 
And dark oblivion soon absorb^ therei all. 
So when a child (as playful childrei/ use) 
Has burnt to cinder a stale last year's news, 



The flame extinct, he views the roving fire, 
There goes my lady, and there goes the 'squire. 
There goes the parson — Oh illustrious spark ! 
And there— scarce less illustrious— goes the 
clerk. 

Virgil admits none but worthies into 
the Elysian fields ; I cannot recollect the 
lines in which he describes then all, but 
these in particular I well remember t 

Quique sui memores alios fecere merendo. 
Inventus out qui vitam excoluere per artes. 

A chaste and scrupulous conduct, like 
his, would well become the waiter of 
national biography. But enough of this. 

Our respects attend Miss Shuttle- 
worth, with many thanks for her intend- 
ed present. Some purses derive all their 
value from their contents, but these will 
have an intrinsic value of their own ; and 
though mine should be often empty, 
which is not an improbable supposition, 
I shall still esteem it highly on its own 
account. 

If you could meet with a second-hand 
Virgil, ditto Homer, both Iliad and 
Odyssey, together with a Clavis, for I 
have no Lexicon, and all tolerably cheap, 
I shall be obliged to you if you will 
make the purchase. Yours. 



LETTER CLIX. 

To the same. 

Sept. 7, 1780. 
My dear friend, 
As many gentlemen as there are in the 
world, who have children, and heads 
capable of reflecting upon the important 
subject of their education, so many opi- 
nions there are about it ; and many of 
them just and sensible, though almost all 
differing from each other. With respect 
to the education of boys, I think they 
are generally made to draw in Latin and 
Greek trammels too soon. It is pleasing, 
no doubt, to a parent, to see his child 
already in some sort a proficient in those 
languages, at an age when most others 
are entirely ignorant of them ; but hence 
it often happens, that a boy, who could 
construe a fable of ^sop at six or seven 
years of age, having exhausted his little 
stock of attention and diligence, in mak- 
ing that notable acquisition, grows weary 
of his task, conceives a dislike for study, 
and perhaps makes but a very indifferent 



Sect. lil. 



RECENT. 



545 



progress afterwards. The mind and body 
have, in this respect, a striking resem- 
blance of each other. In childhood they 
are both nimble, but not strong ; they 
can skip and frisk about with wonderful 
agility, but hard labour spoils them both. 
In maturer years they become less active, 
but more vigorous, more capable of a 
lixt application, and can make themselves 
sport with that, which a little earlier 
would have aflfected them with intole- 
rable fatigue. I should recommend it to 
you, therefore (but after all you must 
judge for yourself), to allot the two next 
years of little John's scholarship to writ- 
ing and arithmetic, together with which, 
for variety's sake, and because it is ca- 
pable of being formed into an amuse- 
ment, I would mingle geography, a sci- 
ence (which, if not attended to betimes, is 
seldom made an object of much conside- 
ration) essentially necessary to the ac- 
complishment of a gentleman ; yet, as I 
know (by sad experience), imperfectly, if 
at all, inculcated in the schools. Lord 
Spencer's son, when he was four years 
of age, knew the situation of every king- 
dom, country, city, river, and remark- 
able mountain in the world. For this 
attainment, which I suppose his father 
had never made, he was indebted to a 
plaything; liaving been accustomed to 
amuse himself with those maps, which 
are cut into several compartments, so as 
to be thrown into a heap of confusion, 
that they maybe put together again with 
an exact coincidence of all their angles 
and bearings, so as to form a perfect 
whole. 

If he begins Latin and Greek at eight, 
or even at nine years of age, it is surely 
soon enough. Seven years, the usual al- 
lowance for these acquisitions, are more 
than sufficient for the purpose, especially 
with his readiness in learning ; for you 
would hardly \vish to have him qualified 
for the university before fifteen, a period, 
in my mind, much too early for it, and 
when he could hardly be trusted there 
without the utmost danger to his morals. 
Upon the whole, you will perceive, that, 
in my judgment, the difficulty, as well as 
the wisdom, consists more in bridling 
in and keeping back a boy of his parts, 
than in pushing him forward. If, there- 
fore, at the end of the two next years, 
instead of putting a grammar into his 
hand, you should allow him to amuse 
himself with some agreeable writers upon 



the subject of natural philosophy for 
another year, I think it would answer 
well. There is a book called Cosmothe- 
oria Puerilis, there are Durham's Physico 
and Astro-theology, together with se- 
veral others in the same manner, very 
intelligible even to a child, and full of 
useful instruction. 



LETTER CLX. 

To Joseph Hill, Esq. 

Feb. 15, 1781. 

My dear friend, 
I AM glad you were pleased with my re- 
port of so extraordinary a case. If the 
thought of versifying the decisions of 
our courts of justice had struck me while 
I had the honour to attend them, it would 
perhaps have been no difficult matter to 
have compiled a volume of such amusing 
and interesting precedents ; v/hich, if 
they wanted the eloquence of the Greek 
or Roman oratory, would have amply 
compensated that deficiency by the har- 
mony of rhyme and metre. 

Your account of my uncle and your 
mother gave me great pleasure. I have 
long been afraid to inquire after some, in 
whose welfare I always feel myself inte- 
rested, lest the question should produce 
a painful answer. Longevity is the lot 
of so few, and is so seldom rendered com- 
fortable by the associations of good health 
and good spirits, that I could not very 
reasonably suppose, either your relations 
or mine so happy in those respects, as it 
seems they are. May they continue to 
enjoy those blessings so long as the date 
of life shall last ! I do not think that in 
these coster-monger days, as I have a no- 
tion Falstaff calls them, an antediluvian 
age is at all a desirable thing ; but to live 
comfortably, while we do live, is a great 
matter, and comprehends in it every 
thing that can be wished for on this side 
the curtain that hangs between time and 
eternity. 

Farewell, my better friend than any 
I have to boast of either among the 
Lords, or gentlemen of the House of 
Commons. 



2N 



546 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



LETTER CLXL 

To the Rev, William Urnvin, 

June 24, 1781. 
My dear friend, 
The letter you withheld so long, lest it 
should give me pain, gave me pleasure. 
Horace says, The poets are a waspish 
race ; and from my own experience of 
the temper of two or three, with whom 
I was formerly connected, I can readily 
subscribe to the character he gives them. 
But, for my own part, I have never yet 
felt that excessive irritability , which some 
writers discover, when a friend, in the 
words of Pope, 

** Just hints a fault, or hesitates dislike." 

Least of all I would give way to such an 
unseasonable ebullition, merely because 
a civil question is proposed to me, with 
such gentleness, and by a man whose 
concern for my credit and character I 
verily believe to be sincere. 1 reply 
therefore, not peevishly, but with a sense 
of the kindness of your intentions, that 
I hope you may make yourself very easy 
on a subject that I can perceive has oc- 
casioned you some solicitude. When I 
wrote the poem called Truth, it was in- 
dispensably necessary that 1 should set 
forth that doctrine which I know to be 
true, and that I should pass what I un- 
derstood to be a just censure upon opi- 
nions and persuasions, that differ from, 
or stand in direct opposition to it ; be- 
cause, though some errors may be inno- 
cent, and even religious errors are not 
always pernicious, yet, in a case where 
the faith and hope of a Christian are con- 
cerned, they must necessarily be de- 
structive ; and because, neglecting this, I 
should have betrayed this subject ; either 
suppressing what, in my judgment, is of 
the last importance, or giving counte- 
nance, by a timid silence, to the very 
evils it was my design to combat. That 
you may understand me better, I will 
subjoin, that I wrote that poem on 
purpose to inculcate the eleemosynary 
character of the Gospel, as a dispensa- 
tion of mercy, in the most absolute sense 
of the word, to the exclusion of all claims 
of merit on the part of the receiver ; 
consequently to set the brand of invali- 
dity upon the plea of works, and to dis- 
cover, upon scriptural ground, the ab- 
surdity of that notion, which includes a 



solecism in the very terms of it, that 
man, by repentance and good works, 
may deserve the mercy of his Maker. I 
call it a solecism, because mercy de- 
served ceases to be mercy, and must take 
the name of justice. This is the opinion, 
which I said in my last the world would 
not acquiesce in ; but, except this, I do 
not recollect that I have introduced a 
syllable into any of my pieces that they 
can possibly object to ; and even this I 
have endeavoured to deliver from doctri- 
nal dryness, by as many pretty things, 
in the way of trinket and plaything, as I 
could muster upon the subject. So that, 
if I have rubbed their gums, 1 have taken 
care to do it with a coral, and even that 
coral embellished by the ribbon to which 
it is tied, and recommended by the tin- 
kling of all the bells I could contrive to 
annex to it. 

You need not trouble yourself to call 
on Johnson ; being perfectly acquainted 
with the progress of the business, I am 
able to satisfy your curiosity myself. 
The post before the last, I returned to 
him the second sheet of Table-Talk, 
which he had sent me for correction, and 
which stands foremost in the volume. 
The delay has enabled me to add a piece 
of considerable length ; which, but for 
the delay, would not have made its ap- 
pearance upon this occasion : it answers 
to the name of Hope. 

I remember a line in the Odyssey, which , 
literally translated, imports, that there is 
nothing in the world more impudent than 
the belly. But had Homer met with an 
instance of modesty like yours, he would 
either have suppressed that observation, 
or at least have qualified it with an ex- 
ception. I hope that, for the future, 
Mrs. Unwin will never suffer you to go 
to London without putting some vic- 
tuals in your pocket ; for what a strange 
article would it make in a newspaper, 
that a tall, well-dressed gentleman, by 
his appearance a clergyman, and with a 
purse of gold in his pocket, was found 
starved to death in the street. How 
would it puzzle conjecture to account 
for such a phaenomenon ! Some would 
suppose that you had been kidnapt, like 
Betty Canning, of hungry memory : 
others would say, The gentleman was a 
Methodist, and had practised a rigorous 
self-denial, which had unhappily proved 
too hard for his constitution : but I will 
venture to say, that nobody would di- 



Sect. HI. 



RECENT. 



547 



vine the real cause, or suspect for a mo- 
ment, that your modesty had occasioned 
the tragedy in question. By the way, is 
it not possible, that the spareness and 
slenderness of your person may be owing 
to the same cause ? for surely it is rea- 
sonable to suspect, that the bashfulness, 
which could prevail against you, on so 
trying an occasion, may be equally pre- 
valent on others. I remember having 
been told by Colman, that when he once 
dined with Garrick, he repeatedly pressed 
him to eat more of a certain dish that 
he was known to be particularly fond of ; 
Colman as often refused, and at last de- 
clared he could not ; " But could not 
you," says Garrick, " if you was in a 
dark closet by yourself?" The same 
question might perhaps be put to you, 
with as much or more propriety ; and 
therefore I recommend it to you, either 
to furnish yourself with a little more as- 
surance, or always to eat in the dark. 

We sympathize with Mrs. Unwin, and, 
if it will be any comfort to her to know 
it, can assure her, that a lady in our 
neighbourhood is always, on such occa- 
sions, the most miserable of all things, 
and yet escapes with great facility, 
through all the dangers of her state. 
Yours, ut seinper. 



LETTER CLXII. 

To the same. 

Oct. 6, 1781. 
My dear friend. 
What a world are you daily conversant 
with, which I have not seen these twenty 
years, and shall never see again ! The 
arts of dissipation (I suppose) are no- 
where practised with more refinement 
or success, than at the place of your 
present residence. By your account of 
it, it seems to be just what it was when 
I visited it, — a scene of idleness and 
luxury, music, dancing, cards, walking, 
riding, bathing, eating, drinking, coffee, 
tea, scandal, dressing, yawning, sleep- 
ing ; the rooms perhaps more mag- 
nificent, because the proprietors are 
grown richer, but the manners and oc- 
cupations of the company just the same. 
Though my life has long been like that 
of a recluse, I have not the temper of 
one, nor am I in the least an enemy to 
cheerfulness and good humour; but I 



cannot envy you your situation : I even 
feel myself constrained to prefer the si- 
lence of this nook, and the snug fire-side 
in our own diminutive parlour, to all the 
splendour and gaiety of Brighton. 

You ask me how I feel on the occasion 
of my approaching publication ? Per- 
fectly at my ease. If I had not been 
pretty well assured before-hand, that my 
tranquillity would be but little endanger- 
ed by such a measure, I would never have 
engaged in it ; for I cannot bear disturb- 
ance. I have had in view two principal 
objects ; first, to amuse myself; and se- 
condly, to compass that point in such a 
manner, that others might possibly be 
the better for my amusement. If I have 
succeeded, it will give me pleasure ; but 
if I have failed, I shall not be mortified 
to the degree that might perhaps be ex- 
pected. I remember an old adage (though 
not where it is to be found), " bene vixit, 
qui bene latuit ;" and if 1 had recollect- 
ed it at the right time, it should have 
been the motto to my book. By the 
way, it will make an excellent one for 
Retirement, if you can but tell me whom 
to quote for it. The critics cannot de- 
prive me of the pleasure 1 have in re- 
flecting, that so far as my leisure has been 
employed in writing for the public, it 
has been conscientiously employed, and 
with a view to their advantage. There 
is nothing agreeable, to be sure, in being 
chronicled for a dunce ; but, I believe, 
there lives not a man upon earth who 
would be less affected by it than myself. 
With all this indift'erence to fame, which 
you know me too well to suppose me 
capable of affecting, I have taken the 
utmost pains to deserve it. This may 
appear a mystery, or a paradox in prac- 
tice ; but it is true. I considered that 
the taste of the day is refined, and deli- 
cate to excess ; and that to disgust that 
delicacy of taste, by a slovenly inatten- 
tion to it, would be to forfeit, at once, 
all hope of being useful ; and for this 
reason, though I have written more verse 
this last year than perhaps any man in 
England, I have finished, and polished, 
and touched and retouched, with the ut- 
most care. If, after all, I should be con- 
verted into waste paper, it may be my 
misfortune, but it shall not be my fault. 
I shall bear it with the most perfect 
serenity. 

I do not mean to give a copy : 

he is a good-natured little man, and 
2 N2 



548 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



crows exactly like a cock ; but knows 
no more of verse, than the cock he imi- 
tates. 

Whoever supposes that lady Austen's 
fortune is precarious is mistaken. I can 
assure you, upon the ground of the most 
circumstantial and authentic informa- 
tion, that it is both genteel and perfectly 
safe. Yours. 



LETTER CLXIIL 

To the Rev. WiUiain Unwin. 

- Nov. 2(3, 1781. 
My dear friend, 
I WROTE to you by the last post, sup- 
posing you at Stock ; but, lest that letter 
should not follow you to Laytonston, 
and you should suspect me of unrea- 
sonable delay ; and lest the frank you 
have sent me should degenerate into 
w^aste paper, and perish upon my hands, 
I write again. The former letter, how- 
ever, containing all my present stock of 
intelligence, it is more than possible that 
this may prove a blank, or but little 
worthy your acceptance. You will do 
me the justice to suppose, that if I could 
be very entertaining, I would be so ; be- 
cause, by giving me credit for such a 
willingness to please, you only allow me 
a share of that imiversal vanity which 
inclines every man, upon all occasions, 
to exhibit himself to the best advantage. 
To say the truth, however, when I write, 
as I do to you, not about business, nor 
on any subject that approaches to that 
description, 1 mean much less ray cor- 
respondent's amusement, which my mo- 
desty will not always permit me to hope 
for, than my own. There is a pleasure 
annexed to the communication of one's 
ideas, whether by word of mouth, or by 
letter, which nothing earthly can supply 
the place of ; and it is the delight we find 
in this mutual intercourse, that not only 
proves us to be creatures intended for 
social life, but more than any thing else, 
perhaps, fits us for it. I have no pa- 
tience with philosophers ; they, one and 
all, suppose (at least 1 understand it to 
be a prevailing opinion among them) 
that man's weakness, his necessities, his 
inability to stand alone, have furnished 
the prevailing motive, under the influence 
of which he renounced at first a life of 
solitude, and became a gregai'ious crea- 



ture. It seems to me more reasonable, 
as well as more honourable to my species, 
to suppose, that generosity of soul, and 
a brotherly attachment to our own kind, 
drew us, as it were, to one common cen- 
tre ; taught us to build cities, and inhabit 
them, and welcome every stranger that 
would cast in his lot amongst us, that we 
might enjoy fellowship with each other, 
and the luxury of reciprocal endear- 
ments, without which a paradise could 
afford no comfort. There are, indeed, 
all sorts of characters in the world ; there 
are some whose understandings are so 
sluggish, and whose hearts are such mere 
clods, that they live in society without 
either contributing to the sweets of it, 
or having any relish for them. A man 
of this stamp passes by our window con- 
tinually. I never sav/ him conversing 
with a neighbour but once in my life, 
though I have known him by sight these 
twelve years. He is of a very sturdy 
make, and has a round belly, extremely 
protuberant ; which he evidently consi- 
ders as his best friend, because it is his 
only companion, and it is the labour of 
his life to fill it. I can easily conceive, 
that it is merely the love of good eating 
and drinking, and now and then the want 
of a new pair of shoes, that attaches this 
man so much to the neighbourhood of 
his fellow-mortals ; for suppose these 
exigencies, and others of a like kind, to 
subsist no longer, and what is there that 
could give society the preference in his 
esteem ? He might strut about with his 
two thumbs upon his hips in the wilder- 
ness, he could hardly be more silent than 
he is at Olney ; and for any advantage 
or comfort of friendship, or brotherly 
affection, he could not be more destitute 
of such blessings there than in his pre- 
sent situation. But other men have 
something more than guts to satisfy ; 
there are the yearnings of the heart, 
which, let philosophers say w^hat they 
will, are more importunate than all the 
necessities of the body, thatwiil not suffer 
a creature, worthy to be called human, 
to be content with an insulated life, or 
to look for his friends among the beasts 
of the forest. Yourself for instance ! It 
is not because there are no tailors, or 
pastry-cooks, to be found upon Salisbury 
plain, that you do not choose it for your 
abode, but because you are a philanthro- 
pist ; because you are susceptible of so- 
cial impressions, and have a pleasure in 



Sect. Ill, 



R E C E N T. 



549^ 



doing a kindness when you can. Now, 
upon the word of a poor creature, I 
have said all that 1 have said, without 
the least intention to say one w^ord of it 
when I began. But thus it is with mj 
thoughts — when you ?hake a crab-tree, 
the fruit falls ; good for nothing indeed 
when you have got it, but still the best 
that is to be expected from a crab-tree. 
You are welcome to them, such as they 
are; and if you approve my sentiments, 
tell the philosophers of the day, that 1 
have out-shot them all, and have disco- 
vered the true origin of society, when 1 
least looked for it. 



LETTER CLXIV. 

To the same, 

March 7, 1762. 

My dear friend, 
We have great pleasure in the contem- 
plation of your Northern journey, as it 
promises us a sight of you and yours by 
the way, and are only sorry miss Shut- 
tle worth cannot be of the party. A line 
to ascertain the hour when we may ex- 
pect you, by the next preceding post, 
will be welcome. 

It is not much for my advantage, that 
the printer delays so long to gratify your 
expectation. It is a state of mind that 
is apt to tire and disconcert us ; and 
there are but few pleasures that make 
us amends for the pain of repeated dis- 
appointment. I take it for granted you 
have not received the volume, not hav- 
ing received it myself, nor indeed heard 
from Johnson, since he fixed tlie first of 
the month for its publication. 

What a medley are our public prints : 
half the page filled with the ruin of the 
country, and the other half filled with 
the vices and pleasures of it — here is an 
island taken, and there a new comedy — 
here an empire lost, and there an Italian 
opera, or a lord's rout on a Sunday. 

" May it please your lordship ! I am 
an Englishman, and must stand or fall 
with the nation. Religion, its true pal- 
ladium, has been stolen away ; and it is 
crumbling into dust. Sin ruins us, the 
sins of the great especially ; and of their 
sins, especially the violation of the Sab- 
bath, because it is naturally productive 
of all the rest. If you wish well to our 
arms, and would be glad U* ^ee the 



kingdom emerging from her ruins, pay 
more respect to an ordinance that de- 
serves the deepest ! I do not say, pardon 
this short remonstrance! — The concern 
I feel for my country, and the interest I 
have in its prosperity, gave me a right to 
make it. I am, &c." 

Thus one might write to his lordship, 
and (I suppose) might be as profitably 
employed in whistling the tune of an old 
ballad. 

I have no copy of the Preface, nor do 
I know at present how Johnson and 
Mr. Newton have settled it. In the 
matter of it there was nothing offen- 
sively peculiar ; but it was thought too 
pious. 

Yours, my dear friend. 



LETTER CLXV. 

To the same. 



Am 



1781. 



My dear friend, 
We rejoice with you sincerely in the 
birth of another son, arid in the prospect 
you have of Mrs. Un win's recovery ; 
may your three children, and the next 
three, w-hen they shall make their ap- 
pearance, prove so many blessings to 
their parents, and make you wish that 
you had twice the number. But what 
made you expect daily, that you should 
hear from me ? Letter for letter is the 
law of all correspondence whatsoever ; 
and because I wrote last, I have indulged 
myself for some time in expectation of 
a sheet from you : not that 1 govern 
myself entirely by the punctilio of reci- 
procation ; but having been pretty much 
occupied of late, I was not sorry to find 
myself at liberty to exercise my discre- 
tion, and furnished with a good excuse, 
if I chose to be silent. 

I expected, as you remember, to have 
been published last spring, and was dis- 
appointed. The delay has afforded me 
an opportunity to increase the quantity 
of my publication by about a third ; and 
if my Muse has not forsaken me, which 
I rather suspect to be the case, may pos- 
sibly yet add to it. I have a subject in 
hand which promises me a great abun- 
dance of poetical matter, but which, for 
want of a something I am not able to 
describe, I cannot at present proceed 
witli. The name of it is Retirement, 



550 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book 1V\ 



and my purpose to recommend the pro- 
per improvement of it ; to set forth the 
requisites for that end, and to enlarge 
upon the happiness of that state of life, 
when managed as it ought to be. In the 
course of my journey through this ample 
theme, I should wish to touch upon the 
characters, the deficiencies, and the mis- 
takes of thousands, who enter on a scene 
of retirement, unqualified for it in every 
respect, and with such designs as have 
no tendency to promote either their own 
happiness, or that of others. But, as I 
have told you before, there are times 
when I am no more a poet than I am a 
mathematician ; and when such a time 
occurs, I always think it better to give 
up the point, than to labour it in vain. 
I shall yet again be obliged to trouble 
you for franks. The addition of three 
thousand lines, or near that number, 
having occasioned a demand which 1 did 
not always foresee ; but your obliging 
friend, and your obliging self, having 
allowed me the liberty of application, I 
make it without apology. 

The solitude, or rather the duality, of 
our condition at Olney, seems drawing 
to a conclusion. You have not forgot, 
perhaps, that the building we inhabit 
consists of two mansions. And because 
you have only seen the inside of that 
part of it, which is in our occupation, I 
therefore inform you, that the other end 
of it is by far the most superb, as well 
as the most commodious. Lady Austen 
has seen it, has set her heart upon it, 
is going to fit it up and furnish it ; 
and if she can get rid of the remaining 
two years of the lease of her London 
house, will probably enter upon it in a 
twelvemonth. You will be pleased with 
this intelligence, because I have already 
told you, that she is a woman perfectly 
well-bred, sensible, and in every respect 
agreeable ; and, above all, because she 
loves your mother dearly. It has, in my 
eyes (and I doubt not it will have the 
same in yours), strong marks of provi- 
dential interposition. A female friend, 
and one who bids fair to prove herself 
worthy of the appellation, comes recom- 
mended by a variety of considerations, to 
such a place as Olney. Since Mr. New- 
ton went, and till this lady came, there 
was not in the kingdom a retirement 
more absolutely such than ours. We 
did not v/ant company ; but when it 
cam.e, we found it agreeable. A {)ersoK 



that has seen much of the world, and 
understands it well, has high spirits, a 
lively fancy, and great readiness of con- 
versation, introduces a sprightliness into 
such a scene as this, which, if it was 
peaceful before, is not the worse for 
being a little enlivened. In case of ill- 
ness too, to which all are liable, it was 
rather a gloomy prospect, if we allowed 
ourselves to advert to it, that there wa» 
hardly a woman in the place from whom 
it would have been reasonable to have 
expected either comfort or assistance. 
The present curate's wife is a valuable 
person, but has a family of her own, 
and, though a neighbour, is not a very 
near one. But if this plan is effected, 
we shall be in a manner one family, and 
1 suppose never pass a day without some 
intercourses with each other. 

Your mother sends her warm affec- 
tions, and welcomes into the world the 
new-l)orn William. Yours, my dear 
friend. 



LETTER CLXVL 

To the Rev. William Unwin. 

Feb. 9, 1782, 
My dear friend, 
I THANK you for Mr. Lowth's verses ; 
they are so good, that had I been pre- 
sent when he spoke them, I should have 
trembled for the boy, lest the man 
should disappoint the hopes such early 
genius had given birth to. It is not 
common to see so lively a fancy so cor- 
rectly managed, and so free from irre- 
gular exuberance ; at so unexperienced 
an age, fruitful, yet not wanton, and gay 
without being tawdry. When school- 
boys write verse, if they have any fire at 
all, it generally spends itself in flashes 
and transient sparks, which may indeed 
suggest an expectation of something 
better hereafter, but deserve not to be 
much commended for any real merit of 
their own. Their wit is generally forced 
and false, and their sublimity, if they 
affect any, bombast. I remember well 
when it was thus with me, and when a 
turgid, noisy, unmeaning speech in a 
tragedy, which I should now laugh at, 
afforded me raptures, and filled me with 
wonder. It is not, in general, till read- 
ing and observation have settled the 
taste, that we can give the prize to the 



Sect. Hi. 



RECENT. 



551 



best writing, in preference to the worst. 
Much less are we able to execute what 
is g-ood ourselves. But Lowth seems to 
have stepped into excellence at once, 
and to have gained by intuition what 
we little folks are happy if we can learn 
at last, after much labour of our own, 
and instruction of others. The compli- 
ments he pays to the memory of king 
Charles, he would probably now retract, 
though he be a bishop, and his majesty's 
zeal for episcopacy was one of the causes 
of his ruin. An age or two must pass 
before some characters can be properly 
understood. The spirit of party em- 
ploys itself in veiling their faults, and 
ascribing to them virtues which they 
never possessed. See Charles's face, 
drawn by Clarendon, and it is a hand- 
some portrait. See it more justly ex- 
hibited by Mrs. Macauley, and it is de- 
formed to a degree that shocks us. Every 
feature expresses. cunning, employing it- 
self in the maintaining of tyranny ; and 
dissimulation, pretending itself an advo- 
cate for truth. 

My letters have already apprised you, 
of that close and intimate connexion 
that took place between the lady you 
visited in Queen Anne's Street and us. 
Nothing could be more promising, though 
sudden in the commencement. She 
treated us with as much unreservedness 
of communication, as if we had been 
born in the same house, and educated 
together. At her departure, she herself 
proposed a correspondence ; and because 
writing does not agree with your mo- 
ther, proposed a correspondence with 
me. By her own desire, I wrote to her 
under the assumed relation of a brother, 
and she to me as my sister. 

I thank you for the search you have 
made after my intended motto, but I no 
longer need it. 

Our love is always with yourself and 
family. Yours, my dear friend. 



LETTER CLXVIL 

To the same. 

March 18, 1782. 
My dear friend, 
Nothing has given me so much plea- 
sure, since the publication of my vo- 
lume, as your favourable opinion of it. 
It may possibly meet with acceptance 



from hundreds, whose commendation 
would afford me no other satisfaction, 
than what I should find in the hope that 
it might do them good. I have some 
neighbours in this place, who say they 
like it — doubtless I would rather they 
should, than that they should not — but 
I know thera to be persons of no more 
taste in poetry, than skill in the mathe- 
matics ; their applause, therefore, is a 
sound that has no music in it for me. 
But my vanity was not so entirely qui- 
escent when I read your friendly account 
of the manner it had affected you It 
was tickled and pleased ; and told me in 
a pretty loud whisper, that others per- 
haps, of whose taste and judgment 1 had 
a high opinion, would approve it too. 
As a giver of good counsel, I wish to 
please all ; as an author, I am perfectly 
indifferent to the judgment of all, except 
the few who are indeed judicious. The 
circumstance, however, in your letter 
which pleased me most, was, that you 
wrote in high spirits, and though you 
said much, suppressed more, lest you 
should hurt my delicacy — my delicacy 
is obliged to you — but you observe it is 
not so squeamish, but that after it has 
feasted upon praise expressed, it can 
find a comfortable dessert in the contem- 
plation of praise implied. I now feel as 
if I should be glad to begin another vo- 
lume ; but from the will to the power is 
a step too wide for me to take at pre- 
sent ; and the season of the year brings 
with it so many avocations in the gar- 
den, where I am my own/ac totum, that 
I have little or no leisure for the quill. 
I should do myself much wrong, were I 
to omit mentioning the great compla- 
cency with which I read your narrative 
of Mrs. Unwin's smiles and tears : per- 
sons of much sensibility are always per- 
sons of taste ; and a taste for poetry de- 
pends indeed upon that very article more 
than upon any other. If she had Aris- 
totle by heart, I should not esteem her 
judgment so highly, were she defective 
in point of feeling, as I do, and must 
esteem it, knowing her to have such 
feelings as Aristotle could not communi- 
cate, and as half the readers in the world 
are destitute of. This it is that makes 
me set so high a price upon your mother's 
opinion. She is a critic by nature, and 
not by rule, and has a perception of what 
is good or bad in composition, that I 
never knew deceive her; insomuch, that 



552 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV, 



when two sorts of expression have plead- 
ed equally for the precedence, in my own 
esteem, and I have referred, as in such 
cases I always did, the decision of the 
point to her, 1 never knew her at a loss 
for a just one. 

Whether I shall receive any answer 
from his chancellorship, or not, is at 
present in amhiguo, and will probably 
continue in the same state of ambiguity 
much longer. He is so busy a man, and 
at this time, if the papers may be credit- 
ed, so particularly busy, that I am forced 
to mortify myself with the thought, that 
both my book and my letter may be 
thrown into a corner, as too insignificant 
for a statesman's notice, and never found 
till his executor finds them. This affair, 
however, is neither at my libitum nor 
his. I have sent him the truth. He, 
that put it into the heart of a certain 
Eastern monarch, to amuse himself one 
sleepless night with listening to the re- 
cords of his kingdom, is able to give 
birth to such another occasion, and in- 
spire his lordship with a curiosity to 
know, what he has received from a friend 
he once loved and valued. If an answer 
comes, however, you shall not long be a 
stranger to the contents of it. 

I have read your letter to their wor- 
ships, and much approve of it. May it 
have the desired effect it ought ! If not, 
still you have acted a humane and be- 
coming part ; and the poor aching toes 
and fingers of the prisoners will not ap- 
pear in judgment against you. I have 
made a slight alteration in the last sen- 
tence, which perhaps you. will not dis- 
approve. Yours ever. 



encourage you to proceed, your breath 
will never fail in such a cause ; and thus 
encouraged, I myself perhaps may pro- 
ceed also ; and when the versifying fit 
returns, produce another volume. Alas ! 
we shall never receive such commenda- 
tions from him on the woolsack, as your 
good friend has lavished upon us. Whence 
I learn, that however important I may 
be in my own eyes, I am very insignifi- 
cant in his. To make me amends, how- 
ever, for this mortification, Mr. Newton 
tells me, that my book is likely to run, 
spread, and prosper ; that the grave can- 
not help smiling, and the gay are struck 
with the truth of it : and that it is likely 
to find its way into his majesty's hands, 
being put into a proper course for that 
purpose. Now if the king should fall 
in love with my Muse, and with you for 
her sake, such an event would make us 
ample amends for the chancellor's in- 
difference, and you might be the first di- 
vine that ever reached a mitre, from the 
shoulders of a poet. But (I believe) we 
must be content, I with my gains, if I 
gain any thing, and you with the plea- 
sure of knowing that I am a gainer. 

We laughed heartily at your answer to 
little John's question ; and yet 1 think 
you might have given him a direct an- 
swer — " There are various sorts of 
cleverness, my dear ; I do not know that 
mine lies in the poetical way, but I can 
do ten times more towards the entertain- 
ment of company, in the way of conver- 
sation, than our friend at Olney. He 
can rhyme, and I can rattle. If he had 
my talent, or I had his, we should be 
too charming, and the world would almost 
adore us." Yours. 



LETTER CLXVIII. 

To the Rev. William Unwin. 

April 1, 1782. 

My dear friend, 
I COULD not have found a better trum- 
peter. Your zeal to serve the interest 
of my volume, together with your ex- 
tensive acquaintance, qualify you per- 
fectly for that most useful office. Me- 
thinks I see you with the long tube at 
your mouth, proclaiming to your nume- 
rous connexions my poetical merits, and 
at proper intervals levelling it at Olney, 
and pouring into my ear the welcome 
sound of their approbation. I need not 



LETTER CLXIX, 

To the same. 

June 12, 17S2. 

My dear friend. 
Every extraordinary occurrence in our 
lives affords us an opportunity to learn, 
if we will, something more of our own 
hearts and tempers than we were be- 
fore aware of. It is easy to promise our- 
selves before-hand, that our conduct shall 
be wise, or moderate, or resolute, on any 
given occasion. But when that occasion 
occurs, we do not always find it easy to 
make good the promise : such a differ- 



Sect. IIL 



RECENT. 



553 



ence there is between theory and prac- 
tice. Perhaps this is no new remark ; 
but it is not a whit the worse for being 
old, if it be true. 

Before 1 had published, I said to my- 
self — You and I, Mr. Cowper, will not 
concern ourselves much about what the 
critics may say of our book. But hav- 
ing once sent my wits for a venture, I 
soon became anxious about the issue, 
and found that I could not be satisfied 
with a warm place in my own good 
graces, unless my friends were pleased 
with me as much as I pleased myself. 
Meeting with their approbation, I began 
to feel the workings of ambition. It is 
well J said I, that my friends are pleased, 
but friends are sometimes partial ; and 
mine, 1 have reason to think, are not 
altogether free from bias. Methinks 1 
should like to hear a stranger or two 
speak well of me. I was presently gra- 
tified by the approbation of the London 
Magazine, and the Gentleman's, particu- 
larly by that of the former, and by the 
plaudit of Dr. Franklin. By the way, 
magazines are publications we have but 
little respect for, till we ourselves are 
chronicled in them ; and then they as- 
sume an importance in our esteem, which 
before we could not allow them. But 
the Monthly Review, the most formid- 
able of all my judges, is still behind. 
What will that critical Rhadamanthus 
say, when my shivering genius shall 
appear before him ? Still he keeps me 
in hot water, and I must wait another 
month for his award. Alas ! when I 
wish for a favourable sentence from that 
quarter (to confess a weakness, that I 
should not confess to all), I feel myself 
not a little influenced by a tender regard 
to my reputation here, even among my 
neighbours at Olney. Here are watch- 
makers, who themselves are wits, and 
who, at present, perhaps, think me one. 
Here is a carpenter, and a baker; and, 
not to mention others, here is your idol, 

Mr. , whose smile is fame. All 

these read the Monthly Review, and all 
these will set me down for a dunce, if 
those terrible critics should shew them 
the example. But oh ! wherever else I 
am accounted dull, dear Mr. Griffith, let 
me pass for a genius at Olney. 

We are sorry for little William's ill- 
ness. It is however the privilege of in- 
fancy, to recover, almost immediately, 
what it has lost by sickness. We are 



sorry, too, for Mr. 's dangerous 

condition ; but he that is well prepared 
for the great journey, cannot enter on it 
too soon for himself, though his friends 
will weep at his departure. Yours. 

LETTER CLXX. 

To the same. 

July IG, 1782. 
My dear friend. 
Though some people pretend to be 
clever in the way of prophetical forecast, 
and to have a peculiar talent of sagacity, 
by which they can divine the meaning of 
a providential dispensation, while its 
consequences are yet in embryo — I do 
not. There is at this time to be found, 
I suppose, in the Cabinet, and in both 
Houses, a greater assemblage of able men, 
both as speakers and counsellors, than 
ever were contemporary in the same 
land. A man, not accustomed to trace 
the workings of Providence as recorded 
in Scripture, and that has given no at- 
tention to this particular subject, while 
employed in the study of profane history, 
would assert boldly, that it is a token 
for good, that much may be expected 
from them, and that the country, though 
heavily afflicted, is not yet to be de- 
spaired of, distinguished as she is by so 
many characters of the highest class. 
Thus he would say ; and I do not deny, 
that the event might justify his skill in 
prognostics. God works by means ; and 
in a case of great national perplexity and 
distress, wisdom and political ability seem 
to be the only natural means of deliver- 
ance. But a mind more religiously in- 
clined, and perhaps a little tinctured with 
melancholy, might, with equal probabi- 
lity of success, hazard a conjecture di- 
rectly opposite. Alas ! what is the wis- 
dom of man, especially when he trusts 
in it as the only God of his confidence ? 
— ^^Yhen I consider the general con- 
tempt that is poured upon all things 
sacred, the profusion, the dissipation, 
the knavish cunning of some, the ra- 
pacity of others, and the impenitence of 
all, I am rather inclined to fear, that 
God, who honours himself by bringing 
human glory to shame, and by disap- 
pointing the expectations Jof those 
whose trust is in creatures, has signa- 
lized the present day as a day of much 
human sufficiency and strength, has 



554 



E L E G A N r EPISTLE S. 



Book IV. 



brought together from all quarters of 
the land the most illustrious men to be 
found in it, only that he may prove the 
vanity of idols ; and that v/hen a great 
empire is falling, and he has pronounced 
a sentence of ruin against it, the inhabi- 
tants, be they weak or strong, wise or 
foolish, must fall with it. 1 am rather 
confirmed in this persuasion by observ- 
ing, that these luminaries of the state 
had no sooner fixed themselves in the 
political heaven, than the fall of the 
brightest of them shook all the rest. 
The arch of their power was no sooner 
struck, than the key-stone slipt out of 
its place ; those that were closest in con- 
nexion with it followed, and the whole 
building, new as it is, seems to be already 
a ruin. If a man should hold this lan- 
guage, who could convict him of absur- 
dity ? The marquis of Rockingham is 
minister ; all the world rejoices, anti- 
cipating success in war, and a glorious 
peace. The marquis of Rockingham is 
dead ; all the world is afflicted, and re- 
lapses into its former despondence. 
What does this prove, but that the mar- 
quis was their Almighty, and that now 
he is gone, they know no other? But 
let us wait a little, they will find an- 
other. Perhaps the duke of Portland, 

or perhaps the unpopular , whom 

they noAv represent as a devil, may ob- 
tain that honour. Thus God is forgot ; 
and when he is, his judgments are gene- 
rally his remembrancers. 

Hov/ shall I comfort you upon the 
subject of your present distress ? Pardon 
me that I find myself obliged to smile at 
it ; because who but yourself would be 
distressed upon such an occasion ? You 
have behaved politely and like 'a gentle- 
man, you have hospitably offered your 
house to a stranger, who could not, in 
your neighbourhood at least, have been 
comfortably accommodated any where 
else. He, by neither refusing nor accept- 
ing an offer that did him too much ho- 
nour, has disgraced himself, but not yon. 
I think for the future you must be more 
cautious of laying yourself open to a 
stranger, and never again expose your- 
self to incivilities from an archdeacon 
you are not acquainted with. 

Though 1 did not mention it, I felt 
with you what you suffered by the loss 

of Miss ; 1 was only silent because 

I could minister no consolation to you 
on such a subject, but what 1 knew your 



mind to be already stored with. Indeed 
the application of comfort in such cases, 
is a nice business, and perhaps when best 
managed, might as well be let alone. I 
remember reading, many years ago, a 
long treatise on the subject of consola- 
tion, written in French, the author's 
name I forgot^ but I wrote these words 
in the margin : — Special consolation ! at 
least for a Frenchman, who is a creature 
the most easily comforted of any in the 
world ! 

Vie are as happy in lady Austen, and 
she in us, as ever ; having a lively imagi- 
nation, and being passionately desirous 
of consolidating all into one family (for 
she has taken her leave of London), she 
has just sprung a project which serves, 
at least, to amuse us, and to make us 
laugh ; it is to hire Mr. Small's house, 
on the top of Clifton hill, which is large, 
commodious, and handsome, will hold us 
conveniently, and any friends who may 
occasionally favour us with a visit ; the 
house is furnished, but if it can be hired 
without the furniture, will let for a trifle ; 
your sentiments if you please upon this 
demarche ! 

I send you my last frank ; our best 
love attends you individually, and alto- 
gether. I give you joy of a happy 
change in the season, and myself also. 
I have filled four sides in less time than 
two would have cost me a week ago ; 
such is the effect of sunshine upon such 
a butterfly as I am. Yours. 

LETTER CLXXI. 

To the Rev. William Uuivin. 

Aug. 3, 1782. 
My dear friend, 
Entertaimng some hope, that Mr. 
Newton's next letter would furnish me 
with the means of satisfying your en- 
quiry on the subject of Dr. Johnson's 
opinion, I have till now delayed my an- 
swer to your last ; but the information 
is not yet come, Mr. Newton having in- 
termitted a week more than usual, since 
his last writing. When I receive it, fa- 
vourable or not, it shall be communi- 
cated to you ; but I am not over san- 
guine in my expectations from that quar- 
ter. Very learned and very critical 
heads are hard to please. He may per- 
haps treat me with lenity for the sake of 
the subject and design ; but the compo- 



Sect. HI. 



11 E C E N T. 



boif 



sition, I think, will hardly escape his 
censure. But though all doctors may 
not be of the same mind, there is one 
doctor at least, whom I have lately dis- 
covered, my professed admirer. He too, 
like Johnson, was with difficulty persuad- 
ed to read, having- an aversion to all poe- 
try, except the Nig-ht Thoughts, which 
on a certain occasion, when being con- 
fined on board a ship he had no other 
employment, he got by heart. He was 
however prevailed upon, and read me 
several times over ; so that if my volume 
had sailed with him, instead of doctor 
Young's, I perhaps might have occupied 
that shelf in his memory, which he then 
allotted to the doctor. 

It is a sort of paradox, but it is true : 
We are never more in danger than when 
we think ourselves most secure, nor in 
reality more secure, than when we seem 
to be most in danger. Both sides of this 
apparent contradiction were lately veri- 
fied in my experience. — Passing from the 
green-house to the barn, I saw three kit- 
tens (for we have so many in our retinue) 
looking with fixt attention on something 
which lay on the threshold of a door 
nailed up. I took but little notice of 
them at first, but a loud hiss engaged 
me to attend more closely, when, behold 
— a viper ! the largest that I remember 
to have seen, rearing itself, darting its 
forked tongue, and ejaculating the afore- 
said hiss at the nose of a kitten, almost 
in contact with his lips. I ran into the 
hall for a hoe with a long handle, with 
which I intended to assail him, and, re- 
turning in a few seconds, missed him ; 
he was gone, and I feared had escaped 
me. Still, however, the kitten sat watch- 
ing immoveably on the same spot. I 
concluded, therefore, that sliding between 
the door and the threshold, he had found 
his way out of the garden into the yard. 
— I went round immediately, and there 
found him in close conversation with the 
old cat, whose curiosity being excited by 
so novel an appearance, inclined her to 
pat his head repeatedly with her fore- 
foot, Avith her claws, however, sheathed, 
and not in anger, but in the way of phi- 
losophic inquiry and examination. To 
prevent her falling a victim to so laud- 
able an exercise of her talents, I inter- 
posed in a moment with the hoe, and 
performed upon him an act of decapita- 
tion, which, though not immediately 
mortal, proved so in the end. Had he 



slid into the passages, where it is dark, 
or had he, when in the yard, met with 
no interruption from the cat, and se- 
creted himself in any of the out-houses ; 
it is hardly possible but that some of the 
family must have been bitten ; he might 
have been trodden upon without being 
perceived, and have slipped away before 
the sufferer could have distinguished 
what foe had wounded him. Three 
years ago we discovered one in the same 
place, which the barber slew with a 
trowel. 

Our proposed removal to Mr. Small's, 
was, as you may suppose, a jest, or ra- 
ther a joco-serious matter. We never 
looked upon it as entirely feasible ; yet 
we saw in it something so like prac- 
ticability, that we did not esteem it al- 
together unworthy of our attention. It 
was one of those projects which people 
of lively imaginations play with, and ad- 
mire for a few days, and then break in 
pieces. J^ady Austen returned on Thurs- 
day from London, where she spent the 
last fortnight, and whither she was called 
by an unexpected opportunity to dispose 
of the remainder of her lease. She has 
therefore no longer any connexion with 
the great city, and no house but at 01- 
ney. Her abode is to be at the vicarage, 
where she has hired as much room as she 
wants, which she will embellish with her 
own furniture, and which she will occupy 
as soon as the minister's wife has pro- 
duced another child, which is expected 
to make its entry in October. 

Mr. Bull, a dissenting minister of 
Newport, a learned, ingenious, good- 
natured, pious friend of ours, who some- 
times visits us, and whom we visited last 
week, has put into my hands three vo- 
lumes of French poetry, composed by 
madame Guion — a quietist, say you, and 
a fanatic, 1 will have nothing to do with 
her. — 'Tis very well, you are welcome to 
have nothing to do with her ; but in the 
mean time her verse is the only French 
verse I ever read that I found agreeable ; 
there is a neatness in it equal to that 
which we applaud, with so much reason, 
in the compositions of Prior. I have 
translated several of them, and shall pro- 
ceed in my translations, till I have filled 
a Lilliputian paper-book I happen to have 
by me, which, when filled, I shall present 
to Mr. Bull. He is her passionate ad- 
mirer ; rode twenty miles to see her pic- 
ture in the house of a stranger, which 



556 



ELEGANT EPISTLE S. 



Book IV. 



stranger politely insisted on his accept- 
ance of it, and it now hangs over his 
chimney. It is a striking portrait, too 
characteristic not to be a strong resem- 
blance ; and were it encompassed with a 
glory, instead of being dressed in a nun's 
hood, might pass for the face of an angel. 
Yours. 



LETTER CLXXIL 

To the Rev. William Unwin. 

Nov. 18, 1782. 
My dear William, 
On the part of the poor, and on our 
part, be pleased to make acknowledg- 
ments, such as the occasion calls for, 

to our beneficial friend Mr. . I call 

•him ours, because having experienced 
his kindness to myself in a former in- 
stance, and in the present his disinterest- 
ed readiness to succour the distressed, 
my ambition will be satisfied with nothing 
less. He may depend upon the strictest 
secrecy ; no creature shall hear him men- 
tioned, either now or hereafter, as the 
person from whom we have received this 
bounty. But when I speak of him, or 
hear him spoken of by others, which 
sometimes happens, I shall not forget 
what is due to so rare a character. I 
wish, and your mother wishes it too, that 
he could sometimes take us in his way to 

; he will find us happy to receive 

a person, whom we must needs account 
it an honour to know. We shall exer- 
cise our best discretion in the disposal of 
the money ; but in this town, where the 
Gospel has been preached so many years, 
where the people have been favoured so 
long with laborious and conscientious 
ministers, it is not an easy thing to find 
those who make no profession of religion 
at all, and are yet proper objects of cha- 
rity. The profane are so profane, so 
drunken, dissolute, and, in every respect, 
worthless, that to make them partakers 
of his bounty, would be to abuse it. — 
We promise, however, that none shall 
touch it but such as are miserably poor, 
yet at the same time industrious and ho- 
nest, two characters frequently united 
here, where the most watchful and un- 
remitting labour will hardly procure 
them bread. We make none but the 
cheapest laces, and the price of them 
is fallen almost to nothing. Thanks are 



due to yourself likewise, and are hereby 
accordingly rendered, for waving your 
claim in behalf of your own parishioners. 
You are always with them, and they are 
always, at least some of them, the better 
for your residence among them. Olney 
is a populous place, inhabited chiefly by 
the half-starved and the ragged of the 
earth ; and it is not possible for our small 
party, and small ability, to extend their 
operations so far as to be much felt 
among such numbers. Accept, therefore, 
your share of their gratitude, and be 
convinced, that when they pray for a 
blessing upon those who relieved their 
wants, He that answers that prayer, and 
when he answers it, will remember his 
servant at Stock. 

I little thought when I was writing the 
history of John Gilpin, that he would 
appear in print. I intended to laugh, 
and to make two or three others laugh, 
of whom you were one. But now all 
the world laugh, at least if they have the 
same relish for a tale ridiculous in itself, 
and quaintly told, as we have. Well — 
they do not always laugh so innocently, 
and at so small an expense — for in a 
world like this, abounding with subjects 
for satire, and with satirical wits to mark 
them, a laugh that hurts nobody, has at 
least the grace of novelty to recommend 
it. Swift's darling motto w^as, Vive la 
bagatelle — a good wish for a philosopher 
of his complexion, the greater part of 
whose wisdom, whencesoever it came, 
most certainly came not from above. La 
bagatelle has no enemy in me, though it 
has neither so warm a friend, nor so able 
a one, as it had in him. If 1 trifle, and 
merely trifle, it is because I am reduced 
to it by necessity — a melancholy that no- 
thing else so effectually disperses, engages 
me sometimes in the arduous task of be- 
ing merry by force. And, strange as it 
may seem, the most ludicrous lines I 
ever wrote, have been written in the 
saddest mood, and, but for that saddest 
mood, perhaps had never been written 
at all. 

I hear, from Mrs. Newton, that some 
great persons have spoken with great ap- 
probation of a certain book. Who they 
are, and what they have said, T am to be 
told in a future letter. The Monthly 
Reviewers, in the mean time, have satis- 
fied me Avell enough. Yours, my dear 
William. 



Sect. III. 



RECENT. 



557 



LETTER CLXXIII. 

To the Rev. John New ton. 

April 5, 1783. 

My dear friend, 
When one has a letter to write, there is 
nothing" more useful than to make a he- 
ginning-. In the first place, because un- 
less it be begun, there is no good reason 
to hope it will ever be ended; and, se- 
condly, because the beginning is half 
the business, it being much more diffi- 
cult to put the pen in motion at first, 
than to continue the progress of it, 
when once moved. 

Mrs. C 's illness, likely to prove 

mortal, and seizing her at such a time, 
has excited much compassion in my 
breast, and in Mrs. Unwin's, both for her 
and her daughter. To have parted with 
a child she loves so much, intending soon 
to follow her ; to find herself arrested 
before she could set out, and at so great 
a distance from her most valued rela- 
tions, her daughter's life, too, threatened 
by a disorder not often curable ; are cir- 
cumstances truly affecting. She has in- 
deed much natural fortitude, and, to make 
her condition still more tolerable, a good 
Christian hope for her support. But so 
it is, that the distresses of those, who 
least need our pity, excite it most ; the 
amiableness of the character engages 
our sympathy, and we mourn for persons 
for whom perhaps we might more rea- 
sonably rejoice. There is still, however, 
a possibility that she may recover ; an 
event we jnust wish for, though for her 
to depart would be far better. Thus 
we would always withhold from the 
skies those who alone can reach them, 
at least till we are ready to bear them 
company. 

Present our love, if you please, to 

miss C . I saw, in the Gentleman's 

Magazine for last month, an account of 
a physician who has discovered a new 
method of treating consumptive cases, 
which has succeeded wonderfully in the 
trial. He finds the seat of the distemper 
in the stomach, and cures it principally 
by emetics. The old method of encount- 
ering the disorder has proved so unequal 
to the task, that I should be much in- 
clined to any new practice that comes 
well recommended. He is spoken of as 
a sensible and judicious man, but his 
name I have forgot. 



Our love to all under your roof, and 
in particular to miss Catlett, if she is 
with you. Yours, my dear friend. 



LETTER CLXXIV. 

To the Rev. IVilliajn Univiti. 

June 8, 1783. 

My dear William, 
Our severest winter, commonly called 
the spring, is now over, and I find my- 
self seated in my favourite recess, the 
green-house. In such a situation, so 
silent, so shady, where no human foot is 
heard, and where only my myrtles pre- 
sume to peep in at the window, you may 
suppose 1 have no interruption to com- 
plain of, and that my thoughts are per- 
fectly at my command. But the beauties 
of the spot are themselves an interrup- 
tion, my attention being called upon by 
those very myrtles, by a double row of 
grass pinks, just beginning to blossom, 
and by a bed of beans already in bloom ; 
and you are to consider it, if you please, 
as no small proof of my regard, that 
though you have so many powerf id rivals, 
I disengage myself from them all, and 
devote this hour entirely to you. 

You are not acquainted with the rev. 
Mr. Bull, of Newport ; perhaps it is as 
well for you that you are not. You 
would regret still more than you do, that 
there are so many miles interposed be- 
tween us. He spends part of the day 
with us to-morrow. A dissenter, but a 
liberal one ; a man of letters and of ge- 
nius ; master of a fine imagination, or 
rather not master of it; an imagination, 
which, when he finds himself in the com- 
pany he loves and can confide in, runs 
away with him into such fields of specu- 
lation, as amuse and enliven every other 
imagination that has the happiness to be 
of the party : at other times he has a 
tender and delicate sort of melancholy 
in his disposition, not less agreeable in 
its way. No men are better qualified for 
companions, in such aworldas this, than 
men of such a temperament. Every 
scene of life has two sides, a dark and a 
bright one ; and the mind, that has an 
equal mixture of melancholy and viva- 
city, is best of all qualified for the con- 
templation of either. He can be lively 
without levity, and pensive without de- 
jection. Such a man is Mr. Bull. But 



558 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



iJoOK IV. 



— he smokes tobacco — nothing is per- 
fect — 

Nihil est ah omni 
Parte beatum. 

On the other side I send you a some- 
thing, a song, if you please, composed 
last Thursday — the incident happened 
the day before *. Yours. 



LETTER CLXXV. 

To the Rev. John Newton, 

July 27, 1783. 

My dear friend, 
You cannot have more pleasure in re- 
ceiving a letter from me, than I should 
find in writing it, were it not almost 
impossible in such a place to find a 
subject. 

I live in a world abounding with in- 
cidents, upon which many grave, and 
perhaps some profitable observations 
might be made : but those incidents 
never reaching my unfortunate ears, 
both the entertaining narrative, and the 
reflection it might suggest, are to me 
annihilated and lost. I look back to the 
past week, and say. What did it produce? 
I ask the same question of the week pre- 
ceding, and duly receive the same an- 
swer from both — Nothing! — A situation 
like this, in which I am as unknown to 
the world as I am ignorant of all that 
passes in it, in which I have nothing to 
do but to think, would exactly suit me, 
were my subjects of meditation as agree- 
able as my leisure is uninterrupted. My 
passion for retirement is not at all abated, 
after so many years spent in the most 
sequestered state, but rather increased : 
a circumstance I should esteem wonder- 
ful, to a degree not to be accounted for, 
considering the condition of my mind ; 
did T not know that we think as we are 
made to think, and of course approve 
and prefer, as Providence, who appoints 
the bounds of our habitation, chooses for 
us. Thus I am both free and a prisoner 
at the same time. The world is before 
me ; I am not shut up in the Bastile : 
there are no moats about my castle, no 
locks upon my gates, of which I have not 
the key — but an invisible, uncontrol- 
lable agency, a local attachment, an in- 

* Here followed his sons; of the Kose. 



clination more forcible than I ever felt 
even to the place of my birth, serves me 
for prison walls, and for bounds which I 
cannot pass. In former years I have 
known sorrow, and before I had ever 
tasted of spiritual trouble. The eflFect 
was an abhorrence of the scene in which 
I had suffered so much, and a weariness 
of those objects which I had so long 
looked at with an eye of despondency and 
dejection. But it is otherwise with me 
nov/. The same cause subsisting, and 
in a much more powerful degree, fails to 
produce its natural effect. The very 
stones in the garden walls are my inti- 
mate acquaintance. I should miss almost 
the minutest object, and be disagreeably 
affected by its removal ; and am per- 
suaded, that, were it possible I could leave 
this incommodious nook for a twelve- 
month, I should return to it again with 
rapture, and be transported with the 
sight of objects, which, to all the world 
beside, would be at least indifferent ; 
some of them perhaps, such as the ragged 
thatch, and the tottering walls of the 
neighbouring cottages, disgusting. But 
so it is ; and it is so, hecause here is to be 
my abode, and because such is the ap- 
pointment of Him that placed me in it. 

Iste terrarum nihi prceler omnes 
Angulus ridet. 

It is the place of all the world I love the 
most ; not for any happiness it affords 
me, but because here I can be miserable 
with most convenience to myself, and 
with the least disturbance to others. 

You wonder, and (I dare say) un- 
feignedly, because you do not think your- 
self entitled to such praise, that I prefer 
your style, as an historian, to that of the 
two most renowned writers of history the 
present day has seen. That you may 
not suspect me of having said more than 
my real opinion will warrant, I will tell 
you why. In your style I see no affec- 
tation. In every line of theirs I see no- 
thing else. They disgust me always, 
Robertson with his pomp and his strut, 
and Gibbon with his finical and French 
manners. You are as correct as they. 
You express yourself with as much pre- 
cision. Your words are ranged with as 
much propriety : but you do not set your 
periods to a tune. They discover a per- 
petual desire to exhibit themselves to 
advantage, whereas your subject en- 
grosses you. . They sing, and you say ; 



Sect. III. 



RECENT. 



559 



which, as history is a thing- to be said, 
and not sung, is, in my judgment, very 
much to your advantage. A writer 
that despises their tricli;Sj and is yet 
neither inelegant nor inharmonious, 
proves himself, by that single circum- 
stance, a man of superior judgment and 
ability to them both. You have my 
reasons. I honour a manly character, 
in which good sense, and a desire of 
doing good, are the predominant features 
— but affectation is an emetic. 



LETTER CLXXVI. 

To the Rev. William Unwin. 

Aug. 4, 1783. 
My dear William, I feel myself sensi- 
bly obligied by the interest you take 
in the success of my productions. Your 
feelings upon the subject are such as I 
should have myself, had I an opportunity 
of calling Johnson aside to make the in- 
quiry you propose. But I am pretty 
well prepared for the w orst ; and so long 
as I have the opinion of a few capable 
judges in my favour, and am thereby 
convinced that 1 have neither disgraced 
myself nor my subject, shall not feel my- 
self disposed to any extreme anxiety 
about the sale. To aim, with success, 
at the spiritual good of mankind, and to 
become popular by writing on scriptural 
subjects, were an unreasonable ambition, 
even for a poet to entertain, in days like 
these. Verse may have many charms, 
but has none powerful enough to con- 
quer the aversion of a dissipated ag'e 
to such instruction. Ask tlie question 
therefore boldly, and be not mortified, 
even though he should shake his head, 
and drop his chin ; for it is no more 
than we have reason to expect. We 
will lay the fault upon the vice of the 
times, and we will acquit the poet. 

I am giad you were pleased with my 
Latin ode, and indeed with my English 
dirge, as much as I was myself. The 
tune laid me under a disadvantage, oblig- 
ing me to write in Alexandrines ; which, 
I suppose, would suit no ear but a French 
one ; neither did I intend any thing more 
than that the subject, and the Avords, 
should be sufficiently accommodated to 
the music. The ballad is a species of 
poetry, I believe, peculiar to this coun- 
try, equally adapted to the drollest and 



the most tragical subjects. Simplicity 
and ease are its proper characteristics. 
Our forefathers excelled in it ; but we 
moderns have lost the art. It it observ- 
ed, that vv^e have few good English odes. 
But to make amends, we have many ex- 
cellent ballads, not inferior perhaps in 
true poetical merit to some of the very 
best odes that the Greek or Latin lan- 
guages have to boast of. It is a sort of 
composition I was ever fond of; and if 
graver matters had not called me an- 
other way, should have addicted myself 
to it more than to any other. I inherit 
a taste for it from my father, who suc- 
ceeded well in it himself, and who lived 
at a time when the best pieces in that 
way were produced. What can be pret- 
tier than Gay's ballad, or rather Swift's, 
ArbiUhnot's, Pope's, and Gay's, in the 
What do you call it — *' 'Twas when the 
seas were roaring." 1 have been well 
informed, that they all contributed, and 
that the most celebrated association of 
clever fellows this country ever saw, did 
not think it beneath them to unite their 
strength and abilities in the composition 
of a song. The success however answered 
their wishes. The ballads that Bourne 
has translated, beautiful in themselves, 
are still more beautiful in his version of 
them, infinitely surpassing, in my judg- 
ment, all that Ovid or Tibullus have left 
behind them. They are quite as elegant, 
and far more touching and pathetic, than 
the tenderest strokes of either. 

So much for ballads, and ballad wri- 
ters. — " A worthy subject," you will say, 
" for a man, whose head might be filled 
with better things ; — and it is filled 
with better things ; but to so ill a purpose, 
that I thrust into it ail mannner of topics, 
that may prove more amusing ; as for 
instance, I have two goldfinches, which 
in the summer occupy the green house. 
A few days since, being employed in 
cleaning out their cages, I placed that 
which I had in hand upon the table, 
while the other hung against the wall : 
the windows and the doors stood wide 
open. I went to fill the fountain at the 
pump, and, on my return, was not a little 
surprised to find a goldfinch sitting on 
the top of the cage I had been cleaning, 
and singing to, and kissing the goldfinch 
within. I approached him ; and he 
discovered no fear ; still nearer, and he 
discovered none. 1 advanced my hand 
towards him, and he took no notice of it. 



560 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



I seized him, and supposed I had caught 
a new bird ; but casting my eye upon the 
other cage, perceived my mistake. Its 
inhabitant, during my absence, had con- 
trived to find an opening, where the wire 
had been a little bent, and made no other 
use of the escape it had afforded him, 
than to salute his friend, and to converse 
with him more intimately than he had 
done before. I returned him to his pro- 
per mansion, but in vain. In less than 
a minute, he had thrust his little person 
through the aperture again, and again 
perched upon his neighbour's cage, kiss- 
ing as at the first, and singing, as if 
transported with the fortunate adventure. 
I could not but respect such friendship, 
as, for the sake of its gratification, had 
twice declined an opportunity to be free ; 
and, consenting to their union, resolved, 
that for the future one cage should hold 
them both. I am glad of such incidents. 
For, at a pinch, and when I need enter- 
tainment, the versification of them serves 
to divert me. 

I transcribe for you a piece of madam 
Ouion; not as the best, but as being 
shorter than many, and as good as most 
of them. Yours ever. 



LETTER CLXXVII. 

To the Rev. WiUiam Unwin. 

Sept. 29, 1783. 
My dear William, 
We are sorry that you and your house- 
hold partake so largely of the ill effects 
of this unhealthy season. You are 
happy however in having hitherto escaped 
the epidemic fever,' which has prevailed 
much in this part of the kingdom, and 
carried many off. Your mother and I 
are well. After more than a fortnight's 
indisposition, which slight appellation is 
quite adequate to the description of all 
I suffered, I am at length restored by a 
grain or two of emetic tartar. It is a 
tax I generally pay in autumn. By 
this time, I hope, a purer ether than we 
have seen for months, and these brighter 
suns than the summer had to boast, have 
cheered your spirits, and made your ex- 
istence more comfortable. We are ra- 
tional : but we are animal too, and 
therefore subject to the influences of the 
weather. The cattle in the fields show 
evident symptoms of lassitude and dis- 



gust in an unpleasant season ; and we, 
their lords and masters, are constrained 
to sympathize with them : the only dif- 
ference between us is, that they know not 
the cause of their dejection, and we do ; 
but, for our humiliation, are equally at 
a loss to cure it. Upon this account I 
have sometimes wished myself a philoso- 
pher. How happy, in comparison with 
myself, does the sagacious investigator 
of nature seem, whose fancy is ever em- 
ployed in the invention of hypotheses^ 
and his reason in the support of them ! 
While he is accounting for the origin of 
the winds, he has no leisure to at- 
tend to their influence upon himself; 
and, while he considers what the sun is 
made of, forgets that he has not shone for 
a month. One project indeed supplants 
another. The vortices of Descartes gave 
way to the gravitation of Newton, and 
this again is threatened by the electrical 
fluid of a modern. One generation blows 
bubbles, and the next breaks them. But 
in the mean time your philosopher is a 
happy man. He escapes a thousand in- 
quietudes, to which the indolent are sub- 
ject ; and finds his occupation, whether 
it be the pursuit of a butterfly or a de- 
monstration, the wholesomest exercise in 
the world. As he proceeds, he applauds 
himself. His discoveries, though event- 
ually perhaps they prove but dreams, are 
to him realities. The world gaze at 
him, as he does at new phsenomena in 
the heavens, and perhaps understand him 
as little. But this does not prevent their 
praises, nor at all disturb him in the en- 
joyment of that self-complacence, to 
which his imaginary success entitles him. 
He wears his honours while he lives ; 
and, if another strips them off when he 
has been dead a century, it is no great 
matter ; he can then make shift without 
them. 

I have said a great deal upon this sub- 
ject, and know not what it all amounts 
to. I did not intend a syllable of it when 
I began. But, currente calamo, I stum- 
bled upon it. My end is to amuse my- 
self and you. The former of these two 
points is secured. I shall be happy if I 
do not miss the latter. 

By the way, what is your opinion of 
these air-balloons ? I am quite charmed 
with the discovery. Is it not possible 
(do you suppose) to convey such a 
quantity of inflammable air into the 
stomach and abdomen, that the philo- 



Sect. III. 



RECENT. 



561 



sopher, no longfer gravitating to a centre, 
shall ascend by his own comparative le- 
vity, and never stop till he has reached 
the medium exactly in equilihrio with 
himself? May he not, by the help of a 
pasteboard rudder, attached to his poste- 
riors, steer himself in that purer element 
with ease, and again, by a slow and gra- 
dual discharge of his aerial contents, re- 
cover his former tendency to the earth, 
and descend without the smallest danger 
or inconvenience.^ These things are 
worth inquiry, and (I dare say) they will 
be inquired after as they deserve. The 
pennce non homini datce, are likely to be 
less regretted than they were ; and per- 
haps a flight of academicians, and a covey 
of fine ladies, may be no uncommon 
spectacle in the next generation. A let- 
ter, which appeared in the public prints 
last week, convinces me that the learned 
are not without hopes of some such im- 
provement upon this discovery. The au- 
thor is a sensible and ingenious man ; 
and, under a reasonable apprehension, 
that the ignorant may feel themselves 
inclined to laugh, upon a siibject that 
afi^ects himself with the utmost serious- 
ness, with much good manners and ma- 
nagement, bespeaks their patience, sug- 
gesting many good consequences, that 
may result from a^course of experiments 
upon this machine ; and, amongst others, 
that it may be of use in ascertaining the 
shape of continents and islands, and the 
face of wide-extended and far-distant 
countries ; an end not to be hoped for, 
unless by these means of extraordinary 
elevation the human prospect may be 
immensely enlarged, and the philosopher, 
exalted to the skies, attain a view of the 
whole hemisphere at once. But whether 
he is to ascend by the mere inflation of 
his person, as hinted above, or whether 
in a sort of band -box, supported upon 
balloons, is not yet, apparent, nor (I sup- 
pose) even in his own idea perfectly de- 
cided. Yours, my dear WiUiam. 

LETTER CLXXVIII. 

To the Rev. John New ton. 

Oct. 6, 1783. 
My dear friend. 
It is indeed a melancholy consideration, 
that the Gospel, whose direct tendency 
is to promote the happiness of mankind, 
in the present as well as in the life to 



come, and which so effectually answers 
the design of its Author, whenever it is 
well understood and sincerely believed, 
should, through the ignorance, the bigo- 
try, the superstition of its professors, 
and the ambition of popes, and princes, 
the tools of popes, have produced, inci- 
dentally, so much mischief ; only furnish- 
ing the world with a plausible excuse to 
worry each other, while they sanctified 
the worst cause with the specious pre- 
text of zeal for the furtherance of the 
best. 

Angels descend from heaven to pub- 
lish peace between man and his Maker 
— the Prince of Peace himself comes to 
confirm and establish it ; and war, hatred, 
and desolation, are the consequence. 
Thousands quarrel about the interpre- 
tation of a book, which none of them 
understand. He that is slain, dies firmly 
persuaded, that the crown of martyrdom 
expects him ; and he that slew him, is 
equally convinced that he has done God 
service. In reality, they are both mis- 
taken, and equally unentitled to the ho- 
nour they arrogate to themselves. If a 
multitude of blind men should set out for 
a certain city, and dispute about the 
right road, till a battle ensued between 
them, the probable effect would be, that 
none of them would ever reach it ; and 
such a fray, preposterous and shocking in 
the extreme, would exhibit a picture in 
some degree resembling the original of 
which we have been speaking. Arid why 
is not the world thus occupied at present? 
even because they have exchanged a zeal, 
that was no better than madness, for an 
indifference equally pitiable and absurd. 
The holy sepulchre has lost its importance 
in the eyes of nations called Christian, 
not because the light of true wisdom has 
delivered them from a superstitious at- 
tachment to the spot, but because he that 
was buried in it is no longer regarded by 
them as the Saviour of the world. The 
exercise of reason, enlightened by phi- 
losophy, has cured them indeed of the 
misery of an abused understanding ; but 
together with the delusion they have lost 
the substance, and, for the sake of the lies 
that were grafted upon it, have quarrelled 
with the truth itself. Here, then, we see 
the ne plus ultra of human wisdom, at 
least in affairs of religion. It enlightens 
the mind vrith respect to non-essentials, 
but, with respect to that in which the 
essence of Christianity consists, leaves 
20 



562 



ELEGANT EPISTLE S. 



Book iV. 



it perfectly in the dark. It can discover 
many errors, that in different ages have 
disgraced the faith ; but it is only to 
make way for the admission of one more 
fatal than them all, which represents that 
faith itself as a delusion. Why those 
evils have been permitted, shall be known 
hereafter. One thing in the mean time 
is certain ; that the folly and frenzy of 
the professed disciples of the Gospel, 
have been more dangerous to its in- 
terests, than all the avowed hostilities 
of its adversaries ; and perhaps for this 
cause these mischiefs might be suffered 
to prevail for a season, that its divine 
original and nature might be the more 
illustrated, when it shouM appear that 
it was able to stand its ground for ages, 
against that most formidable of all at- 
tacks, the indiscretion of its friends. 
The outrages, that have followed this per- 
version of the truth, have proved indeed 
a stumbling block to individuals ; the 
wise of this world, with all their wis- 
dom, have not been able to distinguish 
between the blessing and abuse of it. 
Voltaire was offended, and Gibbon has 
turned his back ; but the flock of Christ 
is still nourished, and still increases, 
notwithstanding the unbelief of a philo- 
sopher is able to convert bread into a 
stone, and a fish into a serpent. 

I am much obliged to you for the voy- 
ages which I received, and began to read 
last night. My imagination is so capti- 
vated upon these occasions, that I seem 
to partake with the navigators in all the 
dangers they encountered. I lose my 
anchor : my main-sail is rent into shreds ; 
I kill a shark, and by signs converse 
with a Patagonian ; and all this without 
moving from the iire-side. The princi- 
pal fruits of these circuits, that have been 
made around the globe, seem likely to 
be the amusement of those that staid at 
home. Discoveries have been made, but 
such discoveries as will hardly satisfy 
the expense of such undertakings. We 
brought away an Indian, and, having de- 
bauched him, we sent him home again 
to communicate the infection to his 
country — fine sport, to be sure, but such 
as will not defray the cost. Nations that 
live upon bread-fruit, and have no mines 
to make them worthy of our acquaint- 
ance, will be but little visited for the 
future. So much the better for them ; 
their poverty is indeed their mercy. 
Yours, my d^ar friend. 



LETTER CLXXIX. 

To the Rev. William XJnivin. 

Nov. 10, 1783. 

My dear William, 
I HAvs lost, and wasted, almost all my 
writing time, in making an alteration 
in the verses I either inclose, or subjoin, 
for I know not which will be the case at 
present. If prose comes readily, I shall 
transcribe them on another sheet, other- 
wise on this. You will understand, be- 
fore you have read many of them, that 
they are not for the press. I lay you 
under no other injunctions. TJie unkind 
behaviour of our acquaintance, though 
it is possible that, in some instances, it 
may not much affect our ha])piness, nor 
engage many of our thoughts, will some- 
times obtrude itself upon us with a de- 
gree of importunity not easily resisted ; 
and then, perhaps, though almost insen- 
sible of it before, we feel more than the 
occasion v/ill justify. In such a moment 
it was, that I conceived this poem, and 
gave loose to a degree of resentment, 
which perhaps I ought not to have in- 
dulged, but which in a cooler hour I 
cannot altogether condemn. My former 
intimacy with the two characters was 
such, that I could not but feel myself 
provoked by the neglect with which they 
both treated me on a late occasion. So 
much by way of preface. 

You ought not to have supposed, that 
if you had visited us last summer, the 
pleasure of the interview would have 
been all your own. By such an imagina- 
tion you wrong both yourself and us. 
Do you suppose we do not love you? 
You cannot suspect your mother of cold- 
ness ; and as to me, assure yourself I have 
no friend in the world with whom I com- 
municate without the least reserve, your- 
self excepted. Take heart then ; and 
when you find a favourable opportunity 
to come, assure yourself of such a wel- 
come from us both, as you have a right 
to look for. But I have observed in your 
two last letters, somewhat of a dejection 
and melancholy, that I am afraid you 
do not sufficiently strive against. I sus- 
pect you of being too sedentary. " You 
cannot walk." Why you cannot is best 
known to yourself. I am sure your legs 
are long enough, and your person does 
not overload them. But I beseech you 
ride, and ride often. I think I have heard 



Sect. ill. 



R E C E N T. 



563 



you say you cannot even do that with- 
out an object. Is not health an object? 
Is not a new prospect, which in most 
countries is gained at ths end of every 
mile, an object. Assure yourself, that 
easy chairs are no friends to cheerful- 
ness, and that a long winter, spent by 
the fire-side, is a prelude to an unhealthy 
spring. Every thing I see in the fields, 
is to me an object ; and I can look at the 
same rivulet, or at a handsome tree, every 
day of my life, with new pleasure. This 
indeed is partly the effect of a natural 
taste for rural beauty, and partly the 
effect of habit, for I never, in all my life, 
have let slip the opportunity of breathing 
fresh air, and conversing with nature, 
when I could fairly catch it. I earnestly 
recommend a cultivation of the same 
taste to you, suspecting that you have 
neglected it, and suffer for doing so. 



LETTER CLXXX. 

To the same. 

Nov. 24, 1783. 
My dear friend. 
An evening unexpectedly retired, and 
which your mother and I spend without 
company (an occurrence far from fre- 
quent), affords me a favourable opportu- 
nity to write by to-morrow's post, which 
else I could not have found. You are 
very good to consider my literary neces- 
sities with so much attention, and I feel 
proportionably grateful. Blair's Lec- 
tures (though I suppose they must make 
a part of my private studies, not being 
ad captum faeminaruni) will be perfectly 
welcome. You say you felt my verses. 
I assure you that in this you followed my 
example, for I felt them first. A man's 
lordship is nothing to me, any farther 
than in connexion with qualities that 
entitle him to my respect. If he thinks 
himself privileged by it to treat me with 
neglect, I am his humble servant, and 
shall never be at a loss to render him an 
equivalent. I will not, however, belie 
my knowledge of mankind so much, as 
to seem surprised at a treatment which 
I had abundant reason to expect. To 
these men, with whom I was once inti- 
mate, and for many years, I am no longer 
necessary, no longer convenient, or in 
any respect an object. They think of 
me as of the man in the moon ; and 



whether I have a lantern, or a dog and 
faggot, or whether I have neither of 
those desirable accommodations, is to 
them a matter of perfect indifference : 
upon that pohit we are agreed ; our in- 
difference is mutual ; and were I to pub- 
lish again, which is not possible, I should 
give them a proof of it. 

L'Estrange's Josephus has lately fur- 
nished us with evening lectures. But 
the historian is so tediously circumstan- 
tial, and the translator so insupportably 
coarse and vulgar, that we are all three 
weary of him. How would Tacitus have 
shone upon such a subject, great master 
as he was of the art of description ; 
concise without obscurity, and affecting 
without being poetical. But so it was 
ordered, and for wise reasons no doubt, 
that the greatest calamities any people 
ever suffered, and an accomplishment of 
one of the most signal prophecies in the 
Scripture, should be recorded by one of 
the worst writers. The man was a tem- 
porizer too, and courted the favour of 
his Roman masters, at the expense of his 
own creed ; or else an infidel, and abso- 
lutely disbelieved it. You will think me 
very difficult to please : I quarrel with 
Josephus for the want of elegance, and 
with some of our modern historians for 
having too much. With him, for run- 
ning right forward like a gazette, with- 
out stopping to make a single observa- 
tion by the way ; and with them for pre- 
tending to delineate characters that ex- 
isted two thousand years ago, and to 
discover the motives by which they were 
influenced, with the same precision as if 
they had been their contemporaries. — 
Simplicity is become a very rare quality 
in a writer. In the decline of great king- 
doms, and where refinement in all the 
arts is carried to an excess, i suppose it 
is always rare. The later Roman writers 
are remarkable for false ornament ; they 
were yet no doubt admired by the readers 
of their own day ; and with respect to 
authors of the present ?era, the most po- 
pular among them appear to me equally 
censurable on the same account. Swift 
and Addison were simple. 

Your mother wants room for a post- 
script, so my lecture must conclude ab- 
ruptly. Yours. 



202 



564 



LEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



LETTER CLXXXL 

To the Rev. William Umvin. 

My dear friend, 
It is hard upon us striplings, who have 
uncles still living- (N. B. I myself have 
an uncle still alive), that those venerahle 
gentlemen should stand in our way, even 
when the ladies are in question ; that I, 
for instance, should find in one page of 
your letter, a hope that Miss Shuttle- 
worth would be of your party, and be 
told in your next, that she is engaged 
to your uncle. Well, we may perhaps 
never be uncles ; but we may reasonably 
hope that the time is coming, when others, 
as young as we are now, shall envy, us 
the privileges of old age, and see us en- 
gross that share in the attention of the 
-ladies, to which their youth must aspire 
in vain. Make ^ur compliments, if you 
please, to your sister Eliza, and tell her 
that we are both mortified at having 
missed the pleasure of seeing her. 

"Balloons are so much the mode, that 
even in this country we have attempted 
a balloon. You may possibly remember 
that, at a place called Weston, a little 
more than a mile from Olney, there lives 
s, family whose name is Throckmorton. 
The present possessor is a young man, 
whom I remember a boy. He has a wife, 
who is young, genteel, and handsome. 
Tliey are Papists, but much more amia- 
ble than many Protestants. We never 
had any intercourse with the family, 
though ever since we lived here we have 
enjoyed the range of their pleasure- 
grounds, having been favoured with a 
key, which admits us into all. Wlien 
this man succeeded to the estate, on the 
death of his elder brother, and came to 
settle at Weston, I sent him a compli- 
mentary card, requesting the continu- 
ance of that privilege, having till then 
enjoyed it by favour of his mother, who 
on that occasion went to finish her days 
at Bath. You may conclude that he 
granted it, and for about two years no- 
thing more passed between us. A fort- 
night ago, I received an invitation in the 
civilest terms, in which he told me, that 
the next day he should attempt to fill a 
balloon, and, if it would be any pleasure 
to me to be present, should be happy to 
see me. Your mother and I went. The 
whole country were there, but the bal- 
loon could not be filled. The endeavour 



was, I believe, very philosophically made ; 
but such a process depends for its success 
upon such niceties as make it very pre- 
carious. Our reception was however 
flattering to a great degree ; insomuch 
that more notice seemed to be taken of 
us, than we could possibly have expect- 
ed, indeed rather more than any of his 
other guests. They even seemed anxious 
to recommend themselves to our regards. 
We drank chocolate, and were asked to 
dine, but were engaged. A day or two 
afterwards, Mrs. Unwin and I walked 
that way, and were overtaken in a shower. 
I found a tree, that I thought would 
shelter us both, a large elm, in a grove 
that fronts the mansion. Mrs. T. ob- 
served us, and running towards us in the 
rain, insisted on our walking in. He 
was gone out. We sat chatting with 
her till the weather cleared up, and then 
at her instance took a walk with her in 
the garden. The garden is almost their 
only walk, and is certainly the only 
retreat in which they are not liable to 
interruption. She offered us a key of it, 
in a manner that made it impossible not 
to accept it, and said she would send us 
one. A few days afterwards, in the cool 
of the evening, we walked that way again ; 
we saw them going toward the house, 
and exchanged bows and curtsies at a 
distance, but did not join them. In a 
few minutes, when we had passed the 
house, and had almost reached the gate 
that opens out of the park into the ad- 
joining field, I heard the iron gate be- 
longing to the court-yard ring, and saw 
Mr. T. advancing hastily toward us : we 
made equal haste to meet him ; he pre- 
sented to us the key, which I told liim 
I esteemed a singular favour ; and after 
a few such speeches as are made on such 
occasions, we parted. This happened 
about a week ago. I concluded nothing 
less than that all this civility and atten- 
tion was designed on their part as a pre- 
lude to a nearer acquaintance ; but here 
at present the matter rests. I should 
like exceedingly to be on an easy footing 
there, to give a morning call now and 
then, and to receive one, but nothing 
more. For though he is one of the most 
agreeable men I ever saw, I could not 
wish to visit him in any other way ; 
neither our house, furniture, servants, 
or income, being such as qualify us to 
make entertainments ; neither would I 
on any account be introduced to the 



Sect. Ill, 



R E C E N T. 



i$5 



neighbouring gentry. Mr. T. is alto- 
gether a man of fashion, and respectable 
on every account. 

I have told you a long story. Fare- 
well. We number the days as they pass, 
and are glad that we shall see you and 
your sister soon. Yours, &c. 



LETTER CLXXXII. 

To the same. 

Jan. 3, 1784. 

My dear William, 
Your silence began to be distressing to 
both your mother and me ; and had I 
not received a letter from you last night, 
I should have written by this post to 
inquire after your health. How can it 
be, that you, who are not stationary like 
me, but often change your situation, and 
mix with a variety of company, should 
suppose me furnished with such abun- 
dant materials, and yourself destitute. I 
assure you faithfully, that I do not find 
the soil of Oiney prolific in the growth 
of such articles as make letter-writing a 
desirable employment. No place con- 
tributes less to the catalogue of inci- 
dents, or is more scantily supplied with 
anecdotes worth notice. 

We have 

One parson, one poet, one belmau, one crier, 
^nd the poor poet is our only 'squire. 

Guess then if I have not more reason 
to expect two letters from you, than you 
one from me. The principal occurrence, 
and that which affects me most at pre- 
sent, came to pass this moment. The 
stair-foot door, being swelled by the thaw, 
would do any thing better than it would 
open. An attempt to force it upon that 
office has been attended with such a hor- 
rible dissolution of its parts, tliat we were 
immediately obliged to introduce a chi- 
rurgeon, commonly called a carpenter, 
whose applications we have some hope 
will cure it of a lock'd jaw, and heal its 
immerous fractures. His medicines are 
powerful chalybeates, and a certain glu- 
tinous salve, which he tells me is made 
of the tails and ears of animals. The 
consequences, however, are rather un- 
favourable to my present employment, 
which does not well brook noise, bustle, 
and interruption. 



This being the case, I shall not, per- 
haps, be either so perspicuous or so dif- 
fuse on the subject of which you desire 
my sentiments, as I should be ; but I will 
do my best. Know then, that I have 
learnt long since, of Abbe Raynal, to 
hate all monopolies, as injurious, howso- 
ever managed, to the interests of com- 
merce at large ; consequently the charter 
in question would not, at any rate, be a 
favourite of mine. This, however, is of 
itself, I confess, no sufficient reason to 
justify the resumption of it. But such 
reasons I think are not wanting. A 
grant of that kind, it is well known, is 
always forfeited by the non-performance 
of the conditions. And why not equally 
forfeited if those conditions are exceeded ; 
if the design of it be perverted, and its 
operation extended to objects which 
Avere never in the contemplation of the 
donor ? This appears to me to be no 
misrepresentation of their case, whose 
charter is supposed to be in danger. It 
constitutes them a trading company, and 
gives them an exclusive right to traffic 
in the East Indies. But it does no more. 
It invests them with no sovereignty ; it 
does not convey to them the royal pre- 
rogative of making war and peace, which 
the king cannot alienate, if he would. 
But this prerogative they have exercised ; 
and, forgetting the terms of their insti- 
tution, have possessed themselves of an 
immense territory, which they have ruled 
with a rod of iron, to which it is impos- 
sible they should even have a right, un- 
less such a one as it is a disgrace to 
plead — the right of conquest. The po- 
tentates of this country they dash in 
pieces like a potter's vessel, as often as 
they please, making the happiness of 
thirty millions of mankind a consider- 
ation subordinate to that of their own 
emolument, oppressing them as often 
as it may serve a lucrative purpose, and 
in no instance, that I have ever heard, 
consulting their interest or advantage. 
That government, therefore, is bound 
to interfere, and to un-king these ty- 
rants, is to me self-evident. And if, 
having subjugated so much of this mi- 
serable world, it is therefore necessary 
that we must keep possession of it, it 
appears to me a duty so binding on the 
legislature to resume it from the hands 
of those usurpers, that I should think a 
curse, and a bitter one, must follow the 
neglect of it. But <;uppose this were 



566 



ELEGx^NT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



done, can they be legally deprived of 
their charter? In truth I think so. If 
the abuse and perversion of a charter can 
amount to a defeasance of it, never were 
they so grossly palpable as in this in- 
stance ; never was charter so justly for- 
feited. Neither am I at all afraid that 
such a measure should be drawn into a 
precedent ; unless it could be alleged, as 
a sufficient reason for not having a 
rogue, .that perhaps magistracy might 
grow wanton in the exercise of such a 
power, and now and then hang up an 
honest man for its amusement. When 
the governors of the Bank shall have de- 
served the same severity, I hope they will 
meet with it. In the mean time I do 
not think them a whit more in jeopardy 
because a corporation of plunderers have 
been brought to justice. 

We are well, and love you all. I never 
wrote in such a hurry, nor in such a dis- 
turbance. Pardon the effects, and be- 
lieve me yours affectionately. 



LETTER CLXXXIII. 

To the Rev. William Umoin. 

Jan. 8, 1784, 

My dear William, 
When I first resolved to write an an- 
swer to your last this evening, I had no 
thought of any thing more sublime than 
prose. But, before I began, it occurred 
to me, that perhaps you would not be 
displeased with an attempt to give a 
poetical translation of the lines you sent 
me. They are so beautiful, that I felt 
the temptation irresistible. At least, as 
the French say, it was plus forte que 
viol ; and I accordingly complied. By 
this means 1 have lost an hour ; and 
whether I shall be able to fill my sheet 
before supper, is as yet doubtful. But I 
v/ill do my best. 

For your remarks, I think them per- 
fectly just. You have no reason to dis- 
trust your taste, or to submit the trial of 
it to me. You understand the use and 
the force of language as well as any man. 
You have quick feeling, and you are fond 
of poetry. How is it possible then that 
you should not be a jud<>-e of it ? I ven- 
ture to hazard only one alteration, v/hich, 
as it appears to me, would amount to a 
little improvement The seventh and 



eighth lines, I think, I should like better 
thus — 

Aspirante levi zephyro et redeunte serena 
Anni tempeiic fcecundo e cespite siirgunt. 

My reason is, that the word cum is re- 
peated too soon. At least my ear does 
not like it ; and when it can be done with- 
out injury to the sense, there seems to me 
to be an elegance in diversifying the ex- 
pression as much as possible upon simi- 
lar occasions. It discovers a command 
of phrase, and gives a more masterly air 
to the piece. If extincta stood uncon- 
nected with telis, I should prefer your 
word micant, to the Doctor's vigent. But 
the latter seems to stand more in direct 
opposition to that sort of extinction, 
which is effected by a shaft or arrow. 
In the day-time the stars may be said to 
die, and in the night to recover their 
strength. Perhaps the Doctor had in 
his eye that noble line of Gray's — 

*' Hyperion's march they spy, and glitt'ring 
shafts of war! " 

But it is a beautiful composition. It is 
tender, touching, and elegant. It is not 
easy to do it justice in English. 

Many thanks for the books, [which, 
being most admirably packed, came safe. 
They will furnish us with many a winter 
evening's amusement. We are glad that 
you intend to be the carrier back. 

We rejoice too that your cousin has 
remembered you in her will. The money 
she left to those who attended her hearse 
would have been better bestowed upon 
you ; and by this time perhaps she thinks 
so. Alas ! what an enquiry does that 
thought suggest, and how impossible to 
make it to any purpose ! What 'are the 
employments of the departed spirit ? and 
where does it subsist ? Has it any cogni- 
zance of earthly things ? Is it transported 
to an immeasurable distance ; or is it 
still, though imperceptible to us, con- 
versant with the same scene, and inter- 
ested in v/hat passes here ! How little 
we know of a state to which we are all 
destined ; and how does the obscurity, 
that hangs over that undiscovered coun- 
try^ increase the anxiety we sometimes 
feel as we are journeying towards it! 
It is sufficient, however, for such as you, 
and a few more of my acquaintance, to 
know, that in your separate state you 
will be happy. Provision is made for 
your reception ; and you will have no 



Sect. Ill, 



R E C E N T. 



567 



cause to regret aught that you have left 
behmd. 

I have written to Mr. — . My let- 
ter went this morning. How I love and 
honour that man ! For many reasons 1 
dare not tell him how much. But I 
hate the frigidity of the style in Avhich I 
am forced to address him. That line of 
Horace — 

" Dii tibi divitias dederunt artemque fruendi'''' — 

was never so applicable to the poet's friend 

as to Mr. . My bosom burns to 

immortalize him. But prudence says, 
" Forbear! " and, though a poet, I pay 
respect to her injunctions. 

1 sincerely give you joy of the good 
you have unconsciously done, by your 
example and conversation. That you 
seem to yourself not to deserve the ac- 
knowledgment your friend makes of it, 
is a proof that you do. Grace is blind 
to its own beauty ; whereas such virtues, 
as men may reach without it, are re- 
markable self-admirers. May you make 
such impressions upon many of your 
order ! I know none that need them 
more. 

You do not want my praises of your 

conduct towards Mr. . It is vrell for 

him, however, and still better for yourself, 
that you are capable of such a part. It 
was said of some good man (my memory 
does not serve me with his name), " Do 
him an ill-turn, and you make him your 
friend for ever." But it is Christianity 
only that forms such friends. I wish 
his father may be duly affected by this 
instance and proof of your superiority to 
those ideas of you, which he has so un- 
reasonably harboured. He is not in my 
favour now, nor will he upon any other 
terms. 

1 laughed at the comments you make 
on your own feelings, when the subject 
of them was a newspaper eulogium. But 
it was a laugh of pleasure and appro- 
bation : such indeed is the heart, and so 
is it made up. There are few that can 
do good, and keep their own secret ; none, 
perhaps, without a struggle. Yourself, 
and your friend , are no very com- 
mon instances of the fortitude that is 
necessary in such a conflict. In former 
days I have felt my heart beat, and every 
vein throb upon such an occasion. To 
publish my own deed was wrong. I 
knew it to be so. But to conceal it 
seemed like a voluntary injury to myself. 



Sometimes 1 could and sometimes I could 

not succeed. My occasions for such 
conflicts, indeed, were not very numerous. 
Yours. 



LETTER CLXXXIV. 

To the Rev. John Newton. 

Feb. 10, 1784. 
My dear friend, 
The morning is my writing time, and 
in the riiorning I have no spirits. So 
much the worse for my correspondents. 
Sleep, that refreshes my body, seems to 
cripple me in every other respect. As 
the evening approaches, I grow more 
alert ; and, when I am retiring to bed, am 
more fit for mental occupation than at 
any other time. So it fares with us, 
whom they call nervous. By a strange 
inversion of the animal economy, we are 
ready to sleep when we have most need 
to be awake, and go to bed just when we 
might sit up to some purpose. Tlie watch 
is irregularly wound up ; it goes in the 
night, when it is not wanted, and in the 
day stands still. In many respects we 
have the advantage of our forefathers the 
Ficts. We sleep in a whole skin, and 
are not obliged to submit to the painful 
operation of punctuating ourselves from 
head to foot, in order that we may be 
decently dressed and fit to appear abroad. 
But, on the other hand, we have reason 
enough to envy them their tone of nerves, 
and that flow of spirits, which effectually 
secured them from all uncomfortable 
impressions of a gloomy atmosphere, and 
from every shade of melancholy from 
every other cause. They understood, I 
suppose, the use of vulnerary herbs, hav- 
ing frequent occasion for some skill in 
surgery ; but physicians, I presume, they 
had none, having no need of any. Is it 
possible, that a creature like myself can 
be descended from such progenitors, in 
whom there appears not a single trace of 
family resemblance ? What an alteration 
have a few ages made ! They, without 
clothing, would defy the severest season ; 
and I, with all the accommodations that 
art has since invented, am hardly secure 
even in the mildest. If the wind blows 
upon me when my pores are open, I catch 
cold. A cough is the consequence. I 
suppose, if such a disorder could have 
seized a Pict, his friends wo\dd hav^ 



568 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



concluded that a bone had stuck in his 
throat, and that he was in some danger 
of choking. They would, perhaps, have 
addressed themselves to the cure of his 
cough by thrusting their fingers into his 
gullet, which would only have exaspe- 
rated the case. But they would never 
have thought of administering laudanum, 
my only remedy. For this difference, 
however, that has obtained between me 
and my ancestors, I am indebted to the 
luxurious practices and enfeebling self- 
indulgence of a long line of grandsires, 
who, from generation to generation, have 
been employed in deteriorating the breed ; 
till at last the collected effects of all their 
follies have centred in my puny self : a 
man, indeed, but not in the image of 
those that went before me : a man who 
sigh and groan, who wear out life in de- 
jection and oppression of spirits, and who 
never think of the aborigines of the 
country to which I belong, without wish- 
ing that I had been born among them. 
The evil is without a remedy, unless the 
ages that are passed could be recalled, 
my whole pedigree be permitted to live 
again, and, being properly admonished to 
beware of enervating sloth and refine- 
ment, would preserve their hardiness of 
nature unimpaired, and transmit the de- 
sirabfe quality to their posterity. I once 
saw Adam in a dream. We sometimes 
say of a picture, that we doubt not its 
likeness to the original, though we never 
saw him ; a judgment we have some rea- 
son to form, when the face is strongly 
charactered, and the features full of ex- 
pression. So 1 think of my visionary 
Adam, and for a similar reason. His 
figure was awkward, indeed, in the ex- 
treme. It was evident, that he had never 
been taught by a Frenchman to hold his 
bead erect, or to turn out his toes ; to 
dispose gracefully of his arms, or to sim- 
per without a meaning. But if Mr. Ba- 
con was called upon to produce a statue 
of Hercules, he need not Avish for a juster 
pattern. He stood like a rock ; the size 
of his limbs, the prominence of his mus- 
cles, and the height of his stature, all 
conspired to bespeak him a creature, 
whose strength had suffered no diminu- 
tion, and who, being the first of his race, 
did;; not come into the world under a 
necessity of sustaining a load of infirmi- 
ties, derived to him from the intem- 
perance of others. He was as much 
stouter than a Pict, as I suppose a Pict to 



have been than I. Upon my hypothesis, 
therefore, there has been a gradual de- 
clension, in point of bodily vigour, from 
Adam down to me ; at least if my dream 
were a just representation of that gen- 
tleman, and deserve the credit I cannot 
help giving it, such must have been the 
case. Yours, my dear friend.- 



LETTER CLXXXV. 

To the Rev. John Nexvton. 

Olney, iMarch 11, 17S4. 

I RETURN you many thanks for your 
Apology, which I have read with great 
pleasure. You know of old that your 
style always pleases me ; and having, in 
a former letter, given you the reasons for 
which I like it, I spare you now the pain 
of a repetition. The spirit, too, in which 
you write, pleases me as much. But I 
perceive that, in some cases, it is possi- 
ble to be severe, and, at the same time, 
perfectly good-tempered ; in all cases, I 
suppose, where we suffer by an injurious 
and unreasonable attack, and can justify 
our conduct by a plain and simple nar- 
rative. On such occasions, truth itself 
seems a satire, because by implication, 
at least, it convicts our adversaries of 
the want of charity and candour. For 
this reason, perhaps, you will find, that 
you have made many angry, though you 
are not so ; and it is possible, they may 
be the more angry upon that very ac- 
count. To assert, and to prove, that an 
enlightened minister of the Gospel may, 
w^ithout any violation of his conscience, 
and even upon the ground of prudence 
and propriety, continue in the Establish- 
ment ; and to do this with the most ab- 
solute composure, must be very provoking 
to the dignity of some dissenting doctors ; 
and, to nettle them still the more, you in 
a manner impose upon them the necessity 
of being silent, by declaring, that you 
will be so yourself. Upon the whole, 
however, I have no doubt that your Apo- 
logy will do good. If it should irritate 
some, who have more zeal than know- 
ledge, and more of bigotry than of either, 
it may serve to enlarge the views of 
others, and to convince them that there 
may be grace, truth, and eflficacy, in the 
ministry of a church, of Vvhich they are 
not members. I wish it success, and all 
that attention to which, both from the 



Sect. III. 



RECENT. 



569 



nature of the subject and the manner in 
which you have treated it, it is so well 
entitled. 

The patronag^e of the East Indies will 
be a dangerous weapon, in whatever 
hands. I have no prospect of a deliver- 
ance for this country, but the same that 
I have of a possibility that we may one 
day be disencumbered of our ruinous 
possessions in the East. 

Our g-ood neighbours, who have so 
successfully knocked away our Western 
crutch from under us, seem to design us 
the same favour on the opposite side, in 
which case we shall be poor, but I think 
we shall stand a better chance to be free ; 
and I had rather drink water-gruel for 
breakfast, and be no man's slave, than 
wear a chain, and drink tea as usual. 

I have just room to add, that we love 
you as usual, and are your affectionate 
William and Mary. 



pious and tender melancholy, which, to 
me, at least, is extremely agreeable. 
This property of it, which depends, per- 
haps, altogether upon the arrangement of 
his words, and the modulation of his sen- 
tences, it would be very difficult to pre- 
serve in a translation. I do not know 
that our language is capable of being so 
managed, and rather suspect that it is 
not, and that it is peculiar to the French, 
because it is not unfrequent among their 
writers, and I never saw anything simi- 
lar to it in our own. 

My evenings are devoted to books. I 
read aloud for the entertainment of the 
party, thus making amends, by a vocifer- 
ation of two hours, for my silence nt 
other times. We are in good health, and 
waiting as patiently as we can for the 
end of this second winter. Yours, my 
dear friend. 



LETTER CLXXXVI. 

To the same. 

March 19, 1784. 
My dear friend, 
I WISH it were in my power to give you 
any account of the marquis Caraccioli. 
Some years since 1 saw a short history 
of him in the Review, of which I re- 
collect no particulars, except that he 
was (and, for aught I know, may be still) 
an officer in the Prussian service. I 
have two volumes of his works lent me 
by lady Austen. One* is upon the sub- 
ject of self-acquaintance, and the other 
treats of the art of conversing with the 
same gentleman. Had I pursued my 
purpose of translating him, my design 
was to have furnished myself, if possible, 
with some authentic account of him, 
which I suppose may be procured at 
any bookseller's who deals in foreign 
publications. But, for the reasons given 
in my last, I have laid aside the design. 
There is something in his style that 
touches me exceedingly, and which I do 
not know how to describe. I should call 
it pathetic, if it were occasional only, 
and never occurred but when his subject 
happened to be particularly affecting. 
But it is universal ; he has not a sentence 
that is not marked with it. Perhaps, 
therefore, I may describe it better by say- 
ing, that his whole work has an air of 



LETTER CLXXXVII. 

To the Rev. William Umvin. 

April 5, 178 k 
My dear William, 
I THANKED you, in my last, for Johnson, 
I now thank you, with more emphasis, 
for Beattie, the most agreeable and ami- 
able writer I ever met with : the only 
author I have seen, whose critical and 
philosophical researches are diversified 
and embellished by a poetical imagina- 
tion, that makes even the driest subject, 
and the leanest, a feast for an epicure in 
books. He is so much at his ease too, 
that his own character appears in every 
page ; and, which is very rare, we see 
not only the writer, but the man ; and 
that man so gentle, so well tempered, 
so happy in his religion, and so humane 
in his philosophy, that it is necessary to 
love him if one has any sense of what is 
lovely. If you have not his poem called 
the Minstrel, and cannot borrow it, I 
must beg you to buy it for me ; for though 
I cannot afford to deal largely in so ex- 
pensive a commodity as books, I must 
afford to purchase at least the poetical 
works of Beattie. I have read six of 
Blair's Lectures*, — and what do I say of 
Blair? That he is a sensible man, mas- 
ter of his subject, and, excepting here 
and there a Scotticism, a good writer, so 
far at least as perspicuity of expression 
and method contribute to make one. 



570 



E L E G A N T E P 1 8 T L E S. 



Book IV. 



But oh the sterility of that man's 
fancy ! if indeed he has any such faculty 
belonging- to him. Perhaps philosophers, 
or men designed for such, are sometimes 
born without one ; or perhaps it withers 
for want of exercise. However that 
may be, doctor Blair has such a brain 
as Shakspeare somewhere describes — 
'' dry as the remainder biscuit after a 
voyage." 

1 take it for granted, that these good 
men are philosophically correct (for they 
are both agreed upon the subject) in 
their account of the origin of language ; 
and if the Scripture had left us in the 
dark upon that article, I should very 
readily adopt their hypothesis, for want 
of better information. I should suppose, 
for instance, that man made his first ef- 
fort in speech in the way of an inter- 
jection, and that ah, or oh, being uttered 
with wonderful gesticulation and variety 
of attitude, must have left his powers of 
expression quite exhausted ; that in a 
course of time he would invent many 
names for many things, but first for the 
objects of his daily wants. An apple 
would consequently be called an apple, 
and perhaps not many years would elapse 
before the appellation would receive the 
sanction of general use. In this case, 
and upon this supposition, seeing one in 
the hand of another man, he would ex- 
claim with a most moving pathos, " Oh 
apple !^' — ^Well and good — oh apple ! is 
a very affecting speech, but in the mean 
time it profits him nothing. The man 
that holds it, eats it, and he goes away 
with Oh apple ! in his mouth, and with 
nothing better. Reflecting on his dis- 
appointment, and that perhaps it arose 
from his not being more explicit, he con- 
trives a term to denote his idea of trans- 
fer or gratuitous communication, and the 
next occasion that offers, of a similar 
kind, performs his part accordingly. His 
speech now stands thus, " Oh give ap- 
ple." The apple-holder perceives him- 
self called upon to part with his fruit, 
and, having satisfied his own hunger, is 
perhaps not unwilling to do so. But 
unfortunately there is still room for a 
mistake ; and a third person being pre- 
sent, he gives the apple to him. Again 
disappointed, and again perceiving that 
his language has not all the precision 
that is requisite, the orator retires to 
his study ; and there, after much deep 
thinking, conceives that the insertion of 



a pronoun, whose office shall be to sig- 
nify, that he not only wants the apple to 
be given, but given to himself, will 
remedy all defects : he uses it the next 
opportunity, and succeeds to a v»^onder, 
obtains the apple, and, by his success, 
such credit to his invention, that pro- 
nouns continue to be in great repute 
ever after. 

Now as my two syllable-mongers, 
Beattie and Biair, both agree that lan- 
guage was originally inspired, and that 
the great variety of languages we find 
upon earth at present took its rise from 
the confusion of tongues at Babel, I am 
not perfectly convinced that there is any 
just occasion to invent this very ingeni- 
ous solution of a difficulty, which Scrip- 
ture has solved already. My opinion 
however is, if I may presume to have an 
opinion of my own so different from 
theirs, who are so much wiser than my- 
self, that if man had been his own teacher, 
and had acquired his words and his 
phrases only as necessity or convenience 
had prompted, his progress must have 
been considerably slower than it was, 
and in Homer's days the production of 
such a poem as the Iliad impossible. 
On the contrary, I doubt not Adam, on 
the very day of his creation, was able to 
express himself in terms both forcible 
and elegant, and that he was at no loss 
for sublime diction and logical combi- 
nation, when he wanted to praise his 
Maker. Yours, my dear friend. 



LETTER CLXXXVm. 

To the Rev. William JJnwin. 

April 25, 1784. 
My dear William, 
I WISH I had both burning words and 
bright thoughts. But I have at present 
neither. My head is not itself. Hav- 
ing had an unpleasant night, and a 
melancholy day, and having already 
written a long letter, I do not find my- 
self, in point of spirits, at all qualified 
either to burn or shine. The post sets 
out early on Tuesday. The morning is 
the only time of exercise with me. In 
order, therefore, to keep it open for that 
purpose, and to comply with your desire 
of an immediate answer, I give you as 
much as I can spare of the present 
evening. 



Sect. III. 



RECENT. 



571 



Since I dispatched my last, Blair lias 
crept a little farther into rriy favour. As 
his subjects improve, he improves with 
them ; but upon the whole I account 
him a dry writer, useful no doubt as an 
instructor, but as little entertaining as, 
with so much knowledge, it is possible 
to be. His language is (except Swift's) 
the least figurative I remember to have 
seen, and the few figures found in it are 
not always happily employed. I take 
him to be a critic very little animated by 
what he reads, who rather reasons about 
the beauties of an author than really 
tastes them, and who finds that a passage 
is praise-worthy, not because it charms 
him, but because it is accommodated to 
the laws of criticism, in that case made 
and provided. I have a little complied 
with your desire of marginal annotations, 
and should have dealt in them more 
largely, had I read the books to myself; 
but, being reader to the ladies, 1 have not 
always time to settle my own opinion of 
a doubtful expression, mvich less to sug- 
gest an emendation. I have not censured 
a particular observation in the book, 
though, when I met with it, it displeased 
me. 1 this moment recollect it, and 
may as well therefore note it here. He is 
commending, and deservedly, that most 
noble description of a thunder storm in 
the first Georgic, which ends with 

Ingeminant aiistri et densissimvs imber. 

Being in haste, I do not refer to the vo- 
lume for his very words, but my memory 
will serve me with the matter. When 
poets describe, he says, they should al- 
ways select such circumstances of the 
subject as are least obvious, and there- 
fore most striking. He therefore ad- 
mires the effects of the thunderbolt 
splitting mountains, and filling a nation 
with astonishment ; but quarrels with 
the closing member of the period, as 
containing particulars of a storm not 
worthy of Virgil's notice, because ob- 
vious to the notice of all. But here I 
differ from him ; not being able to con- 
ceive that wind and rain can be improper 
in the description of a tempest, or how 
wind and rain could possibly be more 
poetically described. Virgil is indeed 
remarkable for finishing his periods well, 
and never comes to a stop but with the 
most consummate dignity of numbers 
and expression ; and in the instance in 
question, I think, his skill in this re- 



spect is remarkably displayed. The line 
is perfectly majestic in its march. As 
to the wind, it is such only as the word 
ingemmant could describe ; and the words 
densissimiis imber giye one an idea of a 
shower indeed, but of such a shower as 
is not very common, and such a one as 
only Virgil could have done justice to 
by a single epithet. Far therefore from 
agreeing with the Doctor in his stricture, 
I do not think the .^neid contains a 
nobler line, or a description more mag- 
nificently finished. 

We are glad that Dr. C has sin* 

gled you out upon this occasion. Your 
performance we doubt not will justify his 
choice : fear not — you have a heart that 
can feel upon charitable occasions, and 
therefore will not fail you upon this. 
The burning words will come fast enough 
when the sensibility is such as yours. 
Yours, my dear friend. 



LETTER CLXXXIX. 

From the same to the same. 

May 8, 1784. 

My dear friend. 
You do well to make your letters merry 
ones, though not very merry yourself, 
and that both for my sake and your 
own ; for your own sake, because it 
sometimes happens, that J by assuming an 
air of cheerfulness, we become cheerful 
in reality ; and for mine, because I have 
always more need of a laugh than a cry ; 
being somewhat disposed to melancholy 
by natural temperament as well as by 
other causes. 

It was long since, and even in the in- 
fancy of John Gilpin, recommended to 
me by a lady now at Bristol, to write a 
sequel. But having always observed, that 
authors, elated with the success of a 
first part, have fallen below themselves 
when they have attempted a second, I had 
more prudence than to take her counsel. 
I want you to read the history of that 
hero, published by Bladon, and to tell me 
what it is made of. But buy it not. For, 
puffed as it iy in the papers, it can be 
but a bookseller's job, and must be dear 
at the price of two shillings. In the last 
packet but one that I received from John- 
son, he asked me if I had any improve- 
ments of John Gilpin in hand, or if I 
designed any ; for that to print only the 



572 



ELEGANT K P 1 S T L E S. 



Book IV. 



original again, would be to publish what 
has been hackneyed in every magazine, in 
every newspaper, and in every street. 1 
answered, that the copy which 1 sent him 
contained two or three small variations 
from the first, except which I had none 
to propose ; and if he thought him now 
too trite to make a part of my volume, I 
should willingly acquiesce in his judg- 
ment. I take it for granted, therefore, 
that he will not bring up -the rear of my 
poems according to my first intention, 
and shall not be sorry for the omission. 
It may spring from a principle of pride ; 
but spring from what it may, I feel, and 
have long felt, a disinclination to a pub- 
lic avowal that he is mine ; and since he 
became so popular, I have felt it more 
than ever ; not that I should have express- 
ed a scruple, if Johnson had not. But 
a fear has suggested itself to me, that I 
might expose myself to a charge of va- 
nity by admitting him into my book, and 
that some people would impute it to me 
as a crime. Consider what the world is 
made of, and you will not find my suspi- 
cions chimerical. Add to this, that when, 
on correcting the latter part of the fifth 
book of the Task, I came to consider the 
solemnity and sacred nature of the sub- 
jects there handled, it seemed to me an 
incongruity at the least, not to call it by 
a harsher name, to follow up such pre- 
mises with such a conclusion. I am well 
content therefore with having laughed 
and made others laugh, and will build 
my hopes of success, as a poet, upon 
more important matter. 

In our printing business we now jog 
on merrily enough. The coming week 
will, I hppe, bring me to an end of the 
Task, and the next fortnight to an end 
of the whole. I am glad to have Paley on 
my side in the affair of education. He 
is certainly on all subjects a sensible 
man, and on such, a wise one. But I 
am mistaken if Tirocinium do not make 
some of my friends angry, and procure 
me enemies not a few. There is a sting 
in verse, that prose neither has nor can 
have ; and 1 do not know that schools in 
the gross, and especially public schools, 
have ever been so pointedly condemned 
before. But they are become a nui- 
sance, a pest, an abomination ; and it 
is fit that the eyes and noses of man- 
kind should, if possible, be opened to 
perceive it. 

This is indeed an author's letter ; but 



it is an author's letter to his friend. If 
you will be the friend of an author, you 
must expect such letters. Come July, 
and come yourself, with as many of your 
exterior selves as can possibly come with 
you ! 

Yours, my dear William, affecti- 
onately, and with your mothers re- 
membrances. Adieu. 



LETTER CXC. 

To the Rev. John Neivton. 

July 5, 1784. 
My dear friend, 
A DEARTH of materials, a conscious- 
ness that my subjects are, for the most 
part, and must be uninteresting and un- 
important ; but, above all, a poverty of 
animal spirits, that makes writing much 
a great fatigue to me, have occasioned 
my choice of smaller paper. Acquiesce 
in the justness of these reasons for the 
present ; and if ever the times should 
mend with me, I sincerely promise to 
amend with them. 

Homer says on a certain occasion, that 
Jupiter, when he was wanted at home, 
was gone to partake of an entertainment 
provided for him by the ^Ethiopians. If 
by Jupiter we understand the weather, 
or the season, as the ancients frequently 
did, we may say, that our English Jupi- 
ter has been absent on account of some 
such invitation : during the whole month 
of June he left us to experience almost 
the rigours of winter. This fine day, 
however, affords us some hope that the 
feast is ended, and that we shall enjoy 
his company without the interference of 
his Ethiopian friends again. 

Is it possible, that the wise men of an- 
tiquity could entertain a real reverence 
for the fabulous rubbish which they dig- 
nified with the name of religion ? We, 
who have been favoured from our infancy 
with so clear a light, are perhaps hardly 
competent to decide the question, and 
may strive in vain to imagine the absur- 
dities, that even a good understanding 
may receive as truths, when totally un- 
aided by revelation. It seems, however, 
that men, whose conceptions upon other 
subjects were often sublime, whose rea- 
soning powers were undoubtedly equal 
to our own, and whose management in 
matters of jurisprudence, that required 



Sect. Ill 



RECENT. 



573 



a very industrious examination of evi- 
dence, was as acute and subtle as that of 
a modern attorney general, could not be 
the dupes of such imposture, as a child 
among- us would detect and laugh at. J u- 
venal, I remember, introduces one of his 
satires with an observation, that there 
were some in his day who had the hardi- 
ness tojaugh at the stories of Tartarus 
and Styx and Charon, and of the frogs 
that croak upon the banks of Lethe, giv- 
ing his reader, at the same time, cause 
to suspect, that he was himself one of 
that profane number. Horace, on the 
other hand, declares in sober sadness, 
that he would not for all the world get 
into a boat with a man who had divulged 
the Eleusinian mysteries. Yet we know, 
that those mysteries, whatever they might 
be, were altogether as unworthy to be 
esteemed divine, as the mythology of 
the vulgar. How then must we deter- 
mine ? If Horace were a good and or- 
thodox heathen, how came Juvenal to 
be such an ungracious libertine in prin- 
ciple, as to ridicule the doctrines which 
the other held as sacred ? Their oppor- 
tunites of information and their mental 
advantages were equal. I feel myself 
rather inclined to believe, that Juvenal's 
avowed infidelity was sincere, and that 
Horace was no better than a canting 
hypocritical professor. 

You must grant me a dispensation for 
saying any thing, whether it be sense or 
nonsense, upon the subject of politics. 
It is truly a matter in which I am so 
little interested, that were it not that it 
sometimes serves me for a theme, when 
I can find no other, I should never men- 
tion it. I would forfeit a large sum, if af- 
ter advertising a month in the Gazette, 
the minister of the day, whoever he may 
be, could discover a man that cares about 
him, or his measures, so little as I do. 
When I say that 1 would forfeit a large 
sum, I mean to have it understood, that 
I would forfeit such a sum if I had it. 
If Mr. Pitt be indeed a virtuous man, 
as such I respect him. But at the best, 
I fear that he will have to say at last 
with Hector, 

Si Pergama dextra 
Defendi possent, efidm hoc defensa fuissent. 

Be he what he may, I do not like his 
taxes. At least I am much disposed to 
quarrel with some of them. The addi- 
tional duty upon candles, by which the 



poor will be much affected, hurts me 
most. He says, indeed, that they will 
but little feel it, because even now they 
can hardly afford the use of them. He 
had certainly put no compassion into his 
budget, when he produced from it this 
tax, and such an argument to support it. 
Justly translated, it seems to amount to 
this — " Make the necessaries of life too 
expensive for the poor to reach them, 
and you will save their money. If they 
buy but few candles, they will pay but 
little tax; and if they buy none, the 
tax, as to them, wiU be annihilated." 
True. But, in the mean time, they will 
break their shins against their furniture, 
if they have any, and will be but little the 
richer, when the hours, in which they 
might work, if they could see, shall be 
deducted. 

I have bought a great dictionary, and 
want nothing but Latin authors, to fur- 
nish me with the use of it. Had I pur- 
chased them first, I had begun at the 
right end. But I could not afford it. 
I beseech you admire my prudence. 

Vivite, valetCf et memeniote nostrum. 
Yours affectionately. 



LETTER CXCI. 

From the same to the same. 

July 28, 1784. 

My dear friend, 
I MAY perhaps be short, but am not 
willing that you should go to Lyming- 
ton without first having had a line from 
me. I know that place well, having spent 
six weeks there, above twenty years ago. 
The town is neat, and the country de- 
lightful. You walk well, and wiU con- 
sequently find a part of the coast, called 
Hall Cliff, within the reach of your ten 
toes. It was a favourite walk of mine ; 
to the best of my remembrance, about 
three miles distant from Lymington. 
There you may stand upon the beach, 
and contemplate the Needle-rock. At 
least you might have done so twenty years 
ago. But since that time, I think, it is 
fallen from its base, and is droAvned, and 
is no longer a visible object of contem- 
plation. I wish you may pass your time 
there happily, as in all probability you 
will ; perhaps usefully too to others, un- 
doubtedly so to yourself. 



574 



E L E G A N T E P 1 S T L E S. 



Book IV. 



The manner in which you have been 
previously made acquainted with Mr. 
Gilpin, gives a providential air to your 
journey, and aiFords reason to hope, that 
you may be charged with a message to 
him. I admire him as a biographer. 
But as Mrs. Unwin and I were talking 
of him last night, we could not but won- 
der, that a man should see so much ex- 
cellence in the lives, and so much glory 
and beauty in the death of the martyrs 
whom he has recorded, and at the same 
time disapprove the principles that pro- 
duced the very conduct he admired. It 
seems however a step towards the truth 
to applaud the fruits of it ; and one can- 
not help thinking, that one step more 
would put him in possession of the truth 
itself. By your means may he be enabled 
to take it ! 

We are obliged to you for the prefe- 
rence you would have given to Olney, 
had not Providence determined your 
course another way. But as when we 
saw you last summer, you gave us no 
reason to expect you this, we are the 
less disappointed. At your age and mine, 
biennial visits have such a gap between 
them, that we cannot promise ourselves 
upon those terms very numerous future 
interviews. But, whether ours are to be 
many or few, you will always be wel- 
come to me, for the sake of the com- 
fortable days that are past. In my pre- 
sent state of mind, my friendship for 
you indeed is as warm as ever. But I 
feel myself very indifferently qualified to 
be your companion. Other days than 
these inglorious and unprofitable ones, 
are promised me *, and when I see them 
I shall rejoice. 

I saw the advertisement of your ad- 
versary's book. He is happy at least in 
this, that, whether he have brains or 
none, he strikes without the danger of 
being stricken again. He could not 
wish to engage in a controversy upon 
easier terms. The other, whose publi- 
cation is postponed till Christmas, is 
resolved, I suppose, to do something. 
But do what he will, he cannot prove 
that you have not been aspersed, or 
that you have not refuted the charge ; 
which, unless he can do, I think he will 
do little to the purpose. 

Mrs. Unwin thinks of you, and al- 
ways with a grateful recollection of 
yours and Mrs. Newton's kindness. 
She has had a nervous fever lately : but 



I hope she is better. The weather for- 
bids walking, a prohibition hurtful to us 
both. 

We heartily wish you a good journey, 
and are affectionately yours. 



LETTER CXCII. 

To the Rev. William Unwin. 

Aug. 14, 1784. 

My dear friend, 
I GIVE you joy of a journey performed 
without trouble or danger. You have 
travelled five hundred miles without 
having encountered either. Some neigh- 
bours of ours, about a fortnight since, 
made an excursion only to a neighbour- 
ing village, and brought home with them 
fractured sculls and broken limbs, and 
one of them is dead. For my own part, 
I seem pretty much exempted from the 
dangers of the road. Thanks to that 
tender interest and concern, which the 
legislature takes in my security ! Hav- 
ing no doubt their fears lest so precious 
a life should determine too soon, and by 
some untimely stroke of misadventure, 
they have made wheels and horses so ex- 
pensive, that I am not likely to owe my 
death to either. 

Your mother and I continue to visit 
Weston daily, and find in those agree- 
able bowers such am^usement, as leaves 
us but little room to regret that we can 
go no farther. Having touched that 
theme, I cannot abstain from the plea- 
sure of telling you, that our neighbours 
in that place, being about to leave it for 
some time, and meeting us there but a 
few evenings before their departure, en- 
treated us, during their absence, to con- 
sider the garden, and all its contents, as 
onr own, and to gather whatever we 
liked, without the least scruple. We 
accordingly picked strawberries as often 
as we went, and brought home as 
many bundles of honeysuckles as 
served to perfume our dwelling till they 
returned. 

Once more, by the aid of lord Dart- 
mouth, I find myself a voyager in the 
Pacific Ocean. In our last night's lec- 
ture we made our acquaintance with the 
island of Hapaee, where we had never 
been before. The French and Italians, 
it seems, have but little cause to plume 



Sect. III. 



RECENT. 



575 



themselves on accoiuit of tlieir achieve- 
ments in the dancing way ; and we may 
hereafter, without much repining at it, 
acknowledge their superiority in that 
art. They are equalled, perhaps ex- 
celled, by savages. How wonderful, that 
without any intercourse with a politer 
world, and having made no proficiency 
in any other accomplishment, they should 
in this, however, have made themselves 
such adepts, that for regularity and 
grace of motion they might even be our 
masters ! How wonderful too, that with 
a tub, and a stick, they should be able 
to produce such harmony, as persons ac- 
customed to the sweetest music, cannot 
but hear with pleasure ! Is it not very 
difficult to account for the striking dif- 
ference of character that obtains among 
the inhabitants of these islands ? Many 
of them are near neighbours to each 
other ; their opportunities of improve- 
ment much the same ; yet some of them 
are in a degree polite ; discover symp- 
toms of taste, and have a sense of ele- 
gance ; while others are as rude as we 
naturally expect to find a people, who 
have never had any communication with 
the northern hemisphere. These volumes 
furnish much matter of philosophical 
speculation, and often entertain me, even 
while I am not employed in reading 
them. 

I am sorry you have not been able to 
ascertain the doubtful intelligence 1 have 
received on the subject of cork skirts 
and bosoms. I am now every day occu- 
pied in giving all the grace I can to my 
new production, and in transcribing it ; 
I shall soon arrive at the passage that 
censures that folly, which I shall be loth 
to expunge, but which I must not spare, 
unless the criminals can be convicted. 
The world, however, is not so unproduc- 
tive of subjects of censure, but that it 
may probably supply me with some other 
that may serve as well. 

If you know any body that is writing, 
or intends to write, an epic poem on 
the new regulation of franks, you may 
give him my compliments, and these two 
lines for a beginning — 

Heu quot amatores nunc lorquet epistola rura ! 
Vectigal certum, perituraque gratia Fuanki ! 

Yours faithfully. 



LETTER CXCIII. 

To the Rev. John Newton. 

Aug. 16, 1784. 
My dear friend. 
Had you not expressed a desire to hear 
from me before you take leave of Ly- 
mington, I certainly should not have 
answered you so soon. Knov/ing the 
place, and the amusements it affords, 
I should have had more modesty than 
to suppose myself capable of adding any, 
thing to your present entertainments 
worthy to rank with them. I am not, 
however, totally destitute of such plea- 
sures as an inland country may pretend 
to. If my windows do not command a 
view of the ocean, at least they look out 
upon a profusion of mignonette ; which, 
if it be not so grand an object, is, however, 
quite as fragrant : and if I have not an 
hermit in a grotto, I have nevertheless 
myself in a greenhouse, a less venerable 
iigure perhaps, but not at all less ani- 
mated than he : nor are we in this nook 
altogether unfurnished with such means 
of philosophical experiment and specu- 
lation, as at present the world rings with. 
On Thursday morning last, we sent up 
a balloon from Emberton meadow. 
Thrice it rose, and as oft descended ; 
and in the evening it performed another 
flight at Newport, where it went up, and 
came down no more. Like the arrow 
discharged at the pigeon in the Trojan 
games, it kindled in the air, and was 
consumed in a moment. I have not 
heard what interpretation the soothsayers 
have given to the omen, but shall won- 
der a little if the Newton shepherd prog- 
nosticate any thing less from it than the 
most bloody war that was ever waged 
in Europe. 

I am reading Cook's last voyage, and 
am much pleased and amused with it. 
It seems, that in some of the Friendly 
Isles they excel so much in dancing, and 
perform that operation with such exqui- 
site delicacy and grace, that they are 
not surpassed even upon our European 
stages. Oh I that Vestris had been in 
the ship, that he might have seen him- 
self outdone by a savage. The paper 
indeed tells us, that the queen of France 
has clapped this king of capers up in 
prison, for declining to dance before her, 
on a pretence of sickness, when in fact 
he was in perfect health. If this be true, 



576 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



perhaps he may by this time be prepared 
to second such a wish as mine, and to 
think, that the durance he suffers would 
be well exchanged for a dance at Anna- 
mooka. I should, however, as little have 
expected to hear, that these islanders 
had such consummate skill in an art that 
requires so much taste in the conduct of 
the person, as that they were good ma- 
thematicians and astronomers. Defec- 
tive, as they are, in every branch of 
knowledge, and in every other species 
of refinement, it seems wonderful that 
they should arrive at such perfection in 
the dance, which some of our English 
gentlemen, with all the assistance of 
French instruction, find it impossible to 
learn. We must conclude, therefore, 
that particular nations have a genius for 
particular feats, and that our neighbours 
in Franch, and our friends in the South 
Sea, haveminds very nearly akin, though 
they inhabit countries so very remote 
from each other. 

Mrs. Unwin remembers to have been 
in company with Mr. Gilpin at her bro- 
ther's. She thought him very sensible 
and polite, and consequently very agree- 
able. 

We are truly glad that Mrs. Newton 
and yourself are so well, and that there 
is reason to hope that Eliza is better. 
You will learn from this letter that we 
are so ; and that, for my own part, I am 
not quite so low in spirits as at some 
times. Learn too, what you knew be- 
fore, that we love you all, and that 1 am 
your affectionate friend. 



LETTER CXCIV. 

To the Rev. John Newton. 

Sept. 18, 1784. 
My dear friend. 
Following your good example, I lay 
before me a sheet of my largest paper. 
It was this moment fair and unblemished, 
but I have begun to blot it, and having 
begun, am not likely to cease till I have 
spoiled it. I have sent you many a sheet 
that, in my judgment of it, has been very 
unworthy of your acceptance ; but my 
conscience was in some measure satisfied 
by reflecting, that if it were good for 
nothing, at the same tiiAe it cost you 
nothing, except the trouble of reading 
it. But the case is altered now. You 



must pay a solid price for frothy matter ; 
and though I do not absolutely pick 
your pocket, yet you lose your money, 
and, as the saying is, are never the 
wiser. 

My green house is never so pleasant 
as when Ave are just upon the point of 
being turned out of it. The gentleness 
of the autumnal suns, and the calmness 
of this latter season, make it a much 
more agreeable retreat than we ever find 
it in the summer ; when the winds be- 
ing generally brisk, we cannofc cool it by 
admitting a sufficient quantity of air, 
without being, at the same time, incom- 
moded by it. But now I sit with all the 
windows and the door wide open, and 
am regaled with the scent of every flower, 
in a garden as full of flowers as I have 
known how to make it. We keep no 
bees ; but if I lived in a hive, 1 should 
hardly hear more of their music. All 
the bees in the neighbourhood resort to 
a bed of mignonette opposite to the win- 
dow, and pay me for the honey they get 
out of it by a hum, which, though rather 
monotonous, is as agreeable to my ear 
as the whistling of my linnets. All the 
sounds that Nature utters are delightful, 
at least in this country. I should not 
perhaps find the roaring of lions in Africa, 
or of bears in Russia, very pleasing ; but 
I know no beast in England whose voice 
I do not account musical, save and ex- 
cept always the braying of an ass. The 
notes of all our birds and fowls please 
me, without one exception. I should 
not indeed think of keeping a goose in a 
cage, that I might hang him up in the 
parlour for the sake of his melody ; but 
a goose upon a common, or in a farm 
yard, is no bad performer r and as to in- 
sects, if the black beetle, and beetles in- 
deed of all hues, will keep out of my way, 
I have no obje^ction to any of the rest ; 
on the contrary, in whatever key they 
sing, from the gnat's fine treble, to the 
bass of the humble bee, I admire them 
all. Seriously, however, it strikes me as 
a very observable instance of providen- 
tial kindness to man, that such an exact 
accord has been contrived between his 
ear, and the sounds with which, at least 
in a rural situation, it is almost every 
moment visited. All the world is sensi- 
ble of the uncomfortable effect that cer- 
tain sounds have upon the nerves, and 
consequently upon the spirits. And if 
a sinful world had been filled with such 



Sect. III. 



RECENT. 



577 



as would have curdled the blood, and 
have made the sense of hearing a perpe- 
tual inconvenience, 1 do not know that 
we should have had a right to complain. 
But now the fields, the woods, the g-ar- 
dens, have each their concert ; and the 
ear of man is for ever regaled, by crea- 
tures who seem only to please them- 
selves. Even the ears that are deaf to 
the Gospel are continually entertained, 
though without knowing it, by sounds 
for which they are solely indebted to its 
Author. There is somewhere in infi- 
nite space a world that does not roll 
within the precincts of mercy : and as 
it is reasonable, and even scriptural, to 
suppose that there is music in heaven, 
in those dismal regions perhaps the re- 
verse of it is found ; tones so dismal, as 
to make woe itself more insupportable, 
and to acuminate even despair. But 
my paper admonishes me in good time 
to draw the reins, and to check the de- 
scent of my fancy into deeps, with which 
she is but too familiar. 

Our best love attends you both, with 
yours. 

LETTER CXCV. 

To the Rev. William Unwin. 

Oct. 2, 1784. 
My dear William, 
A POET can but ill spare time for prose. 
The truth is, I am in haste to finish my 
transcript, that you may receive it time 
enough to give it a leisurely reading be- 
fore you go to town ; which, whether I 
shall be able to accomplish, is at present 
uncertain. I have the whole punc^ation 
to settle, which in blank verse is/of the 
last importance, and of a species peculiar 
to that composition : for I know.no use 
of points, unless to direct the voice ; the 
management of which, in the^' reading 
of blank verse, being more difficult than 
in the reading of any other poetry, re- 
quires perpetual hints and notices, to 
regulate the inflections, cadences, and 
pauses. This, however, is an a,fl"air that, 
in spite of grammarians, must be left 
pretty much ad libitum scriptoris. For 
I suppose every author points acicotding 
to his own reading. If I ean .^ead the 
parcel to the waggon by oiifti o'clock 
next Wednesday, you will liaVe it on 
Saturday the ninth. But tins is more 
than I expect. Perhaps I shall not be 



able to dispatch it till the eleventh, in 
which case it will not reach you till the 
thirteenth. I the rather think that 
the latter of these two periods will ob- 
tain, because, besides the punctuation, 
I have the argument of each book to 
transcribe. Add to this, that in writing 
for the printer, I am forced to write my 
best, which makes slow work. The 
motto of the whole is — Fit surculus arbor. 
If you can put the author's name under 
it, do so — if not, it must go without one, 
for I know not to whom to ascribe it. It 
was a motto taken by a certain prince 
of Orange, in the year 1733 ; but not to 
a poem of his own writing, nor indeed 
to any poem at all, but, as I think, to a 
medal. 

Mr. is a Cornish member ; but 

for what place in Cornwall I know not. 
All I know of him is, that I saw him 
once clap his two hands upon a rail, 
meaning to leap over it. But he did 
not think the attempt a safe one, and 
therefore took them off again. He was 
in company with Mr. Throckmorton. 
With that gentlem.an we drank choco- 
late, since I wrote last. The occasion 
of our visit was, as usual, a balloon. 
Your mother invited her, and 1 him, and 
they premised to return the visit, but have 
not yet performed. Tout le monde se 
trouvoit Id, as you may suppose; among 

the rest, Mrs. W . She was driven 

to the door by her son, a boy of seventeen, 
in a phaeton, drawn by four horses from 
Lilliput. This is an ambiguous expres- 
sion ; and, should what I write now be 
legible a thousand years hence, might 
puzzle commentators. Be it known there- 
fore, to the Alduses and the Stevenses of 
ages yet to come, that I do not mean to 

affirm, that Mrs. W herself came 

from Lilliput that morning, or indeed 
that she ever was there, but merely to 
describe the horses, as being so diminu- 
tive, that they might be, with propriety, 
said to be Lilliputian. 

The privilege of franking having been 
so cropped, I know not in what manner 
I and my bookseller are to settle the con- 
veyance of proof sheets hither and back 
again. They must travel, I imagine, by 
coach, a large quantity of them at a 
time ; for, like other authors, I find my- 
self under a poetical necessity of being 
frugal. 

We love you all, jointly and sepa- 
rately, as usual. 

2 P 



578 



E L E G A N T E P I S T L E S. 



Book IV. 



LETTER CXCVI. 

To the Rev. John Newton. 

Oct 9, 1784. 
My dear friend, 
The pains you have taken to disengage 
our correspondence from the expense 
with which it was threatened, convincing 
me that my letters, trivial as they are, 
are yet acceptable to you, encourage me 
to observe my usual punctuality. You 
complain of unconnected thoughts. I 
believe there is not a head in the world 
but might utter the same complaint ; 
and that all would do so, were they all 
as attentive to their own vagaries, and 
as honest, as yours. The description of 
your meditations at least suits mine ; 
perhaps I can go a step beyond you 
upon the same ground, and assert with 
the strictest truth, that I not only do 
not think with connection, but that I 
frequently do not think at all. 1 am 
much mistaken if I do not often catch 
myself napping in this way ; for when 
I ask myself what was the last idea 
(as the ushers at Westminster ask an 
idle boy, what was the last word), I 
am not able to answer ; but, like the 
boy in question, am obliged to stare, 
and say nothing. This may be a very 
unphilosophical account of myself, and 
may clash very much with the general 
opinion of the learned, that the soul, 
being an active principle, and her acti- 
vity consisting in thought, she must 
consequently always think. But pardon 
me. Messieurs les philosophes, there are 
moments when, if I think at all, I am 
utterly unconscious of doing so ; and 
the thought and the consciousness of it 
seem to me at least, who am no philo- 
sopher, to be inseparable from each 
other. Perhaps, however, we may both 
be right ; and if you will grant me that 
I do not always think, I will in return 
concede to you the activity you contend 
for, and will qualify the diflFerence be- 
tween us by supposing, that though 
the soul be in herself an active prin- 
ciple, the influence of her present union, 
with a principle that is not such, 
makes her often dormant, suspends her 
operations, and affects her with a sort 
of deliquium, in which she suffers a 
temporary loss of all her functions. I 
have related to you my experience 
truly, and without disguise ; you must, 



therefore, either admit my assertion, 
that the soul does not necessarily always 
act, or deny that mine is an human 
soul: a negative, that I am sure you 
will not easily prove. So much for a 
dispute, which I little thought of being 
engaged in to-day. 

Last night I had a letter from lord 
Dartmouth. It was to apprise me of 
the safe arrival of Cook's last voyage, 
which he was so kind as to lend me in 
St. James's Square. The reading of 
those volumes afforded me much amuse- 
ment, and I hope some instruction. 
No observation, however, forced itself 
upon me with more violence than one 
that I could not help making on the 
death of captain Cook. God is a jea- 
lous God ; and at O why bee the poor 
man was content to be worshipped. 
From that moment, the remarkable 
interposition of Providence in his favour 
was converted into an opposition, that 
thwarted all his purposes. He left the 
scene of his deification, but was driven 
back to it by a most violent storm, in 
which he suffered more than in any 
that had preceded it. When he de- 
parted, he left his worshippers still in- 
fatuated with an idea of his godship, 
consequently well disposed to serve him. 
At his return, he found them sullen, 
distrustful, and mysterious. A trifling 
theft was committed, which, by a blunder 
of his own in pursuing the thief after 
the property had been restored, was 
magnified to an affair of the last import- 
ance. One of their favourite chiefs was 
killed too by a blunder. Nothing, in 
short, but blunder and mistake attended 
him, till he fell breathless into the water, 
and then all was smooth again. The 
world indeed will not take notice, or 
see, that the dispensation bore evident 
marks of Divine displeasure ; but a mind, 
I think, in any degree spiritual, cannot 
overlook them. We know from truth 
itself, that the death of Herod was for a 
similar offence. But Herod was in no 
sense a believer in God, nor had enjoyed 
half the opportunities with which our 
poor countryman had been favoured. It 
may be urged, perhaps, that he was in 
jest, that he meant nothing but his own 
amusement and that of his companions. 
I doubt it. He knows little of the heart, 
who does not know, that, even In a sen- 
sible man, it is flattered by every species 
of exaltation. But be it so, that he was 



Sect. IIL 



RECENT. 



579 



in sport — it was not humane, to say no 
worse of it, to sport with the ignorance 
of his friends, to mock their simplicity, 
to humour and acquiesce in their blind 
credulity. Besides, though a stock or 
stone may he worshipped blameless, a 
baptized man may not. He knows what 
he does, and, by sufifering- such honours 
to be paid him, incurs the guilt of sa- 
crilege. 

We are glad that you are so happy in 
your church, in your society, and in all 
your connections. I have not left myself 
room to say any thing of the love we feel 
for you. Yours, my dear friend. 



LETTER CXCVII. 

To Joseph Hillf Esq. 

November, 1784. 
My dear friend, 
To condole with you on the death of a 
mother, aged eighty-seven, would be 
absurd — rather, therefore, as is reason- 
able, I congratulate you on the almost 
singular felicity of having enjoyed the 
company of so amiable and so near a re- 
lation so long. Your lot and mine,' in this 
respect, have been very different, as in- 
deed in almost every other. Your mo- 
ther lived to see you rise, at least to see 
you comfortably established in the world. 
Mine dying, when I was six years' old, 
did not live to see me sink in it. You 
may remember with pleasure while you 
live, a blessing vouchsafed to you so 
long; and I, while I live, must regret a 
comfort of which I was deprived so early. 
I can truly say, that not a week passes 
(perhaps I might with equal veracity say 
a day), in which I do not think of her. 
Such was the impression her tenderness 
made upon me, though the opportunity 
she had for shewing it was so short. But 
the ways of God are equal — and when I 
reflect on the pangs she would have 
suffered had she been a witness of all 
mine, I see more cause to rejoice than 
to mourn, that she was hidden in the 
grave so soon. 

We have, as you say, lost a lively and 
sensible neighbour in lady Austen ; but 
we have been long accustomed to a state 
of retirement, within one degree of soli- 
tude ; and, being naturally lovers of still 
life, can relapse into our former duality, 
without being unhappy at the change. 



To me, indeed, a third is not necessary, 
while I can have the companion I have 
had these twenty years. 

I am gone to the press again ; a vo- 
lume of mine will greet your hands some 
time either in the course of the winter, 
or early in the spring. You will find it, 
perhaps, on the whole, more entertaining 
than the former, as it treats a greater 
variety of subjects, and those, at least 
the most, of a sublunary kind. It will 
consist of a poem in six books, called the 
Task. To which will be added another, 
which 1 finished yesterday, called, I be- 
lieve, Tirocinium, on the subject of edu- 
cation. 

You perceive that I have taken your 
advice, and given the pen no rest. 



LETTER CXCVin. 

To the Rev. William Univin. 

March 20, 1785. 
My dear William, 
I THANK you for your letter. It made 
me laugh ; and there are not many things 
capable of being contained within the 
dimensions of a letter, for which I see 
cause to be more thankful. I was pleased, 
too, to see my opinion of his lordship's 
nonchalance, upon a subject that you had 
so much at heart, completely verified. 
I do not know that the eye of a noble- 
man was ever dissected. I cannot help 
supposing, however, that, were that or- 
gan, as it exists in the head of such a per- 
sonage, to be accurately examined, it 
would be found to differ materially in 
its construction from the eye of a com- 
moner ; so very different is the view that 
men in an elevated, and in an humble 
station, have of the same object. Wliat 
appears great, sublime, beautiful, and im- 
portant to you and to me^ when submit- 
ted to my lord, or his grace, and sub- 
mitted, too, with the utmost humility, is 
either too minute to be visible at all, or, 
if seen, seems trivial, and of no account. 
My supposition, therefore, seems not al- 
together chimerical. 

In two months I have corrected proof 
sheets to the amount of ninety-three 
pages, and no more. In other words, I 
have received three packets. Nothing 
is quick enough for impatience ; and I 
suppose that the impatience of an author 
has the quickest of all possible move- 
2P2 



580 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



merits. It appears to me, however, that 
at this rate we shall not publish till next 
autumn. Should you happen therefore 
to pass Johnson's door, pop in your head 
as you go, and just insinuate to him, 
that, were his remittances rather more 
frequent, that frequency would he no in- 
convenience to me. I much expected 
one this evening, a fortnight having now 
elapsed since the arrival of the last. But 
none came, and I felt myself a little 
mortified. I took up the newspaper, 
however, and read it. There 1 found, 
that the Emperor and the Dutch are, 
after all their negotiations, going to war. 
Such reflections as these struck me. A 
great part of Europe is going to be in- 
volved in the greatest of all calamities — 
troops are in motion — artillery is drawn 
together — cabinets are busied in contriv- 
ing schemes of blood and devastation — 
thousands will perish, who are incapable 
of understanding the dispute ; and thou- 
sands, who, whatever the event may be, 
are little more interested in it than my- 
self, will suffer unspeakable hardships in 
the course of the quarrel. Well, Mr. 
Poet, and how then? You have composed 
certain verses, which you are desirous to 
see in print ; and because the impression 
seems to be delayed, you are displeased, 
not to say dispirited. Be ashamed of 
yourself ! You live in a world in which 
your feelings may find worthier subjects. 
Be concerned for the havoc of nations, 
and mourn over your retarded volume 
when you find a dearth of more import- 
ant tragedies ! 

You postpone certain topics of con- 
ference to our next meeting. When 
shall it take place ? I do not wish for 
you just now, because the garden is a 
wilderness, and so is aU the country 
around us. In May we shall have 'spa- 
ragus, and weather in which we may 
stroll to Weston ; at least we may hope 
for it ; therefore come in May : you wiU 
find us happy to receive you, and as 
much of your fair household as you can 
bring with you. 

We are very sorry for your uncle's in- 
disposition. The approach of summer 
seems however to be in his favour, that 
season being of all remedies for the rheu- 
matism, I believe, the most effectual. 

I thank you for your intelligence con- 
cerning the celebrity of John Gilpin. 
You may be sure that it was agreeable 
— but your own feelings on occasion of 



that article, pleased me most of all. 
Well, my friend, be comforted. You had 
not an opportunity of saying publicly, 
" I know the author." But the author 
himself will say as much for you soon, 
and perhaps will feel in doing so a gra- 
tification equal to your own. 

In the affair of face-painting, I am 
precisely of your opinion. Adieu. 



LETTER CXCIX. 

To the Rev. William Univin. 

Apiii 30, 1785. 
My dear friend, 
I RETURN you thanks for a letter so 
warm with the intelligence of the cele- 
brity of John Gilpin. I little thought, 
when I mounted him upon my Pegasus, 
that he would become so famous. I 
have learned also, from Mr. Newton, 
that he is equally renowned in Scotland, 
and that a lady there had undertaken to 
write a second part, on the subject of 
Mrs. Gilpin's return to London ; but 
not succeeding in it as she wished, she 
dropped it. He tells me likewise, that 
the head master of St. Paul's school (who 
he is I know not) has conceived, in con- 
sequence of the entertainment that John 
has afforded him, a vehement desire to 
write to me. Let us hope he will alter 
his mind ; for should we even exchange 
civilities on the occasion. Tirocinium 
will spoil all. The great estimation, how- 
ever, in which this knight of the stone 
bottles is held, may turn out a circum- 
stance propitious to the volume of which 
his history will make a part. Those 
events, that prove the prelude to our 
greatest success, are. often apparently 
trivial in themselves, and such as seemed 
to promise nothing. The disappoint- 
ment that Horace mentions is reversed 
— we design a mug, and it proves a 
hogshead. It is a little hard, that I 
alone should be unfurnished with a print- 
ed copy of this facetious story. When 
you visit London next, you must buy the 
most elegant impression of it, and bring 
it with you. I thank you also for writing 
to Johnson. I likewise wrote to him 
myself. Your letter and mine together 
have operated to admiration. There 
needs nothing more, but that the effect 
be lasting, and the whole will soon be 



Sect. III. 



RECENT. 



58 f 



printed. We now draw towards the 
middle of the fifth book of the Task. 
The man Johnson is like unto some vi- 
cious horses that I have known : they 
would not budg-e till they were spurred, 
and, when they were spurred, they 
would kick ; so did he. His temper was 
somewhat disconcerted ; but his pace 
was quickened, and I was contented. 

1 was very much pleased with the fol- 
lowing sentence in Mr. Newton's last — 
" I am perfectly satisfied with the pro- 
priety of your proceeding', as to the pub- 
lication." — Now,therefore, we are friends 
again. Now he once more inquires after 
the work, which, till he had disburthen- 
ed himself of this acknowledgment, 
neither he nor I, in any of our letters to 
each other, ever mentioned. Some side- 
wind has wafted to him a report of those 
reasons by which I justified my conduct. 
I never made a secret of them. Both 
your mother and I have studiously depo- 
sited them with those who we thought 
were most likely to transmit them to him. 
They wanted only a hearing, which once 
obtained, their solidity and cogency were 
such, that they were sure to prevail. 

You mention . I formerly knew 

the man you mention, but his elder bro- 
ther much better. We were school-fel- 
lows, and he was one of a club of seven 
Westminster men, to which I belonged, 
who dined together every Thursday. 
Should it please God to give me ability 
to perform the poet's part to some pur- 
pose, many whom I once called friends, 
but who have since treated me with a 
most magnificent indiflFerence, will be 
ready to take me by the hand again ; and 
some, whom I never held in that estima- 
tion, will, like — (who was but a 

boy when I left London), boast of a con- 
nection with me which they never had. 
Had I the virtues, and graces, and ac- 
complishments of St. Paul himself, I 
might have them at Olney, and nobody 
would care a button about me, yourself 
and one or two more excepted. Fame 
begets favour ; and one talent, if it be 
rubbed a little bright by use and prac- 
tice, will procure a man more friends 
than a thousand virtues. Dr. Johnson 
(I believe), in the life of one of our poets, 
says, that he retired from the world flat- 
tering himself that he should be regret- 
ted. But the world never missed him. 
I think his observation upon it is, that 
the vacancy, made by the retreat of any 



individual, is soon filled up ; that a man 
may always be obscure, if he chooses to 
be so ; and that he, who neglects the 
world, will be by the world neglected. 

Your mother and I walked yesterday 
in the wilderness. As we entered the 
gate, a glimpse of something white, con- 
tained in a little hole in the gate-post, 
caught my eye. I looked again, and 
discovered a bird's nest, with two tiny 
eggs in it. By and by they will be 
fledged, and tailed, and get wing-fea- 
thers, and fly. My case is somewhat 
similar to that of the parent bird. My 
nest is in a little nook. Here I brood, 
and hatch, and in due time my progeny 
takes v/ing and whistles. 

' We wait for the time of your coming 
with pleasant expectations. Yours truly. 



LETTER CC. 

To Joseph Hill, Esq, 

June 25, 1785. 

My dear friend, 
I WRITE in a nook, that I call my boudoir. 
It is a summer-house, not much bigger 
than a sedan-chair, the door of which 
opens into the garden, that is now 
crowded with pinks, roses, and honey- 
suckles ; and the window into my neigh- 
bour's orchard. It formerly served an 
apothecary, now dead, as a smoking- 
room ; and under my feet is a trap-door, 
which once covered a hole in the ground, 
where he kept his bottles. At present, 
however, it is dedicated to sublimer uses. 
Having lined it with garden mats, and 
furnished it with a table and two chairs, 
here 1 write all that I write in summer- 
time, whether to my friends or to the 
public. It is secure from all noise, and 
a refuge from all intrusion ; for intruders 
sometimes trouble me in the winter even- 
ings at Olney. But (thanks to my bou- 
doir!) I can now hide myself from them. 
A poet's retreat is sacred. They acknow- 
ledge the truth of that proposition, and 
never presume to violate it. 

The last sentence puts me in mind to 
tell you, that I have ordered my volume 
to your door. My bookseller is the most 
dilatory of all his fraternity, or you would 
have received it long since. It is more 
than a month since I returned him the 
last proof, and consequently since the 
printing was finished. 1 sent him the 



582 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



manuscript at the begiimin^ of last No- 
vember, that he might publish while the 
town was full ; and he will hit the exact 
moment when it is entirely empty. Pa- 
tience (you will perceive) is in no situa- 
tion exempted from the severest trials ; 
a remark that may serve to comfort you 
under the numberless trials of your own. 



LETTER CCL 

To the Rev. William Unxvin. 

Aug. 27, 1785. 

My dear friend, 
I WAS low in spirits yesterday, when 
your parcel came and raised them. Every 
proof of attention and regard to a man 
who lives in a vinegar bottle, is welcome 
from his friends on the outside of it — ac- 
cordingly your books were welcome (you 
must not forget by the way, that I want 
the original, of v/hich you have sent me 
the translation only), and the ruffles from 
miss Shuttleworth most welcome. I am 
covetous, if ever man was, of living in 
the remembrance of absentees whom I 
highly value and esteem, and consequent- 
ly felt myself much gratified by her very 
obliging present. 1 have had more com- 
fort^ far more comfort, in the connec- 
tions that I have formed within the last 
twenty years, than in the more numerous 
ones that I had befere. 

Memorandum — The latter are almost 
all Unwins or Unwinisms. 

You are entitled to my thanks also for 
the facetious engravings of John Gilpin. 
A serious poem is like a swan, it flies 
heavily, and never far ; but a jest has 
the wings of a swallow, that never tire, 
and that carry it into every nook and 
corner, I am perfectly a stranger, how- 
ever, to the reception that my volume 
meets with; and (I believe) in respect to 
my nonchalance upon that subject, if au- 
thors would but copy so fair an example, 
am a most exemplary character. I must 
tell you nevertheless, that although the 
laurels that 1 gain at Olney will never 
minister much to my pride, I have ac- 
quired some. The rev. Mr. S is my 

admirer, and thinks my second volume 
superior to my first. It ought to be so. 
If we do not improve by practice, then 
nothing can mend us ; and a man has no 
more cause to be mortified at being told 
that he has excelled himself, than the 



elephant had, whose praise it was, that 
he was the greatest elephant in the world, 
himself excepted. If it be fair to judge 
of a book by an extract, I do not wonder 
that you were so little edified by John- 
son's Journal. It is even more ridiculous 

than was poor 's of flatulent memory. 

The portion of it given to us in this day's 
paper contains not one sentiment worth 
one farthing, except the last, in which 
he resolves to bind himself with no more 
unbidden obligations Poor man ! one 
would think, that to pray for his dead 
wife, and to pinch himself with church- 
fasts, had been almost the whole of his 
religion. I am sorry, that he, who was 
so manly an advocate for the cause of 
virtue in all other places, was so childish- 
ly employed, and so superstitiously too, 
in his closet. Had he studied his Bible 
more (to which, by his own confession, 
he was in great part a stranger), he had 
known better what use to make of his 
retired hours, and had trifled less. His 
lucubrations of this sort have rather the 
appearance of religious dotage, than of 
any vigorous exertions towards God. It 
will be well if the publication prove not 
hurtful in its effects, by exposing the 
best cause, already too much despised, 
to ridicule still more profane. On the 
other side of the same paper I find a 
long string of aphorisms, and maxims, 
and rules for the conduct of life, which, 
though they appear not with his name, 
are so much in his manner, with the 
above-mentioned, that I suspect them 
for his. I have not read them all, but 
several of them I read that were trivial 
enough : for the sake of one, however, 
I forgive him the rest — he advises never 
to banish hope entirely, because it is 
the cordial of life, although it be the 
greatest flatterer in the world. Such a 
measure of hope as may not endanger 
my peace by a disappointment, I would 
wish to cherish upon every subject in 
which I am interested. But there lies 
the difficulty. A cure however, and the 
only one, for all the irregularities of 
hope and fear, is found in submission 
to the will of God, Happy they that 
have it ! 

This last sentence puts me in mind of 
your reference to Blair in a former 
letter, whom you there permitted to be 
your arbiter to adjust the respective 
claims of who or that. I do not rashly 
differ from so great a grammarian, nor 



Sect. III. 



RECENT. 



583 



do at any rate differ from him altogether 
— upon solemn occasions. God who 
lieareth prayer, is right. Hector ivho 
slew Patroclus, is right. And the man 
that dresses me erery day, is in my mind 
right also ; — because the contrary would 
give an air of stiffness and pedantry to an 
expression that, in respect of the matter 
of it, cannot be too negligently made 
up. 

Adieu, my dear William! 1 have 
scribbled with all my might, which, 
breakfast-time excepted, has been my 
employment ever since 1 rose, and it is 
now past one. Yours. 



LETTER ecu. 

To Lady Hesketh. 

Oct. 12, 1785. 
My dear cousin, 
It is no new thing vath. you to give 
pleasure. But I will venture to say, 
that you do not often give more than 
you gave me this morning. ^Tien I came 
down to breakfast, and found upon the 
table a letter franked by my uncle, and 
when opening that frank I found that it 
contained a letter from you, I said within 
myself — " This is just as it should be. 
We are all grovm young again, and 
the days, that I thought I should see no 
more, are actually returned." You per- 
ceive, therefore, that you judged well 
when you conjectured, that a line from 
you would not he disagreeahle to me. 
It could not be otherwise than as in fact 
it proved, a most agreeahle surprise ; for 
I can truly hoast of an affection for you, 
that neither years nor interrupted inter- 
course have at all abated. I need only 
recollect how much 1 valued you once, 
and with how much cause, immediately 
to feel a revival of the same value ; if 
that can be said to revive, which at the 
most has only been dormant for want of 
employment. But I slander it when 1 
say that it has slept. A thousand times 
have I recollected a thousand scenes, in 
which our two selves have formed the 
whole of the drama, with the greatest 
pleasure ; at times, too, when I had no 
reason to suppose that I should ever 
hear from you again. I have laughed 
with you at the Arabian Nights Enter- 
tainment, which afforded us, as you well 
know, a fund of merriment that deserves 



never to be forgot. I have walked with 
you to Netley Abbey, and have scram- 
bled with you over hedges in every di- 
rection, and many other feats we have 
performed together, upon the field of my 
remembrance, and all within these few 
years. Should I say within these twelve 
months, I should not transgress the truth. 
The hours that I have spent with you 
were among the pleasantest of my former 
days, and are therefore chronicled in my 
mind, so deeply as to fear no erasure. 
Neither do I forget my poor friend, sif 
Thomas. 1 should remember him indeed, 
at any rate, on account of his personal 
kindness to myself ; but the last testi- 
mony that he gave of his regard for you, 
endears him to me still more. With his 
uncommon understanding (for with many 
peculiarities he had more sense than any 
of his acquaintance) and with his gene- 
rous sensibilities, it was hardly possible 
that he should not distinguish you as he 
has done. As it was the last, so it was 
the best proof, that he could give, of a 
judgment that never deceived him, when 
he would allow himself leisure to con- 
sult it. 

You say that you have often heard of 
me : — that puzzles me. I cannot imagine 
from what quarter ; but it is no matter. 
I must tell you, however, my cousin, 
that your information has been a little 
defective. That I am happy in my si- 
tuation, is true ; I live, and have lived 
these twenty years, with Mrs. Unwin, 
to whose affectionate care of me, during 
the far greater part of that time, it is 
(under Providence) o^ing, that I live at 
all. But I do not account myself happy 
in having been for thirteen of those years 
in a state of mind, that has made all 
that care and attention necessary ; an 
attention and a care that have injured 
her health, and which, had she not 
been uncommonly supported, must have 
brought her to the grave. But I will 
pass to another subject : it woidd be 
cruel to particularize only to give pain ; 
neither would I by any means give a 
sable hue to the first letter of a corres- 
pondence so unexpectedly renewed. 

I am delighted with what you tell me 
of my uncle's good health. To enjoy 
any measure of cheerfulness at so late a 
day, is much. But to have that late day 
enlivened with the vivacity of youth, is 
much more, and, in these postdiluvian 
times, a rarity indeed. Happy, for the 



5m 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



most part, are parents who have daugh- 
ters. Daughters are not apt to outlive 
their natural affections, which a son has 
generally survived, even before his boyish 
years are expired. I rejoice particularly 
in my uncle's felicity, who has three fe- 
male descendants from his little person, 
who leave him nothing to wish for upon 
that head. 

My dear cousin, dejection of spirits, 
which (I suppose) may have prevented 
many a man from becoming an author, 
made me one. I find constant employ- 
ment necessary, and therefore take care 
to be constantly employed. Manual oc- 
cupations do not engage the mind suffi- 
ciently ; as 1 know by experience, having 
tried many. But composition, especially 
of verse, absorbs it wholly. I write, 
therefore, generally three hours in a 
morning, and in an evening I transcribe. 
I read also, but less than I write ; for I 
must have bodily exercise, and therefore 
never pass a day without it. 

You ask me where I have been this 
summer. I answer, at Olney. Should 
you ask me where I spent the last seven- 
teen summers, I should still answer, at 
Olney. Ay, and the winters also, I have 
seldom left it ; and, except when I at- 
tended my brother in his last illness, 
never, I believe, a fortnight together. 

Adieu, my beloved cousin. I shall not 
always be thus nimble in reply, but shall 
always have great pleasure in answering 
you when I can. Yours, my dear friend 
and cousin. 



LETTER CCin. 

To Ladj/ Hesketh. 

My dearest cousin, 
I AIM glad that I always loved you as 
I did. It releases me from any occa- 
sion to suspect that my present affection 
for you is indebted for its existence to 
any selfish considerations. No. I am 
sure I love you disinterestedly, and for 
your own sake ; because I never thought 
of you with any other sensations than 
those of the truest affection, even while 
I was under the persuasion that I should 
never hear from you again. But with 
my present feelings, superadded to those 
that I always had for you, I find it no 
easy matter to do justice to my sensa- 
tions. I perceive myself in a state of 



mind similar to that of the traveller de- 
scribed in Pope's Messiah, who, as he 
passes through a sandy desert, starts at 
the sudden and unexpected sound of a 
waterfall. You have plashed me in a si- 
tuation new to me, and in which I feet 
myself somewhat puzzled how to behave. 
At the same time I would not grieve you, 
by putting a check upon your bounty. 
I would be as careful not to abuse it, as 
if I were a miser, and the question not 
about your money, but my own. 

Although I do not suspect that a se- 
cret to you, my cousin, is any burthen ; 
yet, havhig maturely considered that 
point since I wrote my last, I feel my- 
self altogether disposed to release you 
from the injunction, to that effect, under 
which I laid you. I have now made 
such a progress in my translation, that 
I need iieitber fear that I shall stop short 
of the end, nor that any other rider of 
Ptgasus should overtake me. There- 
fore, if at any time it should fall fairly 
in your way, or you should feel yourself 
invited to say I am so occupied, you 
have my poetship's free permission. 
Dr. Johnson read and recommended my 
first volume. 



LETTER CCIV. 

To the sa??ie. 

Jan. 10, 1786. 

It gave me great pleasure that you 
found my friend Unwin, what I was 
sure you would find him, a most agree- 
able man. I did not usher him in with 
the marrow-bones and cleavers of high- 
sounding panegyric ; both because I was 
certain that whatsoever merit he had, 
your discernment would mark it ; and 
because it is possible to do a man mate- 
rial injury, by making his praise his har- 
binger. It is easy to raise expectation 
to such a pitch, that the reality, be it 
ever so excellent, must necessarily fall 
below it. 

I hold myself much indebted to Mr. 
, of whom I have the first informa- 
tion from yourself, both for his friendly 
disposition towards me, and for the man- 
ner in which he marks the defects in my 
volume. An author must be tender in- 
deed to wince on being touched so gently. 
It is undoubtedly as he says, and as you 
and my uncle say ; you caimot be all 



Sect. IIL 



RECENT. 



585 



mistaken, neither is it at all probable 
that any of you should be so. I take it 
for granted, therefore, that there are in- 
equalities in the composition ; and I do 
assure you, my dear, most faithfully, 
that if it should reach a second edition, 
I will spare no pains to improve it. It 
may serve me for an agreeable amuse- 
ment, perhaps, when Homer shall be 
gone, and done with. The first edition 
of poems has generally been susceptible 
of improvement. Pope, I believe, never 
published one in his life that did not un- 
dergo variations, and his longest pieces 
many. I will only observe, that in- 
equalities there must be always, and in 
every work of length. There are level 
parts of every subject, parts which we 
cannot with propriety attempt to elevate. 
They are by nature humble, and can 
only be made to assume an awkward and 
uncouth appearance by being mounted. 
But again I take it for granted, that this 
remark does not apply to the matter of 
your objection. You were sufficiently 
aware of it before, and have no need that 
I should suggest it as an apology, could 
it have served that office, but would have 
made it for me yourself. In trufch, my 
dear, had you known in what anguish of 
mind I wTote the whole of that poem, 
and under what perpetual interruption, 
from a cause that has since been re- 
moved, so that sometimes I had not an 
opportunity of writing more than three 
lines at a sitting ; you would long since 
have wondered, as much as I do myself, 
that it turned out any thing better than 
Grub Street. 

My cousin, give yourself no trouble 
to find out any of the magi to scrutinize 
my Homer. I can do without them ; 
and if I were not conscious that I have 
no need of their help, I would be the first 
to call for it. Assure yourself that I 
intend to be careful to the utmost line 
of all possible caution, both with respect 
to language and versification. I will not 
send a verse to the press that sliall not 
have undergone the strictest examina- 
tion. 

A subscription is surely on every ac- 
count the most eligible mode of publi- 
cation. \Flien I shall have emptied the 
purses of my friends, and of their friends, 
into my own, I am still free to levy con- 
tributions upon the world at large, and 
I shall then have a fund to defray the 
expenses of a new edition. I have or- 



dered Johnson to print the proposals 
immediately, and hope that^ they will 
kiss your hands before the week is ex- 
pired. 

I have had the kindest letter from" Jo- 
sephus that I ever had. He mentioned 
my purpose to one of the masters of 
Eton, who replied, that " such a work 
is much wanted." AflFectionately yours. 



LETTER CCV. 

To the sa?ne. 

Olney, Jan. 31, 1786. 

It is very pleasant, my dearest cousin, 
to receive a present so delicately con- 
veyed as that which I received so lately 
from Anonymous ; but it is also very 
painful to have nobody to thank for it. 
I find myself therefore driven by stress 
of necessity to the following resolutions, 
viz. that I will constitute you my thanks- 
receiver general, for whatsoever gift I 
shall receive hereafter, as well as for 
those that I have already received from 
a nameless benefactor. I therefore thank 
you, my cousin, for a most elegant pre- 
sent, including the most elegant compli- 
ment that ever poet was honoured with ; 
for a snuff-box of tortoise-shell, with a 
beautiful landscape on the lid of it, glazed 
with chrystal, having the figures of three 
hares in the fore-ground, and inscribed 
above with these words. The peasant's 
nest ; and below with these. Tiny, Puss, 
and Bess. For all and every of these I 
thank you, and also for standing proxy 
on this occasion. Nor must I forget to 
thank you, that so soon after I had sent 
you the first letter of Anonymous, I re- 
ceived another in the same hand. There ! 
Now I am a little easier. 

I have almost conceived a design to 
send up half a dozen stout country fel- 
lows, to tie by the leg to their respective 
bed-posts the company that so abridges 
your opportunity of writing to me. Your 
letters are the joy of my heart ; and I 
cannot endure to be robbed, by I know 
not whom, of half my treasure. But 
there is no comfort without a drawback ; 
and therefore it is, that I, who have un- 
known friends, have unknown enemies 
also. Ever since I wrote last, I find my- 
self in better health, and my nocturnal 
spasms and fever considerably abated. 
I intend to write to Dr. Kerr on Thurs- 



586 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



SOOK IV. 



day, that I may gratify him with an 
account of my amendment : for to 
him I know that it will he a gratifica- 
tion. Were he not a physician, I should 
regret that he lives so distant, for he is 
a most agreeable man ; hut being what 
he is, it would be impossible to have his 
company, even if he were a neighbour, 
unless in time of sickness ; at which time, 
whatever charms he might have himself, 
my own must necessarily lose much of 
their effect on him. 

When I write to you, my dear, what 
I have already related to the General, I 
am always fearful lest I should tell you 
that for news with which you are well 
acquainted. For once, however, I will 
venture — On Wednesday last, I received 
from Johnson the MS copy of a speci- 
men that I had sent to the General, and, 
inclosed in the same cover, notes upon 
it by an unknown critic. Johnson, in a 
short letter, recommended him to me as 
a man of unquestionable learning and 
ability. On perusal and consideration 
of his remarks, I found him such ; and 
having nothing so much at heart as to 
give all possible security to yourself and 
the General that my work shall not come 
forth unfinished, I answered Johnson 
that I would gladly submit my MS to 
his friend. He is, in truth, a very clever 
fellow, perfectly a stranger to me, and 
one who, I promise you, will not spare 
for severity of animadversion where he 
shall find occasion. It is impossible for 
you, my dearest cousin, to express a wish 
that I do not equally feel a wish to gra- 
tify. You are desirous that Maty should 
see a book of my Homer ; and for that 
reason, if Maty will see a book of it, he 
shall be welcome, although time is likely 
to be precious, and consequently any de- 
lay, that is not absolutely necessary, as 
much as possible to be avoided. I am 
now revising the Iliad. It is a business 
that will cost me four months, perhaps 
five ; for I compare the very words as 1 
go, and if much alteration should occur, 
must transcribe the whole. The first 
hook I have almost transcribed already. 
To these five months, Johnson says that 
nine more must be added for printing ; 
and upon my own experience I will ven- 
ture to assure you, that the tardiness of 
printers will make those nine months 
twelve. There is danger, therefore, that 
my subscribers may think that I make 
them wait too long, and that they who 



know me not may suspect a bubble. 
How glad shall I be to read it over in an 
evening, book by book, as fast as I settle 
the copy, to you and to Mrs. Unwin ! 
She has been my touchstone always ; and 
without reference to her taste and judg- 
ment, I have printed nothing. With one 
of you at each elbow, I should think my- 
self the happiest of all poets. 

The General and I, having broken the 
ice, are upon the most comfortable terms 
of correspondence. He writes very af- 
fectionately to me, and I say every 
thing to him that comes uppermost. I 
could not write frequently to any crea- 
ture living upon any other terms than 
those. He tells me of infirmities that 
he has, which make him less active than 
he was. I am sorry to hear that he has 
any such. Alas ! alas ! he was young 
when I saw him, only twenty years ago. 

I have the most affectionate letter 
imaginable from Colman, who writes ta 
me like a brother. The chancellor is 
yet dumb. 

May God have you in his keeping, my 
beloved cousin ! Farewell. 



LETTER CCVI. 

To Lady Hesketh. 

Olney, Feb. 9, 178G. 

My dearest cousin, 
I HAVE been impatient to tell you, that 
I am impatient to see you again. Mrs. 
Unwin partakes with me in all my feel- 
ings upon this subject, and longs also 
to see you. I should have told you so 
by the last post, but have been so com- 
pletely occupied by this tormenting spe- 
cimen, that it was impossible to do it. 
I sent the General a letter on Monday, 
that would distress and alarm him ; I 
sent him another yesterday, that will, I 
hope, quiet him again. Johnson has 
apologised very civilly for the multitude 
of his friend's strictures ; and his friend 
has promised to confine himself, in fu- 
ture, to a comparison of me with the 
original, so that (I doubt not) we shall 
jog on merrily together. And now, my 
dear, let me tell you once more, that 
your kindness in promising us a visit has 
charmed us both. I shall see you again. 
I shall hear your voice. We shall take 
walks together. I will shew you my 



Sect. III. 



RECENT. 



587 



prospects, the hovel, the alcove, the 
Ouse, and its banks — every tiling that I 
have described. I anticipate the plea- 
sure of those days not very far distant, 
and feel a part of it at this moment. 
Talk not of an inn ! Mention it not for 
your life ! We hare never had so many 
visitors but we could easily accommodate 
them all, though we have received Un- 
win, and his wife, and his sister, and his 
son, all at once. My dear, I wiU not 
let you come till the end of May, or 
beg-inning of June ; because before that 
time my green -house will not be ready 
to receive us, and it is the only pleasant 
room belonging to us. When the plants 
go out, we go in. I line it with mats, 
and spread the floor with mats ; and 
there you shall sit with a bed of migno- 
nette at your side, and a hedge of honey- 
suckles, roses, and jasmine ; and 1 will 
make you a bouquet of myrtle every day. 
Sooner than the time I mention, the 
country will not be in complete beauty. 
And I will tell you what you shall find 
at your first entrance. Imprimis, as 
soon as you have entered the vestibule, 
if you cast a look on either side of you, 
you shall see on the right hand a box 
of my making. It is the box in which 
have been lodged ail my hares, and in 
which lodges Puss at present. But he, 
poor fellow, is worn out \Yith age, and 
promises to die before you can see him. 
On the right hand stands a cupboard, 
the work of the same author ; it was 
once a dove-cage, but I transformed it. 
Opposite to you stands a table, which I 
also made. But a merciless servant 
having scrubbed it until it became pa- 
ralytic, it serves no purpose now but of 
ornament, ; and all my clean shoes stand 
under it. On the left hand, at the far- 
ther end of this superb vestibule, you 
will find the door of the parlour, into 
which I will conduct you, and where I 
will introduce you to Mrs. Unwin, un- 
less we should meet her before, and 
where we shall be as happy as the day 
is long. Order yourself, my cousin, to 
the Swan at Newport, and there you 
shall find me ready to conduct you to 
Olney. 

My dear, I have told Homer what you 
say about casks and urns, and have ask- 
ed him, whether he is sure that it is a 
cask in which Jupiter keeps his wine. 
He swears that it is a cask, and that it 
will never be any thing better than a cask 



to eternity. So if the god is content 
with it, we must even wonder at his 
taste, and be so too. 

Adieu ! my dearest, dearest cousin. 



LETTER CCVII. 

To the same. 

Olney, Feb. 11, 1786. 

My dearest cousin, 
It must be (I suppose) a fortnight or 
thereabouts since I wrote last, I feel 
myself so alert and so ready to write 
again. Be that as it may, here I come. 
We talk of nobody but you. What we 
will do with you when we get you, where 
you shall walk, where you shall sleep — 
in short, every thing that bears the re- 
motest relation to your well-being at 
Olney, occupies all our talking time> 
which is all that I do not spend at 
Troy. 

I have every reason for writing to you 
as often as I can ; but I have a particular 
reason for doing it now. I want to tell 
you, that by the diligence on Wednesday 
next I mean to send you a quire of my 
Homer for Maty's perusal. It will con- 
tain the first book, and as much of the 
second as brings us to the catalogue of 
the ships, and is every morsel of the re- 
vised copy that I have transcribed. My 
dearest cousin, read it yourself, let the 
General read it, do what you please with 
it, so that it reach Johnson in due time. 
But let Maty be the only critic that has 
any thing to do with it. The vexation, 
the perplexity, that attends a multiplicity 
of criticisms by various hands, many 
of which are sure to be futile, many of 
them ill-founded, and some of them con- 
tradictory to others, is inconceivable, 
except by the author whose ill-fated 
work happens to be the subject of them. 
This also appears to me self-evident, that 
if a work have past under the review of 
one man of taste and learning, and have 
had the good fortune to please him, his 
approbation gives security for that of all 
others qualified like himself. I speak 
thus, my dear, after having just escaped 
from such a storm of trouble, occasioned 
by endless remarks, hints, suggestions, 
and objections, as drove me almost to 
despair, and to the very verge of a reso- 
lution to drop my undertaking for ever. 
With infinite difficulty I at last sifted the 



588 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV, 



chaff from the wheat, availed myself of 
what appeared to me to be just, and re- 
jected the rest, but not till the labour and 
anxiety had nearly undone all that Kerr 
had been doing- for me. My beloved 
cousin, trust me for it, as you safely may, 
that temper, vanity, and self-importance 
had nothing- to do in all this distress that 
I suffered. It was merely the effect of an 
alarm that I could not help taking, when 
I compared the great trouble I had with 
a few lines only, thus handled, with that 
which I foresaw such handling of the 
whole must necessarily give me. I felt 
beforehand that my constitution would 
not bear it. I shall send up this second 
specimen in a box that I have had made 
on purpose ; and when Maty has done 
with the copy, and you have done with 
it yourself, then you must return it in 
said box to my translatorship. Though 
Johnson's friend has teased me sadly, I 
verily believe that I shall have no more 
such cause to complain of him. We 
now understand one another ; and I firm- 
ly believe, that I might have gone the 
world through before J had found his 
$;qual in an accurate and familiar ac- 
quaintance with the original. 

A letter to Mr. Urban in the last Gen- 
tleman's Magazine, of which Fs book is 
the subject, pleases me more than any 
thing I have seen in the way of eulogium 
yet. I have no guess of the author. 

I do not wish to remind the Chancel- 
lor of his promise. Ask you why, my 
cousin ? Because I suppose it would be 
impossible. He has no doubt forgotten 
it entirely, and would be obliged to take 
my word for the truth of it, which I 
could not bear. We drank tea together 

with Mrs. C e and her sister, in 

King Street, Bloomsbury, and there was 
the promise made. I said, " Thurlow, 
I am nobody, and shall be always no- 
body, and you will be chancellor. You 
shall provide for me when you are.' 
He smiled, and replied, *' I surely will." 
"These ladies," said I, " are witnesses." 
He still smiled, and said, " Let them 
be so, for I will certainly do it." But, 
alas ! twenty-four years have passed 
since the day of the date thereof; and 
to mention it now would be to upbraid 
him with inattention to his plighted 
troth. Neither do I suppose that he 
could easily serve such a creature as I 
am, if he would. 

Adieu, whom I love entirely. 



LETTER CCVIIL 

To hady Hesketh. 

Olney, Feb. 19, 1786. 

My dearest cousin, 
Since so it must be, so it shall be. 
If you will not sleep under the roof of 
a friend, may you never sleep under the 
roof of an enemy ! An enemy however 
you will not presently find. Mrs. Unwin 
bids me mention her affectionately, and 
tell you, that she willingly gives up a 
part, for the sake of the rest ; willingly, 
at least, as far as Avillingly may consist 
with some reluctance : I feel my reluc- 
tance too. Our design was, that you 
should have slept in the room that 
serves me for a study ; and its having 
been occupied by you would have been 
an additional recommendation of it to 
me. But all reluctances are superseded 
by the thought of seeing you ; and be- 
cause we have nothing so much at heart 
as the wish to see you happy and com- 
fortable, we are desirous therefore to 
accommodate you to your own mind, 
and not to ours. Mrs. Unwin has al- 
ready secured for you an apartment, or 
rather two, just such as we could wish. 
The house in which you will find them 
is within thirty yards of our own, and 
opposite to it. The whole affair is thus 
commodiously adjusted ; and now I have 
nothing to do but to wish for June ; and 
June, my cousin, was never so wished 
for since June was made. I shall have 
a thousand things to hear, and a thou- 
sand to say ; and they will all rush into 
my mind together, till it will be so 
crowded with things impatient to be 
said, that for some time 1 shall say no- 
thing. But no matter — sooner or later 
they will all come out ; and since we 
shall have you the longer for not having- 
you under our own roof (a circumstance 
that, more than any thing, reconciles us 
to that measure), they will stand the 
better chance. After so long a separa- 
tion, a separation that of late seemed 
likely to last for life, we shall meet each 
other as alive from the dead ; and for 
my own part, I can truly say, that I 
have not a friend in the other world, 
whose resurrection would give me greater 
pleasure. 

I am truly happy, my dear, in having 
pleased you with what you have seen of 
my Homer. I wish that all English 



Sect. Ill 



RECENT. 



589 



readers had your unsophisticated, or ra- 
ther unadulterated, taste, and could relish 
simplicity like you. But I am well 
aware, that in this respect I am under 
a disadvantage ; and that many, especially 
many ladies, missing many turns and 
prettinesses of expression that they have 
admired in Pope, will account my trans- 
lation in those particulars defective. 
But I comfort myself with the thought, 
that in reality it is no defect ; on the con- 
trary, that the want of all such embel- 
lishments, as do not belong to the origi- 
nal, will be one of its principal merits 
with persons indeed capable of relishing 
Homer. He is the best poet that ever 
lived, for many reasons ; but for none 
more than for that majestic plainness that 
distinguishes him from all others. As 
an accomplished person moves gracefully 
without thinking of it, in like manner 
the dignity of Homer seems to cost him 
no labour. It was natural to him to say 
great things, and to say them well; and 
little ornaments were beneath his notice. 
If Maty, my dearest cousin, should re- 
turn to you my copy with any such stric- 
tures as may make it necessary for me 
to see it again before it goes to Johnson, 
in that case you shall send it to me, 
otherwise to Johnson immediately ; for 
he writes me word, he wishes his friend 
to go to work upon it as soon as possible. 
Wlien you come, my dear, we will hang 
all these critics together. For they have 
worried me without remorse or con- 
science. At least one of them has. I 
had actually murdered more than a few 
of the best lines in the specimen, in com- 
pliance with his requisitions, but plucked 
up my courage at last, and in the very 
last opportunity that I had, recovered 
them to life again by restoring the origi- 
nal reading. At the same time I readily 
confess, that the specimen is the better 
for all this discipline its author has un- 
dergone ; but then it has been more in- 
debted for its improvement to that pointed 
accuracy of examination to which I was 
myself excited, than to any proposed 
amendments from Mr. Critic ; for as 
sure as you are my cousin, whom I long 
to see at Olney, so surely would he have 
done me irreparable mischief, if I would 
have given him leave. 

My friend Bagot writes to me in a 
most friendly strain, and calls loudly up- 
on me for original poetry. When I shall 
have done with Homer, probably he will 



not call in vain. Having found the 
prime feather of a swan on the banks of 
the smug and silver Trent, he keeps it 
for me. Adieu, dear cousin. 

I am sorry that the General has such 
indifferent health. He must not die. 
I can by no means spare a person so 
kind to me. 



LETTER CCIX. 
To the Rev. Walter Bagot. 

Olnes^, Feb. 27, 1786. 

Alas ! alas ! my dear, dear friend, may 
God himself comfort you! I will not 
be so absurd as to attempt it. By the 
close of your letter, it should seem, that 
in this hour of great trial he withholds 
not his consolations from you. I know 
by experience, that they are neither few 
nor small : and though I feel for you 
as I never felt for man before, yet do 
I sincerely rejoice in this, that where- 
as there is but one true Comforter in 
the universe, under afflictions such as 
yours, you both know him and know 
where to seek him. I thought you a 
man the most happily mated that I had 
ever seen, and had great pleasure in your 
felicity. Pardon me, if now I feel a 
wish, that, short as my acquaintance 
with her was, I had never seen her. I 
should have mourned with you, but not 
as I do now. Mrs. Unwin sympathizes 
with you also most sincerely ; and yoa 
neither are nor will be soon forgotten 
in such prayers as we can make at Olney. 
I will not detain you longer now, my 
poor afflicted friend, than to commit you 
to the tender mercy of God, and to bid 
you a sorrowful adieu ! 
Adieu ! ever yours. 

LETTER CCX. 

To hady Hesketh. 

Oiney, April 17, 1786. 

My dearest cousin. 
If you will not quote Solomon, my 
dearest cousin, I will. He says, and as 
beautifully as truly — " Hope deferred 
maketh the heart sick ; but when the 
desire cometh, it is a tree of life !" I 
feel how much reason he had on his 
side when he made this observation, and 
am myself sick of your fortnight's delay. 
•H- ■=<• -x- -x- * -■* -x- -?t 



S90 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



The vicarage was built by lord Dart- 
mouth, and was not finished till some 
time after we arrived at Olney, conse- 
quently it is new. It is a smart stone 
building, well sashed, by much too good 
for the living, but just what I would 
wish for you. It has, as you justly con- 
cluded from my premises, a garden, but 
rather calculated for use than orna- 
ment. It is square, and well walled, 
but has neither arbour, nor alcove, nor 
other shade, except the shadow of the 
liouse. But we have two gardens, which 
are yours. Between your mansion and 
ours is interposed nothing but an or- 
wchard, into which a door opening out of 
«ur garden, affords us the easiest com- 
munication imaginable, will save the 
round about by the town, and make 
both houses one. Your chamber win- 
dows look over the river, and over the 
meadows, to a village called Emberton, 
and command the whole length of a 
long bridge, described by a certain poet, 
together with a view of the road at a 
distance. Should you wish for books at 
Olney, you must bring them with you, 
or you will wish in vain ; for I have none 
but the works of a certain poet, Cowper, 
of whom perhaps you have heard ; and 
they are as yet but two volumes. They 
may multiply hereafter, but at present 
they are no more. 

You are the first person for whom I 
have heard Mrs. Unwin express such 
feelings as she does for you. She is not 
profuse in professions, nor forward to 
enter into treaties of friendship with 
new faces ; but when her friendship is 
once engaged, it may be confided in, 
even unto death. She loves you alrea- 
dy ; and how much more will she love 
you, before this time twelve-month ! I 
have indeed endeavoured to describe you 
to her ; but perfectly as I have you by 
heart, I am sensible that my picture 
cannot do you justice. I never saw one 
that did. Be you what you may, you 
are much beloved, and will be so at Ol- 
ney ; and Mrs. U. expects you with the 
pleasure that one feels at the return of 
a long absent dear relation ; that is to 
say, with a pleasure such as mine. She 
sends you her warmest affections. 

On Friday I received a letter from 
dear Anonymous, apprising me of a par- 
cel that the coach would bring me on 
Saturday. Who is there in the world 
that has, or thinks he has, reason to love 



me to the degree that he does ? But it is 
no matter. He chooses to be unknown ; 
and his choice is, and ever shall be, so sa- 
cred to me, that if his name lay on the 
table before me reversed, I would not turn 
the paper about that 1 might read it. 
Much as it would gratify me to thank 
him, I would turn my eyes away from the 
forbidden discovery. I long to assure 
him that those same eyes, concerning 
which he expresses such kind apprehen- 
sions lest they should suffer by this labo- 
rious undertaking, are as well as I could 
expect them to be if I were never to 
touch either book or pen. Subject to 
weakness, and occasional slight inflam- 
mations, it is probable that they will 
always be ; but I cannot remember the 
time when they enjoyed any thing so 
like an exemption from those infirmities 
as at present. One would almost sup- 
pose, that reading Homer were the best 
ophthalmic in the world. I should be 
happy to remove his solicitude on the 
subject ; but it is a pleasure that he will 
not let me enjoy. Well then, I will be 
content without it ; and so content, that 
though I believe you, my dear, to be in 
full possession of all this mystery, you 
shall never know me, while you live, 
either directly, or by hints of any sort, 
attempt to extort or to steal the secret 
from you. 1 should think myself as 
justly punishable as the Bethshemites 
for looking into the ark, which they 
were not allowed to touch. 

I have not sent for Kerr, for Kerr can 
do nothing but send me to Bath, and to 
Bath I cannot go for a thousand reasons. 
The summer will set me up again ; I 
grow fat every day, and shall be as big as 
Gog or Magog, or both put together, 
before you come. 

. I did actually live three years with 
Mr. Chapman, a solicitor ; that is to say, 
I slept three years in his house : but I 
lived ; that is to say, I spent my days, in 
Southampton-Row, as you very well re- 
member. There was I, and the future 
lord chancellor, constantly employed 
from morning to night in giggling and 
making giggle, instead of studying the 
law. Oh fie, cousin! how could you 
do so ? I am pleased with lord Thurlow's 
inquiries about me. If he takes it into 
that inimitable head of his, he may make 
a man of me yet. I could love him hear- 
tily, if he would deserve it at my hands : 
that I did so once is certain. The du- 



Sect. III. 



RECENT. 



591 



chess of 



! Who in the world set her 



a-going ? But if all the duchesses in the 
world were spinning like so many whir- 
ligigs, for my benefit, I would not stop 
them. It is a noble thing to be a 
poet, it makes all the world so lively, I 
might have preached more sermons than 
even Tillotson did, and better, and the 
world would have been still fast asleep ; 
but a volume of verse is a fiddle, that 
puts the universe in motion. Yours, my 
dear friend and cousin. 



LETTER CCXL 

To Lady Hesketh. 

Olney, April 24, 1786. 

Your letters are so much my comfort, 
that I often tremble, lest by any acci- 
dent I should be disappointed ; and the 
more because you have been, more than 
once, so engaged in company on the 
writing day, that I have had a narrow 
escape. Let me give you a piece of 
good counsel, my cousin : Follow my 
laudable example — write when you can ; 
take Time's forelock in one hand and a 
pen in the other, and so make sure of 
your opportunity. It is well for me 
that you write faster than any body, and 
more in an hour than other people in 
two, else I know not what would be- 
come of me. WlienI read your letters, I 
hear you talk ; and I love talking letters 
dearly, especially from you. Well ! the 
middle of June will not be always a thou- 
sand years off ; and when it comes I shall 
hear you, and see you too, and shall not 
care a farthing then if you do not touch 
a pen in a month. By the way, you must 
either send me or bring me some more 
paper; for before the moon shall have 
performed a few more revolutions, I 
shall not have a scrap left ; and tedious 
revolutions they are just now, that is 
certain. 

I give you leave to be as peremptory 
as you please, especially at a distance ; 
but when you say that you are a Cowper 
(and the better it is for the Cowpers that 
such you are, and I give them joy of 
you, with all my heart), you must not 
forget, that 1 boast myself a Cowper too, 
and have my humours, and fancies, and 
purposes, and determinations, as well 
as others of my name, and hold them as 
fast as they can. You indeed tell me 



how often I shall see you when you 
come. A pretty story truly. I am an 
he Cowper, my dear, and claim the pri- 
vileges that belong to my noble sex. — 
But these matters shall be settled, as my 
cousin Agamemnon used to say, at a 
more convenient time. 

I shall rejoice to see the letter you 
promise me ; for though I met with a 
morsel of praise last week, I do not 
know that the week current is likely to 
produce me any ; and having lately been 
pretty much pampered with that diet, I 
expect to find myself rather hungry by 
the time when your next letter shall ar- 
rive. It will therefore be very oppor- 
tune. The morsel, above alluded to, 
came from — whom do^ you think ? From 
, but she desires that her author- 
ship may be a secret. And in my an- 
swer I promised not to divulge it, ex- 
cept to you. It is a pretty copy of 
verses, neatly written, and well turned ; 
and when you come you shall see them. 
I intend to keep all pretty things to 
myself till then, that they may serve me 
as a bait to lure you hither more effec- 
tually. The last letter that I had from 

, I received so many years since, 

that it seems as if it had reached me a 
good while before I was born. 

I was grieved at the heart that the 
General could not come, and that ill- 
ness was in part the cause that hindered 
him. I have sent him, by his express 
desire, a new edition of the first book, 
and half the second. He would not 
suffer me to send it to you, my dear, lest 
you should post it away to Maty at 
once. He did not give that reason, but 
being shrewd I found it. 

The grass begins to grow, and the 
leaves to bud, and every thing is prepar- 
ing to be beautiful against you come. 
Adieu ! 

You inquire of our walks, I perceive, 
as well as our rides. They are beauti- 
ful. You inquire also concerning a cel- 
lar. You have two cellars. Oh ! what 
years have passed since we took the 
same walks, and drank out of the same 
bottle ! But a few more weeks, and 
then ! 



592 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



LETTER CCXIL 

To Lady Hesketh. 

Olney, May 15, 1786. 
My dearest cousin, 
From this very morning I begin to date 
the last month of our long separation, 
and confidently and most comfortably 
hope, that before the 15th of June shall 
present itself, we shall have seen each 
other. Is it not so ? And will it not be one 
of the most etraordinary eeras of my ex- 
traordinary life ? A year ago we neither 
corresponded, nor expected to meet in 
this world. But this world is a scene of 
marvellous events, many of them more 
marvellous than fiction itself would dare 
to hazard; and (blessed be God !) they 
are not all of the distressing kind. Now 
and then, in the course of an existence, 
whose hue is for the most part sable, a 
day turns up that makes amends for 
many sighs and many subjects of com- 
plaint. Such a day shall I account the 
day of your arrival at Olney. 

Wherefore is it (canst thou tell me ?) 
that, together with all those delightful 
sensations to which the sight of a long 
absent dear friend gives birth, there is a 
mixture of something painful, flutter- 
ings, and tumults, and I know not what 
accompaniments of our pleasure, that 
are, in fact, perfectly foreign from the 
occasion ? Such I feel, when I think of 
our meeting, and such, 1 suppose, feel 
you ; and the nearer the crisis ap- 
proaches, the more I am sensible of 
them. I know, beforehand, that they 
will increase with every turn of the 
wheels that shall convey me to New- 
port, when I shall set out to meet you ; 
and that when we actually meet, the plea- 
sure, and this unaccountable pain toge- 
ther, will be as much as I shall be able 
to support. I am utterly at a loss for 
the cause ; and can only resolve it into 
that appointment, by which it has been 
fore-ordained that all human delights 
shall be qualified and mingled with their 
contraries. For there is nothing formi- 
dable in you. To me, at least, there is 
nothing such ; no, not even in your me- 
naces, unless when you threaten me to 
write no more. Nay, I verily believe, 
did I not know you to be what you 
are, and had less affection for you than 
I have, I should have fewer of these 
emotions, of which T would have none, 



if 1 could help it. But a fig for them 
all ! Let us resolve to combat with, and 
to conquer them. They are dreams. 
They are illusions of the judgment. 
Some enemy, that hates the happiness of 
human kind, and is ever industrious to 
dash it, works them in us ; and their 
being so perfectly unreasonable as they 
are, is a proof of it. Nothing, that is 
such, can be the work of a good agent. 
This I know too, by experience, that, 
like all other illusions, they exist only 
by force of imagination, are indebted for 
their prevalence to the absence of their 
object, and, in a few moments after its 
appearance cease. So, then, this is a set- 
tled point, and the case stands thus ; You 
will tremble as you draw near to New- 
port, and so shall I. But we will both 
recollect, that there is no reason why 
we should ; and this recollection will, at 
least, have some little effect in our favour. 
We will likewise both take the comfort 
of what we know to be true, that the> 
tumult will soon cease, and the pleasure 
long survive the pain, even as long, I 
trust, as we ourselves shall survive it. 

What you say of Maty gives me all 
the consolation that you intended. We 
both think it highly probable that you 
suggest the true cause of his displeasure, 
when you suppose him mortified at not 
having had a part of the translation laid 
before him, ere the specimen was pub- 
lished. The General was very much hurt, 
and calls his censures harsh and unrea- 
sonable. He likewise sent me a conso- 
latory letter on the occasion, in which he 
took the kindest pains to heal the wound 
that (he supposed) I might have suffer- 
ed. I am not naturally insensible ; and 
the sensibilities that I had by nature 
have been wonderfully enhanced by a 
long series of shocks, given to a frame 
of nerves that was never very athletic. 
I feel accordingly, whether painful or 
pleasant, in the extreme ; am easily ele- 
vated, and easily cast down. The frown 
of a critic freezes my poetical powers, 
and discourages me to a degree that 
makes me ashamed of my own weakness. 
Yet I presently recover my confidence 
again. The half of what you so kindly 
say in your last, would at any time re- 
store my spirits ; and, being said by you, 
is infallible. I am not ashamed to con- 
fess, that, having commenced an author, 
I am most abundantly desirous to suc- 
ceed as such. I have (vjliat perhaps you 



Sect. IIL 



RECENT. 



593 



little suspect yiie of) in 7ny nature an infi- 
nite share of ambition. But with it I 
have at the same time, as you well know, 
an equal share of diffidence. To this 
combination of opposite qualities it has 
been owing, that, till lately, I stole 
through life without undertaking any 
thing, yet always wishing to distinguish 
myself. At last I ventured — ventured 
too in the only path, that, at so late a 
period, was yet open to me ; and am de- 
termined, if God have not determined 
otherwise, to work my way, through the 
obscurity that has been so long my por- 
tion, into notice. Every thing, therefore, 
that seems to threaten this my favourite 
purpose with disappointment, affects me 
nearly. I suppose that all ambitious 
minds are in the same predicament. He, 
who seeks distinction, must be sensible 
of disapprobation, exactly in the same 
proportion as he desires applause. And 
now, my precious cousin, I have unfolded 
my heart to you in this particular, with- 
out a speck of dissimulation. Some peo- 
ple, and good people too, would blame 
me. But you will not ; and they (I think) 
would blame without just cause. We 
certainly do not honour God when we 
bury, or when we neglect to improve, as 
far as we may, whatever talent he may 
have bestowed on us, whether it be little 
or much. In natural things, as well as 
in spiritual, it is a never-failing truth, 
that to him, who hath (that is, to him 
who occupies what he hath diligently, 
and so as to increase it), more shall be 
given. Set me down, therefore, my dear, 
for an industrious rhymer, so long as I 
shall have the ability. For in this only 
way is it possible for me, so far as I can 
see, either to honour God or to serve 
man, or even to serve myself. 

I rejoice to hear that Mr. Throckmor- 
ton wishes to be on a more intimate foot- 
ing. I am shy, and suspect that he is not 
very much otherwise ; and the conse- 
quence has been, that we have mutually 
wished an acquaintance without being- 
able to accomplish it. Blessings on you 
for the hint that you dropped on the 
subject of the house at Weston ! For the 
burthen of my song is, " Since we have 
met once again, let us never be separated, 
as we have been, more." 



LETTER CCXIII. 

To the same. 

Olney, May 25, ]78rr. 

I HAVE at length, my cousin, found my 
way into my summer abode. I believe 
that I described it to you some time since, 
and will therefore now leave it unde- 
scribed. I will only say, that I am writ- 
ing in a band-box, situated, at least in my 
account, delightfully, because it has a 
window in one side, that opens into that 
orchard through which, as I am sitting 
here, I shall see you often pass, and which 
therefore I already prefer to all the or- 
chards in the world. You do well to pre- 
pare me for all possible delays, because 
in this life all sorts of disappointments 
are possible ; and I shall do well, if any 
such delay of your journey should hap- 
pen, to practise that lesson of patience, 
which you inculcate. But it is a lesson, 
which, even with you for my teacher, I 
shall be slow to learn. Being sure, 
however, that you will not procrastinate 
without cause, I will make myself as easy 
as I can about it, and hope the best. To 
convince you how much I am under dis- 
cipline and good advice, I will lay aside 
a favourite measure, influenced in doing 
so by nothing but the good sense of your 
contrary opinion. I had set my heart on 
meeting you at Newport. In my haste 
to see you once again, I was willing to 
overlook many awkwardnesses I could 
not but foresee would attend it. I put 
them aside so long as I only foresaw them 
myself ; but since I find that you foresee 
them too, I can no longer deal so slightly 
with them. It is therefore determined, 
that we meet at Olney. Much 1 shall 
feel, but I will not die if I can help it ; 
and I beg that you will take all possible 
care to outlive it likewise ; for I know 
what it is to be balked in the moment of 
acquisition, and should be loth to know 
it again. 

Last Monday in the evening we walk- 
ed to Weston, according to our usual 
custom. It happened, owing to a mis- 
take of time, that we set out half an hour 
sooner than usual. This mistake we dis- 
covered while we were in the wilderness. 
So, finding that we had time before us, 
as they say, Mrs. Unwin proposed, that 
we should go into the village, and take 
a view of the house that 1 had just men- 
tioned to vou. We did so, and found it 
2Q 



594 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



BoaK IV. 



such a one as in most respects would suit 
you well. But Moses Brown, our vicar, 
who, as I told you, is in his eighty-sixth 
year, is not bound to die for that reason. 
He said himself, when he was here last 
summer, that he should live ten years 
long-er, and for aught that appears so he 
may. In which case, for the sake of its 
near neighbourhood to us, the vicarage 
has charms for me that no other place 
can rival. But this, and a thousand 
things more, shall be talked over when 
you come. 

We have been industriously cultivating 
our acquaintance with our Weston neigh- 
bours since I wrote last, and they on 
their part have been equally diligent in 
the same cause. I have a notion, that 
we shall all suit well. I see much in 
them both that I admire. You know 
perhaps that they are Catholics. 

It is a delightful bundle of praise, my 
cousin, that you have sent me. All jas- 
mine and lavender. Whoever the lady 
is, she has evidently an admirable pen, 
and a cultivated mind. If a person reads, 
it is no matter in what language ; and if 
the mind be informed, it is no matter 
whether that mind belongs to a man or 
a woman. The taste and the judgment 
will receive the benefit alike in both. 
Long before the Task was published, I 
made an experiment one day, being in a 
frolicksome mood, upon my friend. We 
were walking in the garden, and con- 
versing on a subject similar to these 
lines — 

The few, that pray at all, pray oft amiss; 
And seeking grace t' improve the present good. 
Would urge a wiser suit than asking more. 

1 repeated them, and said to him with an 
air of nonchalance^ " Do you recollect 
those lines? I have seen them some- 
where : where are they ?" He put on a 
considering face, and after some deliber- 
ation replied, " Oh, I will tell you where 
they must be — in the Night Thoughts." 
I was glad my trial turned out so well, 
and did not undeceive him. I mention 
this occurrence only in confirmation of 
the letter-writer's opinion ; but at the 
same time I do assure you, on the faith 
of an honest man, that I never in my life 
designed an imitation of Young, or of 
any other writer ; for mimicry is my ab- 
horrence, at least in poetry. 

Assure yourself, my dearest cousin, 
that both for your sake, since you make 



a point of it, and for my own, I will be 
as philosophically careful as possible, 
that these fine nerves of mine shall not 
be beyond measure agitated when you 
arrive. In truth, there is much greater 
probability that they will be benefited, 
and greatly too. Joy of heart, from 
whatever occasion it may arise, is the 
best of all nervous medicines ; and I 
should not wonder if such a turn given 
to my spirits should have even a lasting 
effect, of the most advantageous kind, 
upon them. You must not imagine nei- 
ther, that I am on the whole in any great 
degree subject to nervous affections ; oc- 
casionally I am, and have been these 
many years, much liable to dejection. 
But at intervals, and sometimes for an 
interval of weeks, no creature would sus- 
pect it. For I have not that which com- 
monly is a symptom of such a case be- 
longing to me : I mean, extraordinary 
elevation in the absence of Mr. Blue- 
devil. When I am in the best health, 
my tide of animal sprightliness flows 
with great equality ; so that I am never, 
at any time, exalted in proportion as I 
am sometimes depressed. My depression 
has a cause ; and if that cause were to 
cease, I should be as cheerful thence- 
forth, and perhaps for ever, as any man 
need be. But, as I have often said, 
Mrs. Unwin shall be my expositor. 

Adieu, my beloved cousin. God grant 
that our friendship, which while we 
could see each other never suffered a 
moment's interruption, and which so 
long a separation has not in the least 
abated, may glow in us to our last hour, 
and be renewed in a better world, there 
to be perpetuated for ever ! For you 
must know, that I should not love you 
half so well, if I did not believe you 
would be my friend to eternity. There 
is not room enough for friendship to un- 
fold itself in full bloom, in such a nook 
of life as this. Therefore I am, and 
must, and will be, yours for ever. 



LETTER CCXIV. 

To Lady Hesketh. 

Olney, May 29, 1786. 

Thou dear, comfortable cousin, whose 
letters, among all that I receive, have 
this property peculiarly their own, that I 
expect them v/itiiout trembling, and ne- 



Sect. III. 



RECENT. 



195 



ver find any thing in tliem tliat does not 
give me pleasure ! for which, there- 
fore, 1 would take nothing in exchange 
that the world could give me, save and 
except that for which I must exchange 
them soon (and happy shall I be to do 
so), your own company. That, indeed, 
is delayed a little too long ; to my im- 
patience, at least, it seems so, who find 
the spring, backward as it is, too for- 
ward, because many of its beauties will 
have faded before you will have an op- 
portunity to see them. We took our 
customary walk yesterday in the wilder- 
ness at Weston, and saw, with regret, 
the laburnums, syringas, and guelder- 
roses, some of them blown, and others 
just upon the point of blowing, and 
could not help observing — All these will 
be gone before lady Hesketh comes. 
Still, however, there will be roses, and 
jasmine, and honeysuckle, and shady 
walks, and cool alcoves, and you will 
partake them with us. But I want you 
to have a share of every thing that is 
delightful here, and cannot bear that 
the advance of the season should steal 
away a single pleasure before you can 
come to enjoy it. 

Every day I think of you, and almost 
all day long ; I will venture to say, that 
even you were never so expected in your 
life. I called last week at the Quaker's 
to see the furniture of your bed, the 
fame of which had reached me. It is, I 
assure you, superb ; of printed cotton, 
and the subject classical. Every morn- 
ing you will open your eyes on Phaeton 
kneeling to Apollo, and imploring his 
father to grant him the conduct of his 
chariot for a day. May your sleep be 
as sound as your bed will be sumptuous, 
and your nights, at least, will be well 
provided for. 

I shall send up the sixth and seventh 
books of the Iliad shortly,"; and shall ad- 
dress them to you. You will forward 
them to the General. I long to shew 
you my workshop, and to see you sitting 
on the opposite side of my table. We 
shall be as close packed as two wax 
figures in an old-fashioned picture frame. 
I am writing in it now. It is the place 
in which I fabricate all my verse in 
summer time. I rose an hour sooner 
than usual this morning, that I might 
finish my sheet before breakfast, for I 
must write this day to the General. 

The grass under my windows is all 



bespangled with dew-drops, and the birds 
are singing in the apple trees among 
the blossoms. Never poet had a more 
commodious oratory in which to invoke 
his Muse. 

I have made your heart ache too often, 
my poor dear cousin, with talking about 
my fits of dejection. Something has 
happened that has led me to the subject, 
or I would have mentioned them more 
sparingly. Do not suppose, or suspect, 
that I treat you with reserve ; there 
is nothing, in which I am concerned, 
that you shall not be made acquainted 
with. But the tale is too long for a 
letter. I will only add, for your present 
satisfaction, that the cause is not ex- 
terior, that it is not within the reach of 
human aid, and that yet I have a hope 
myself, and Mrs. Unwin a strong per- 
suasion, of its removal. I am indeed 
even now, and have been for a consider- 
able time, sensible of a change for the 
better, and expect, with good reason, a 
comfortable lift from you. Guess then, 
my beloved cousin, with what wishes I 
look forward to the time of your arrival, 
from whose coming I promise myself 
not only pleasure, but peace of mind, at 
least an additional share of it. At pre- 
sent it is an uncertain and transient 
guest with me ; but the joy with which 
I shall see and converse with you at 
Olney, may, perhaps, make it an abiding 



LETTER, CCXV. 

To the Rev. William Univin. 

My dear William, 
How apt we are to deceive ourselves 
where self is in question ! You say I am 
in your debt, and I accounted you in 
mine : a mistake to which you must at- 
tribute my arrears, if indeed I owe you 
any ; for I am not backward to write 
where the uppermost thought is wel- 
come. 

I am obliged to you for all the books 
you have occasionally furnished me with : 
I did not indeed read many of Johnson's 
Classics : those of established reputation 
are so fresh in my memory, though 
many years have intervened since I made 
them my companions, that it was like 
reading what I read yesterday over again ; 
and as to the minor Classics, I did not 
2Q 2 



596 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



think them worth reading at all. I 
tasted most of them, and did not like 
them. It is a great thing to be indeed a 
poet, and does hot happen to more than 
one man in a century. Churchill, the 
great Churchill, deserved the name of 
poet. I have read him twice, and some 
of his pieces three times over ; and the 
last time with more pleasure than the 
first. The pitiful scribbler of his life 
seems to have undertaken that task, for 
which he was entirely unqualified, merely 
because it aJ0Forded him an opportunity 
to traduce him. He has inserted in it 
but one anecdote of consequence, for 
which he refers you to a novel, and in- 
troduces the story with doubts about 
the truth of it. But his barrenness as 
a biographer I could forgive, if the sim- 
pleton had not thought himself a judge 
of his writings, and under the erroneous 
influence of that thought, informs his 
reader that "Gotham," " Independence," 
and " The Times," were catchpennies. 
Gotham, unless I am a greater blockhead 
than he, which I am far from believing, is 
a noble and beautiful poem, and a poem 
with which I make no doubt the author 
took as much pains as with any he ever 
wrote. Making allowance (and Dryden 
perhaps, in his " Absalom and Achito- 
phel," stands in need of the same indul- 
gence) for an unwarrantable use of 
Scripture, it appears to me to be a mas- 
/ terly performance. Independence is a 
most animated piece, full of strength 
and spirit, and marked with that bold 
masculine character, which I think is the 
great peculiarity of this writer. And 
The Times (except that the subject is 
disgusting to the last degree) stands 
equally high in my opinion. He is in- 
deed a careless writer for the most part ; 
but where shall we find, in any of those 
authors, who finish their works with the 
exactness of a Flemish pencil, those bold 
and daring strokes of fancy, those num- 
bers so hazardously ventured upon and 
so happily finished, the matter so com- 
pressed and yet so clear, and the co- 
louring so sparingly laid on and yet 
with such a beautiful effect ! In short, 
it is not his least praise, that he is never 
guilty of those faults as a writer, which 
he lays to the charge of others : a proof 
that he did not judge by a borrowed 
standard, or from rules laid down by 
critics, but that he was qualified to do 
it by his own native powers, and his 



great superiority of genius. For he that 
wrote so much, and so fast, would, 
through inadvertence and hurry, una- 
voidably have departed from rules, which 
he might have found in books ; but his 
own truly poetical talent was a guide 
which could not suffer him to err. A 
race-horse is graceful in his swiftest 
pace, and never makes an awkward mo- 
tion, though he is pushed to his utmost 
speed. A cart-horse might perhaps be 
taught to play tricks in the riding-school, 
and might prance and curvet like his 
betters ; but at some unlucky time would 
be sure to betray the baseness of his ori- 
ginal. It is an affair of very little con- 
sequence perhaps to the well-being of 
mankind, but I cannot help regretting 
that he died so soon. Those words of 
Virgil, upon the immature death of Mar- 
cellus, might serve for his epitaph : — 

Ostendent terris hnnc tantum fata, neqne ultra 
Esse sinent . 

Yours. 



LETTER CCXVI. 

To the Rev. William Unwin, 

My dear friend, 
I FIND the Register in all respects an 
entertaining medley ; but especially in 
this, that it has brought to my view 
some long-forgotten pieces of my own 
production. I mean, by the way, two or 
three. Those I have marked with my 
own initials ; and you may be sure I 
found them peculiarly agreeable, as they 
had not only the grace of being mine, 
but that of novelty likewise to recom- 
mend them. It is at least twenty years 
since I saw them. You, I think, was 
never a dabbler in rhyme. I have been 
one ever since I was fourteen years of 
age, when I began with translating an 
elegy of Tibullus. I have no more right 
to the name of a poet, than a maker of 
mouse-traps has to that of an engineer ; 
but my little exploits in this way have 
at times amused me so much, that I 
have often wished myself a good one. 
Such a talent in verse as mine is, like a 
child's rattle, very entertaining to the 
trifler that uses it, and very disagree- 
able to all beside. But it has served to 
rid me of some melancholy moments, 



Sect. III. 



RECENT. 



597 



for I only take it up as a gentleman per- 
former does his fiddle. I have this pe- 
culiarity belonging to me as a rhymist, 
that though I am charmed to a great 
degree with my own work while it is on 
the anvil, I can seldom bear to look at 
it when it is once finished. The more I 
contemplate it, the more it loses its 
value, till I am at last disgusted with 
it. 1 then throw it by, take it up again 
perhaps ten years after, and am as much 
delighted with it as at the first. 

Few people have the art of being 
agreeable when they talk of themselves ; 
if you are not weary, therefore, you pay 
me a high compliment. 

I dare say miss S — — was much di- 
verted with the conjecture of her friends. 
The true key to the pleasure she found 
at Olney was plain enough to be seen ; 
but they chose to overlook it. She 
brought with her a disposition to be 
pleased ; which whoever doec is sure to 
find a visit agreeable, because they make 
it so. Yours. 



LETTER tiCXVIl. 

To Lady Hesketh. 

Weston Lodge, Nov. 26, 1786. 
It is my birthday, my beloved cousin, 
and I determine to employ a part of it, 
that it may not be destitute of festivity, 
in writing to you. The dark, thick 
fog, that has obscured it, would have 
been a burthen to me at Olney ; but 
here 1 have hardly attended to it. The 
neatness and snugness of our abode com- 
pensates all the dreariness of the sea- 
son ; and whether the ways are wet or 
dry, our house at least is always warm 
and commodious. Oh for you, my 
cousin, to partake these comforts with 
us ! I will not begin already to tease 
you upon that subject ; but Mrs. Unwin 
remembers to have heard from your 
own lips, that you hate London in the 
spring. Perhaps, therefore, by that 
time you may be glad to escape from a 
scene, which will be every day growing 
more disagreeable, that you may enjoy 
the comforts of the Lodge. You well 
know that the best house has a desolate 
appearance unfurnished. This house 
accordingly, since it has been occupied 
by us and our meuhles, is as much su- 
perior to what it was when you saw it, 



as yoti can imagine. The parlour is 
even elegant. When I say that the par- 
lour is elegant, I do not mean to insinu- 
ate that the study is not so. It is neat, 
warm, and silent ; and a much better 
study than I deserve, if I do not produce 
in it an incomparable translation of 
Homer. I think every day of those 
lines of Milton, and congratulate myself 
on having obtained, before I am quite 
superannuated, what he seems not to 
have hoped for sooner : — 

"And may at length my weary age 
Find out the peaceful hermitage!" . 

For if it is not a hermitage, at least it is 
a much better thing ; and you must al- 
ways understand, my dear, that when 
poets talk of cottages, hermitages, and 
such -like things, they mean a house 
v/ith six sashes in front, two comforta- 
ble parlours, a smart staircase, and 
three bed-chambers of convenient di- 
mensions : in short, exactly such a house 
as this. 

The Throckmortons continue the most 
obliging neighbours in the world. One 
morning last week, they both went with 
me to the cliffs — a scene, my dear, in 
which you would delight beyond mea- 
sure, but which you cannot visit except 
in the spring or autumn. The heat of 
summer, and clinging dirt of winter, 
would destroy you. What is called the 
cliff is no cliff J nor at all like ono, but 
a beautiful terrace, sloping gently down 
to the Ouse, and from the brow of which, 
though not lofty, you have a view of 
such a valley as makes that which you 
see from the hills near Olney, and which 
I have had the honour to celebrate, an 
affair of no consideration. 

Wintry as the weather is, do not sus- 
pect that it confines me. I ramble 
daily, and every day change my ramble. 
Wherever I go, I find short grass under 
my feet ; and when I have travelled per- 
haps five miles, come home with shores 
not at all too dirty for a drawing-room. 
I was pacing yesterday under the elms 
that surround the field in which stands 
the great alcove, when lifting my eyes 
I saw two black genteel figures bolt 
through a hedge into the path where I 
was walking. You guess already who 
they were, and that they could be no- 
body but our neighbours. They had 
seen me from a hill at a distance, and 
had traversed a great turnip field to get 



598 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



at me. You see, therefore, my dear, 
that I am in some request: — alas! in 
too much request with some people. 
The verses of Cadwallader have found 
me at last. 

I am charmed with your account of 
our little cousin'^" at Kensington. If the 
world does not spoil him hereafter, he 
will be a valuable man. Good night, 
and may God bless thee ! 



LETTER CCXVIII. 

To Lady Hesketh. 

The Lodge, Dec. 4, 1786. 
I SENT you, my dear, a melancholy 
letter, and I do not know that I shall 
now send you one very unlike it. Not 
that any thing occurs in consequence of 
our late loss more afflictive than was to 
be expected ; but the mind does not 
perfectly recover its tone after a shock 
like that which has been felt so lately. 
This I observe, that though my expe- 
rience has long since taught me, that 
this world is a world of shadows, and 
that it is the more prudent, as v/ell as 
the more Christian course, to possess 
the comforts that we find in it, as if we 
possessed them not; it is no easy matter 
to reduce this doctrine into practice. 
We forget, that that God who gave them 
may, v.hen he pleases, take them away ; 
and that perhaps it may please him to 
take them at a time when we least ex- 
pect, or are least disposed to part from 
them. Thus it has happened in the 
present case. There never Avas a mo- 
ment in Unwin's life when there seemed 
to be more urgent want of him than the 
moment in which he died. He had at- 
tained to an age Avhen, if they are at 
any time useful, men become more use- 
ful to their families, their friends, and 
the world. His parish began to feel 
and to be sensible of the advantages of 
his ministry. The clergy around him 
were many of them awed by his exam- 
ple. His children were thriving under 
his own tuition and management ; and 
his eldest boy is likely to feel his loss 
severely, being by his years in some 
respect qualified to understand the va- 
. lue of such a parent ; by his literary 
proficiency too clever for a schoolboy, 

* Lord Cowper. 



and too young at the same time for the 
university. The removal of a man in 
the prime of life, of such a character 
and with such connections, seems to 
make a void in society that can never 
be filled. God seemed to have made 
him just what he was, that he might be 
a blessing to others, and when the in- 
fluence of his character and abilities be- 
gan to be felt, removed him. These 
are mysteries, my dear, that w^e cannot 
contemplate without astonishment, but 
which will nevertheless be explained 
hereafter, and must in the mean time 
be revered in silence. It is v/ell for his 
mother that she has spent her life in the 
practice of an habitual acquiescence in 
the dispensations of Providence ; else I 
know that this stroke would have been 
heavier, after all that she has suffered 
upon another account, than she could 
have borne. She derives, as she well 
may, great consolation from the thought 
that he lived the life, and died the death, 
of a Christian. The consequence is, if 
possible, more unavoidable than the most 
mathematical conclusion, that therefore 
he is happy. So farewell, my friend 
Unwin ! the first man for whom I con- 
ceived a friendship after my removal 
from St. Alban's, and for whom I can- 
not but still continue to feel a friend- 
ship, though I shall see thee with these 
eyes no more ! 



LETTER CCXIX. 

To Samuel Rose, Esq. 

Weston, Oct. 19, 1787. 

Dear sir, 
A SUMMONS from Johnson, which I re- 
ceived yesterday, calls my attention once 
more to the business of translation. Be- 
fore I begin I am willing to catch though 
but a short opportunity to acknowledge 
your last favour. The necessity of ap- 
plying myself with all diligence to a long 
work, that has been but too long inter- 
rupted, will make my opportunities of 
writing rare in future. 

Air and exercise are necessary to aU 
men, but particularly so to the man, 
whose mind labours ; and to him, who 
has been all his life accustomed to much 
of both, they are necessary in the ex- 
treme. My time, since we parted, has 
been devoted entirelv to the recovery 



Sect. III. 



RECENT. 



599 



of health and strength for this service, 
and I am willing to hope with good 
effect. Ten months have passed since 
I discontinued by poetical efforts ; 1 do 
not expect to find the same readiness as 
before, till exercise of the neglected 
faculty, such as it is, shall have restored 
it to me. 

You find yourself, I hope, by this 
time as comfortably situated in your new 
abode, as in a new abode one can be. 
I enter perfectly into all your feelings 
on occasion of the change. A sensible 
mind cannot do violence even to a local 
attachment without much pain. When 
my father died I was young, too young 
to have reflected much. He was rector 
of Berkhamstead, and there I was born. 
It had never occurred to me that a 
parson has no fee-simple in the house 
and glebe he occupies. There was nei- 
ther tree, nor gate, nor stile, in all that 
country, to which I did not feel a rela- 
tion ; and the house itself I preferred to 
a palace. I was sent for from London 
to attend him in his last illness, and he 
died just before I arrived. Then, and 
not till then, I felt for the first time that 
I and my native place were disunited 
for ever. I sighed a long adieu to fields 
and woods, from which I once thought 
I should never be parted ; and was at 
no time so sensible of their beauties as 
just when I left them all behind me, to 
return no more. 



LETTER CCXX. 



age ; but time, I suppose, that spoils 
every thing, -will make her also a cat. 
You will see her, 1 hope, before that 
melancholy period shall arrive ; for no 
wisdom that she may gain by experience 
and reflection hereafter will compensate 
the loss of her present hilarity. She is 
dressed in a tortoise-shell suit, and I 
know that you will delight in her. 

Mrs. Throckmorton carries us to- 
morrow in her chaise to Chicheley. The 
event however must be supposed to de- 
pend on elements, at least on the state 
of the atmosphere, which is turbulent 
beyond measure. Yesterday it thun- 
dered, last night it lightened, and at 
three this morning I saw the sky as red 
as a city in flames could have made it. 
I have a leech in a bottle that foretels 
all these prodigies and convulsions of 
nature. No, not, as you will naturally 
conjecture, by articulate utterance of 
oracular notices, but by a variety of ges- 
ticulations, which here I have not room 
to give an account of. Sufl&ce it to say, 
that no change of weather surprises him ; 
and that, in point of the earliest and 
most accurate intelligence, he is worth 
all the barometers in the world. None 
of them all indeed can make the least 
pretence to foretel thunder — a spe- 
cies of capacity of which he has given 
the most unequivocal evidence. I gave 
but sixpence for him, which is a groat 
more than the market price ; though he 
is in fact, or rather would be, if leeches 
were not found in every ditch, an inva- 
luable acquisition. 



To Lady Hesketh. 

The Lodge, Nov. 10, 1737. 
The parliament, my dearest cousin, 
prorogued continually, is a meteor danc- 
ing before my eyes, promising me my 
wish only to disappoint me ; and none 
but the king and his ministers can tell 
when you and I shall come together. I 
hope however that the period, though so 
often postponed, is not far distant ; and 
that once more I shall behold you, and 
experience your power to make winter 
gay and sprightly. 

I have a kitten, the drollest of all 
creatures that ever wore a cat's skin. 
Her gambols are not to be described, 
and would be incredible if they could. 
In point of size she is likely to be a kitten 
always, being extremely small of her 



LETTER CCXXI. 

To the sarne. 

The Lodge, Nov. 27, 1787. 
It is the part of wisdom, my dearest 
cousin, to sit down contented under the 
demands of necessity, because they are 
such. I am sensible that you cannot, 
in my uncle's present infirm state, and 
of which it is not possible to expect any 
considerable amendment, indulge either 
us, or yourself, with a journey to Wes- 
ton. Yourself, I say, both because I 
know it will give you pleasure to see 
Causidice mi* once more, especially in 

* The appellation which Sir Thomas Hesketh 
used to give him in jest when he was of the 
Temple. 



600 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



the comfortable abode where you have 
placed him ; and because, after so long an 
imprisonment in London, you, who love 
the country, and have a taste for it, 
would of course be glad to return to it. 
For my own part, to me it is ever new ; 
and though I have now been an inhabi- 
tant of this village a twelvemonth, and 
have during the half of that time been 
at liberty to expatiate and to make dis- 
coveries, I am daily finding out fresh 
scenes and walks, which you would ne- 
ver be satisfied with enjoying — some of 
them are unapproachable by you either 
on foot or in your carriage. Had you 
twenty toes (whereas I suppose you have 
but ten) you could not reach them ; and 
coach-wheels have never been seen there 
since the flood. Before it indeed (as 
Burnet says that the earth was then 
perfectly free from all inequalities in its 
surface), they might have been seen there 
every day. We have other walks both 
upon hill tops, and in valleys beneath, 
some of which by the help of your car- 
riage, and many of them without its 
help, would be always at your com- 
mand. 

On Monday morning last, Sam brought 
me word that there was a man in the 
kitchen who desired to speak with me. 
I ordered him in. A plain, decent, 
elderly figure made its appearance, and, 
being desired to sit, spoke as follows : 
" Sir, I am clerk of the parish of All- 
Saints in Northampton ; brother of Mr. 
C. the upholsterer. It is customary for 
the person in my office to annex to a 
bill of mortality, which he publishes at 
Christmas, a copy of verses. You will 
do me a great favour, sir, if you would 
furnish me with one." To this I re- 
plied, " Mr. C, you have several men of 
genius in your town, why have you not 
applied to some of them ? There is a 

namesake of yours in particular, C , 

the statuary, who, every body knows, is 
a first-rate maker of verses. He surely 
is the man of all the world for your pur- 
pose." — " Alas ! sir, I have heretofore 
borrowed help from him, but he is a 
gentleman of so much reading, that the 
people of our town cannot understand 
him." I confess to you, my dear, I felt 
all the force of the compliment implied 
in this speech, and was almost ready to 
answer. Perhaps, my good friend, they 
may find me unintelligible too for the 
game reason. But on asking him whe- 



ther he had walked over to Weston on 
purpose to implore the assistance of my 
Muse, and on his replying in the afiir- 
mative, I felt my mortified vanity a little 
consoled, and pitying the poor man's 
distress, which appeared to be considera- 
ble, promised to supply him. The wag- 
gon has accordingly gone this day to 
Northampton loaded in part with my 
effusions in the mortuary style. A fig 
for poets who write epitaphs upon indi- 
viduals. I have written one, that serves 
two hundred persons. 

A few days since 1 received a second 

very obliging letter from Mr. M . 

He tells me that his own papers, which 
are by far, he is sorry to say, the most 
numerous, are marked V. I. Z. Accord- 
ingly, my dear, I am happy to find that 
I am engaged in a correspondence with 
Mr. Viz, a gentleman for whom I have 
always entertained the profOundest vene- 
ration. But the serious fact is, that 
the papers distinguished by those signa- 
tures have ever pleased me most, and 
struck me as the work of a sensible 
man, who knows the world well, and 
has more of Addison's delicate humour 
than any body. 

A poor man begged food at the hall 
lately. The cook gave him some vermi- 
celli soup. He ladled it about some 
time with the spoon, and then returned 
it to her, saying, " I am a poor man, it is 
true, and I am very hungry, but yet I 
cannot eat broth with maggots in it." 
Once more, my dear, a thousand thanks 
for your box full of good things, useful 
things, and beautiful things. 

Yours ever. 



LETTER CCXXII. 

To Lady Hesketh. 

The Lodge, Jan. 19, 1788. 
When I have prose enough to fill my 
paper, which is always the case when 
I write to you, I cannot find in my heart 
to give a third part of it to verse . Yet this 
I must do, or I must make my packets 
more costly than worshipful, by doubling 
the postage upon you, which 1 should 
hold to be unreasonable. See then the 
true reason why I did not send you that 
same scribblement till you desired it. 
The thought which naturally presents 
itself to me on all such occasions is this 



Sect. III. 



RECENT. 



601 



—Is not your cousin coming? Wliy are 
you impatient? Will it not be time 
enough to shew her your fine things 
when she arrives ? 

Fine things indeed I have few. He 
who has Homer to transcribe may well 
be contented to do little else. As when 
an ass, being harnessed with ropes to a 
sand-cart, drags with hanging ears his 
heavy burthen, neither filling the long 
echoing streets with his harmonious 
bray, nor throwing up his heels behind, 
frolicsome and airy, as asses less enga- 
ged are wont to do ; so I, satisfied to find 
myself indispensably obliged to render 
into the best possible English metre 
eight and forty Greek books, of which 
the two finest poems in the world con- 
sist, account it quite sufficient if I may 
at last achieve that labour, and seldom 
allow myself those pretty little vagaries 
in which 1 should otherwise delight, and 
of which, if I should live long enough, I 
intend hereafter to enjoy my fill. 

This is the reason, my dear cousin, 
if I may be permitted to call you so in 
the same breath with which I have ut- 
tered this truly heroic comparison ; this 
is the reason why I produce at present 
but few occasional poems ; and the pre- 
ceding reason is that, which may account 
satisfactorily enough for my withhold- 
ing the very few that I do produce. A 
thought sometimes strikes me before I 
rise ; if it runs readily into verse, and I 
can finish it before breakfast, it is well ; 
otherwise it dies, and is forgotten ; for 
all the subsequent hours are devoted to 
Homer. 

The day before yesterday, I saw for 
the first time Buubury's new print. The 
Propagation of a Lie. Mr. Throckmor- 
ton sent it for the amusement of our 
party. Bunbury sells humour by the 
yard, and is I suppose the first vender 
of it who ever did so. He cannot there- 
fore be said to have humour without 
measure (pardon a pun, my dear, from 
a man who has not made one before 
these forty years), though he may cer- 
tainly be said to be immeasurably 
droll. 

The original thought is good, and the 
exemplification of it in those very ex- 
pressive figures, admirable. A poem on 
the same subject, displaying all that is 
displayed in those attitudes, and in those 
features (for faces they can hardly be 
called), M'ould be most excellent. The 



aflinity of the two arts, viz. verse and 
painting, has been often observed ; pos- 
sibly the happiest illustration of it 
would be found, if some poet would 
ally himself to some draftsman, as Bun- 
bury, and undertake to write every 
thing he should draw. Then let a 
musician be admitted of the party. He 
should compose the said poem, adapting 
notes to it exactly accommodated to the 
theme ; so should the sister arts be 
proved to be indeed s'sters, and the 
world die of laughing. 



LETTER CCXXIII. 

To the same. 

The Lodge, Feb. 1, 1788. 
Pardon me, my dearest cousin, the 
mournful ditty that I sent you last. 
There are times when I see every thing 
through a medium that distresses me 
to an insupportable degree ; and that 
letter was written in one of them. A 
fog that had for three days obliterated 
all the beauties of Weston, and a north- 
east wind, might possibly contribute not 
a little to the melancholy that indited 
it. But my mind is now easy ; your 
letter has made it so, and 1 feel myself as 
blithe as a bird in comparison. I love 
you, my cousin, and cannot suspect, 
either with or without cause, the least 
evil in which you may be concerned, 
without being greatly troubled ! Oh 
Trouble ! the portion of all mortals — 
but mine in particular — ;WOuld I had 
never known thee^ or Could bid thee 
farewell for ever ; for I meet thee at 
every turn : my pillows are stuffed with 
thee, my very roses smell of thee ; and 
even my cousin, who would cure me of 
all trouble if she could, is sometimes 
innocently the cause of trouble to me. 

I now see the unreasonableness of my 
late trouble ; and would, if I could trust 
myself so far, promise never again to 
trouble either myself or you in the same 
manner, unless warranted by some more 
substantial ground of apprehension. 

What I said concerning Homer, my 
dear, was spoken, or rather written, 
merely under the influence of a certain 
jocularity that I felt at that moment. I 
am in reality so far from thinking my- 
self an ass, and my translation a sand- 



602 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



cart, that I rather seem, in my own ac- 
count of the matter, one of those flam- 
ing" steeds harnessed to the chariot of 
Apollo, of which we read in the works 
of the ancients. I have lately, I know 
not how, acquired a certain superiority 
to myself in this business ; and in this 
last revisal have elevated the expression 
to a degree far surpassing its former 
boast. A few evenings since I had an 
opportunity to try how far 1 might ven- 
ture to expect such success of my la- 
bours as can alone repay them, by read- 
ing the first book of my Iliad to a friend 
of ours. He dined with you once at 
Olney. His name is Greatheed, a man 
of letters and of taste. He dined with 



us, and the evening proving dark and 
dirty, we persuaded him to take a bed. 
I entertained him as I tell you. He 
heard me with great attention, and with 
evident symptoms of the highest satis- 
faction, which, v/hen I had finished the 
exhibition, he put out of all doubt by 
expressions which I cannot repeat. Only 
this he said to Mrs. Unwin, while I was 
in another room, that he had never en- 
tered into the spirit of Homer before, 
nor had any thing like a due conception 
of his manner. This I have said, know- 
ing that it will please you, and will now 
say no more. 

Adieu ! my dear ; will you never speak 
of coming to Weston more ? 



BOOK THE FOURTH. 



RECENT LETTERS, 



SECTION IV. 



FROxM THE LETTERS OF DR. BEATTIE, SIR WM. JONES, AND OTHERS. 



LETTER I. 

Dr. Beattie to Robert Arhathnot, Esq. 

Aberdeen, 12th December, 1763. 
Since you left us, I have been reading 
Tasso's " Jerusalem," in tlie translation 
lately published by Hoole. I was not a 
little anxious to peruse a poem which is 
so famous over all Europe, and has so 
often been mentioned as a rival to 
the " Hiad," '' .Eneid," and " Paradise 
Lost." It is certainly a noble work ; 
and though it seems to me to be inferior 
to the three poems just mentioned, yet 
I cannot help thinking it in the rank 
next to these. As for the other modern 
attempts at the " Epopee," the " Hen- 
riade" of Voltaire, the " Epigoniad" of 
Wilkie, the " Leonidas" of Glover, not 
to mention the " Arthur" of Blackmore, 
they are not to be compared with it. 
Tasso possesses an exuberant and sub- 
lime imagination ; though in exuberance 
it seems, in my opinion, inferior to our 
Spenser, and in sublimity inferior to 
Milton. Were I to compare Milton's 
genius with Tasso's, I would say, that 
the sublime of the latter is flashy and 
fluctuating, while that of the former 
diffuses an uniform, steady, and vigor- 
ous blaze : Milton is more majestic, 
Tasso more dazzling. Dryden, it seems, 
was of opinion, that the " Jerusalem 
Delivered " was the only poem of modern 
times that deserved the name of epic ; 
but it is certain that criticism was not 
this writer's talent; and I think it is 
evident, from some passagesof his works, 
that he either did not, or would not. 



understand the " Paradise Lost." Tasso 
borrows his plot and principal charac- 
ters from Homer, but his manner re- 
sembles Virgil's. He is certainly much 
obliged to Virgil, and scruples not to 
imitate, nor to translate him on many 
occasions. In the pathetic, he is far in- 
ferior both to Homer, to Virgil, and to 
Milton. His characters, though differ- 
ent, are not always distinct, and want 
thosemasterly and distinguishing strokes, 
which the genius of Homer and Shak- 
speare, and of them only, knows how to 
delineate. Tasso excels in describing 
pleasurable scenes, and seems peculiarly 
fond of such as have a reference to the 
passion of love. Yet, in characterizing 
this passion, he is far inferior, not only 
to Milton, but also to Virgil, whose 
fourth book he has been at great pains 
to imitate. The translation is smooth 
and flowing ; but in dignity, and variety 
of numbers, is often defective, and often 
labours under a feebleness and prolixity 
of phrase, evidently proceeding either 
from want of skill, or from want of lei- 
sure in the versifier. 



LETTER II. 

Dr. Beattie to Sir William Forbes, 

Aberdeen, 3()th January, 1766. 
Your zeal in promoting my interest de- 
mands my warmest acknowledgments ; 
yet, for want of adequate expressions, I 
scarce know in what manner to pay 
them. I must therefore leave you to 
guess at my gratitude, by the emotions 



604 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



which would arise in your own heart, 
on receiving a very im})ortant favour 
from a person of whom you had merited 
nothing, and to whom you could make 
no just return. 

I suppose you have seen my letter to 
Dr. Blacklock. I hope, in due time, to 
be acquainted with your sentiments con- 
cerning it. I know not whether I have 
gained my point or not ; but in compos- 
ing that letter I was more studious of 
simplicity of diction than in any other 
of my pieces. I am not, indeed, in this 
respect, so very scrupulous as some cri- 
tics of these times. I see no harm in 
using an expressive epithet, when, with- 
out the use of such an epithet, one can- 
not do justice to his idea* Even a com- 
pounded epithet, provided it be suitable 
to the genius of our language, and au- 
thenticated by some good writer, may 
often, in my opinion, produce a good 
eflfect. My notion of simplicity discards 
every thing from style which is affected, 
superfluous, indefinite, or obscure ; but 
admits every grace, which, without en- 
cumbering a sentiment, does really em- 
bellish and enforce it. I am no friend 
to those prettinesses of modern style, 
which one may call the pompous ear- 
rings and flounces of the Muses, which, 
with some writers, are so highly in vogue 
at present : they may, by their glare 
and fluttering, take off the eye from im- 
perfections ; but I am convinced they 
disguise and disfigure the charms of ge- 
nuine beauty. 

I have of late been much engaged in 
metaphysics ; at least I have been la- 
bouring with all my might to overturn 
that visionary science. I am a member 
of a club in this town, who style them- 
selves the Philosophical Society. We 
have meetings every fortnight, and de- 
liver discourses in our turn. I hope you 
will not think the worse of this society 
when I tell you, that to it the world is 
indebted for "A comparative View of 
the Faculties of Man," and an " Enquiry 
into Human Nature, on the Principles 
of Common Sense." Criticism is the 
field in which I have hitherto (chiefly 
at least) chosen to expatiate ; but an 
accidental question lately furnished me 
with a hint, which I made the subject 
of a two hours' discourse at our last 
meeting. I have for some time wished 
for an opportunity of publishing some- 
thing relating to the business of my own 



profession, and I think I have now found 
an opportunity : for the doctrine of my 
last discourse seems to be of importance, 
and I have already finished two-thirds 
of my plan. My doctrine is this : that 
as we know nothing of the eternal rela- 
tions of things, that to us is and must be 
truth, which we feel that we must be- 
lieve ; and that to us is falsehood, which 
we feel that we must disbelieve. I have 
shewn, that all genuine reasoning does 
ultimately terminate in certain princi- 
ples, which it is impossible to disbelieve, 
and as impossible to prove : that there- 
fore the ultimate standard of truth to us 
is common sense, or that instinctive 
conviction into which all true reasoning 
does resolve itself; that therefore what 
contradicts common sense is in itself 
absurd, however subtle the arguments 
which support it ; for such is the ambi- 
guity and insufficiency of language, that 
it is easy to argue on either side of any 
question, with acuteness sufficient to con- 
found one who is not expert in the art 
of reasoning. My principles, in the 
main, are not essentially different from 
Dr. Reid's ; but they seem to offer a 
more compendious method of destroying 
scepticism. I intend to shew (and have 
already in part shewn) that all sophis- 
tical reasoning is marked with certain 
characters which distinguish it from true 
investigation : and thus I flatter myself 
I shall be able to discover a method of 
detecting sophistry, even when one is 
not able to give a logical confutation of 
its arguments. I intend further to in- 
quire into the nature of that modifica- 
tion of intellect which qualifies a man 
for being a sceptic ; and I think I am 
able to prove, that it is not genius, but 
the want of it. However, it will be 
summer before I can finish my project. 
I own it is not without indignation, that 
I see sceptics and their writings (which 
are the bane, not only of science, but 
also of virtue) so much in vogue in the 
present age. 



LETTER III. 

Dr. Beattie to Sir William Forbes. 

Aberdeen, 18th September, 1766. 
You flatter me very agreeably, by wish- 
ing me to engage in a translation of 
Tasso's " Jerusalem." If I had all 



Sect. IV. 



RECENT. 



605 



the other accomplishments necessary to 
fit me for such an undertaking (which 
is by no means the case), I have not as 
yet acquired a sufficient knowledge of the 
Italian language, although I understand 
it tolerably well. My proficiency would 
have been much more considerable, if 
my health had allowed me to study ; 
but I have been obliged to estrange my- 
self from books for some months past. I 
intend to persist in my resolution of ac- 
quiring that language, for t am wonder- 
fully delighted with the Italian poetry. 
It does not seem to abound much in 
those strokes of fancy that raise admira- 
tion and astonishment, in which I think 
the English very much superior ; but it 
possesses all the milder graces in an emi- 
nent degree ; in simplicity, harmony, 
delicacy, and tenderness, it is altoge- 
ther without a rival. I cannot well ac- 
count for that neglect of the Italian lite- 
rature, which, for about a century past, 
has been fashionable among us. I be- 
lieve Mr. Addison may have been in- 
strumental in introducing, or at least 
in vindicating it ; though I am inclined 
to think, that he took upon trust, from 
Boileau, that censure which he past up- 
on the Italian poets, and which has been 
current among the critics ever since the 
days of the " Spectator." 

A good translation of Tasso would be 
a very valuable accession to English li- 
terature ; but it would be a most difficult 
undertaking, on account of the genius 
of our language, which, though in the 
highest degree copious, expressive, and 
sonorous, is not to be compared with 
the Italian in delicacy, sweetness, and 
simplicity of composition ; and these are 
qualities so characteristical of Tasso, 
that a translator would do the highest 
injustice to his author, who should fail 
in transfusing them into his version. 
Besides, a work of such a nature must 
not only be laborious but expensive ; 
so that a prudent person would not 
choose to engage in it without some hope, 
not only of being indemnified, but even 
rewarded ; and such a hope it would be 
madness in me to entertain. Yet, to 
shew that I am not averse from the w«?rk 
(for, luckily for poor bards, poetry is 
sometimes its own reward, and is at any 
time amply rewarded when it gratifies 
the desire of a friend), I design, as soon 
as I have leisure, and sufficient skill in 
the language, to try my hand at a short 



specimen. In the mean time, I flatter 
myself you will not think the worse of 
me for not making a thousand protesta- 
tions of my insufficiency, and as many 
acknowledgments of my gratitude for 
the honour you do me in supposing me 
capable of such a work. The truth is, I 
have so much to say on this subject, 
that if I were only to begin, 1 should 
never have done. Your friendship and 
your good opinion, which I shall ever 
account it my honour to cultivate, I do 
indeed value more than I can express. 

Your neglect of the modern philoso- 
phical sceptics, who have too much en- 
gaged the attention of these times, does 
equal honour to your understanding and 
to your heart. To suppose that every 
thing may be made matter of dispute, 
is an exceeding false principle, subver- 
sive of all true science, and prejudicial 
to the happiness of mankind. To con- 
fute, without convincing, is a common 
case, and indeed a very easy matter ; 
in all conviction (at least in all moral 
and religious conviction), the heart is 
engaged as well as the understanding; 
and the understanding may be satisfied, 
or at least confounded, with a doctrine, 
from which the heart recoils with the 
strongest aversion. This is not the lan- 
guage of a logician ; but this, I hope, is 
the language of an honest man, who 
considers all science as frivolous, which 
does not make men wiser and better ; 
and to puzzle with words, without pro- 
ducing conviction (which is all that our 
metaphysical sceptics have been able to 
do), can never promote either the wis- 
dom or the virtue of mankind. It is 
strange that men should so often forget 
that " Happiness is our being's end 
and aim." Happiness is desirable for its 
own sake ; truth is desirable only as a 
means of producing happiness ; for who 
would not prefer an agreeable delusion 
to a melancholy truth ? What, then, is the 
use of that philosophy, which aims to 
inculcate truth at the expense of hap- 
piness, by introducing doubt and disbe- 
lief, in the place of confidence and hope ? 
Surely the promoters of all such philo- 
sophy are either the enemies of man- 
kind or the dupes of their own most 
egregious folly. I mean not to make 
any concessions in favour of metaphysi- 
cal truth ; genuine truth and genuine 
happiness were never inconsistent : but 
metaphysical truth (such as we find 



606 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV, 



in our sceptical systems) is not genuine, 
for it is perpetually changing ; and no 
wonder, since it depends not on the 
common sense of mankind (which is al- 
ways the same), but varies according as 
the talents and inclinations of different 
authors are different. The doctrines of 
metaphysical scepticism are either true 
or false : if false, we have little to do 
with them ; if true, they prove the fal- 
lacy of the human faculties, and there- 
fore prove too much ; for it follows, as 
an undeniable consequence, that all hu- 
man doctrines whatsoever (themselves 
not excepted) are fallacious, and con- 
sequently pernicious, insignificant, and 



LETTER IV. 

Dr. Beattie to Dr. Blacklock. 

Aberdeen, 22d September, 1766. 
I AM not a little flattered by your 
friendly and spirited vindication of the 
poem on Bufo. Among the invidious 
and malicious, I have got a few enemies 
on account of that performance ; among 
the candid and generous, not one. 
This, joined to the approbation of my 
own conscience, is entirely sufl&cient to 
make me easy on that head. 1 have not 
yet heard whether my little work has 
been approved or condemned in Eng- 
land. I have not even heard whether it 
has been published or not. However, 
the days of romantic hope are now hap- 
pily over with me, as well as the desire 
of public applause ; a desire of which I 
never had any title to expect the gratifi- 
cation ; and which, though I had been 
able to gratify it, would not have con- 
tributed a single mite to my happiness. 
Yet I am thankful to Providence for 
having endued me with an inclination to 
poetry ; for, though I have never been 
supremely blest in my own Muse, I have 
certainly been gratified, in the most 
exquisite degree, by the productions of 
others. 

Those pieces of mine, from which I 
have received the highest entertainment, 
are such as are altogether improper for 
publication, being written in a sort of 
burlesque humour, for the amusement of 
some particular friend, or for some se- 
lect company : of these I have a pretty 
large collection; and thou^^h I should 



be ashamed to be publicly known as the 
author of many of them, I cannot help 
entertaining a certain ])artiality towards 
them ; arising, perhaps, from this cir- 
cumstance in their favour, that the plea- 
sure they have yielded me has been al- 
together sincere, unmixed with that cha- 
grin which never fails to attend an un- 
fortunate publication. 

Not long ago I began a poem in the 
style and stanza of Spenser, in which I 
propose to give full scope to my inclina- 
tion, and be either droll or pathetic, de- 
scriptive or sentimental, tender or sati- 
rical, as the humour strikes me ; for, if 
I mistake not, the manner which I have 
adopted, admits equally of all these kinds 
of composition. J have written one 
hundred and fifty lines, and am surprised 
to find Xhe. structure of that complicated 
stanza so little troublesome. I was 
always fond of it ; for 1 think it the most 
harmonious that ever was contrived. It 
admits of more variety of pauses than 
either the couplet or the alternate rhyme ; 
and it concludes with a pomp and ma- 
jesty of sound, which, to my ear, is 
wonderfully delightful. It seems also 
very well adapted to the genius of our 
language, which, from its irregularity of 
inflexion, and number of monosyllables, 
abounds in diversified terminations, and 
consequently renders our poetry sus- 
ceptible of an endless variety of legitimate 
rhymes. But I am so far from intend- 
ing this performance for the press, that 
I am morally certain it never will be 
finished. I shall add a stanza now and 
then, when I am at leisure, and when I 
have no humour for any other amuse- 
ment : but I am resolved to write no more 
poetry with a view to publication, till 1 
see some dawnings of a poetical taste 
among the generality of readers, of 
which, however, there is not at present 
any thing like an appearance. 

My employment, and indeed my in- 
clination, leads me rather to prose com- 
position ; and in this way I have much 
to do. The doctrines commonly com- 
prehended under the name of moral phi- 
losophy are at present over-run with 
metaphysics, a luxuriant and tenacious 
weed, which seldom fails to choke and 
extirpate the wholesome plants, which it 
was perhaps intended to support and 
shelter. To this literary weed I have 
an insuperable aversion, which becomes 
stronger and stronger, in proportion as! 



Sect. IV. 



RECENT* 



607 



grow more and more acquainted with its 
nature, and qualities, and fruits. It is 
very agreeable to the paradoxical and 
licentious spirit of the age: but I am 
thoroughly convinced that it is fatal to 
true science, an enemy to the fine arts, 
destructive of genuine sentiment, and 
prejudicial to the virtue and happiness 
of mankind . 



LETTER V. 

Dr. Beattie to the Hon. Charles Boyd. 
Aberdeen, 16th November, 1766. 

Of all the chagrins with which my pre- 
sent infirm state of health is attended, 
none afflicts me more than my inability 
to perform the duties of friendship. 
The offer which you were generously 
pleased to make me of your corre- 
spondence, flatters me extremely ; but 
alas ! I have not as yet been able to 
avail myself of it. While the good 
weather continued, I strolled about the 
country, and made many strenuous at- 
tempts to run away from this odious gid- 
diness ; but the more I struggled, the 
more closely it seemed to stick by me. 
About a fortnight ago the hurry of my 
winter business began ; and at the same 
time my malady recurred with more 
violence than ever, rendering me at once 
incapable of reading, writing, and think- 
ing. Luckily I am now a little better, 
so as to be able to read a page, and 
write a sentence or two without stop- 
ping; which, I assure you, is a very 
great matter. My hopes and my spirits 
begin to revive once more. 1 flatter 
myself 1 shall soon get rid of this in- 
firmity ; nay, that I shall ere long be in 
the way of becoming a great man. For 
have I not head-achs, like Pope? ver- 
tigo, like Swift? grey hairs, like Ho- 
mer? Do I not wear large shoes (for 
fear of corns), like Virgil? and some- 
times complain of sore eyes (though not 
of lippitude), like Horace ? Am I not at 
this present writing invested with a gar- 
ment not less ragged than that of So- 
crates ? Like Joseph, the patriarch, I 
am a mighty dreamer of dreams ; like 
Nimrod, the hunter, I am an eminent 
builder of castles (in the air). I pro- 
crastinate, like Julius Csesar ; and very 
lately, in imitation of Don Quixote, I 
rode a horse, lean, old, and lazy, like 



Rosinante. Sometimes, like Cicero, I 
write bad verses ; and sometimes bad 
prose, like Virgil. This last instance I 
have on the authority of Seneca. I am 
of small stature, like Alexander the 
Great ; I am somewhat inclinable to 
fatness, like Dr. xirbuthnot and Aristo- 
tle ; and I drink brandy and water, like 
Mr. Boyd. I might compare myself, in 
relation to many other infirmities, to 
many other great men ; but if Fortune is 
not influenced in my favour by the par- 
ticulars already enumerated, I shall de- 
spair of ever recommending myself to 
her good graces. I once had some 
thought of soliciting her patronage on 
the score of my resembling great men in 
their good qualities ; but I had so little 
to say on that subject, that I could not 
for my life furnish matter for one well- 
rounded period : and you know a short 
ill-turned speech is very improper to be 
used in an address to a female deity. 

Do not you think there is a sort of 
antipathy between philosophical and po- 
etical genius ? I question whether any 
one person was ever eminent for both. 
Lucretius lays aside the poet when he 
assumes the philosopher, and the philo- 
sopher when he assumes the poet : in 
the one character he is truly excellent, 
in the other he is absolutely nonsensical. 
Hobbes was a tolerable metaphysician, 
but his poetry is the worst that ever was. 
Pope's " Essay on Man" is the finest 
philosophical poem in the world ; but it 
seems to me to do more honour to the 
imagination than to the understanding 
of its author : I mean its sentiments are 
noble and affecting, its images and allu- 
sions apposite, beautiful, and new ; its 
wit transcendently excellent : but the 
scientific part of it is very exceptionable. 
Whatever Pope borrows from Leibnitz, 
like most other metaphysical theories, 
is frivolous and unsatisfying : what Pope 
gives us of his own, is energetic, irre- 
sistible, and divine. The incompati- 
bility of philosophical and poetical ge- 
nius is, I think, no unaccountable thing. 
Poetry exhibits the general qualities of a 
species ; philosophy the particular quali- 
ties of individuals. This forms its con- 
clusions from a painful and minute exa- 
mination of single instances : that decides 
instantaneously, either from its own in- 
stinctive sagacity, or from a singular 
and unaccountable penetration, which at 
one glance sees all the instances which 



608 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



the philosopher must leisurely and pro- 
gressively scrutinize, one by one. This 
persuades you gradually, and by detail ; 
the other overpowers you in an instant 
by a single eflfort. Observe the effect of 
argumentation in poetry ; we have too 
many instances of it in Milton: it trans- 
forms the noblest thoughts into drawling 
inferences, and the most beautiful lan- 
guage into prose : it checks the tide of 
passion, by giving the mind a different 
employment in the comparison of ideas. 
A little philosophical acquaintance Avith 
the most beautiful parts of nature, both 
in the material and immaterial system, 
is of use to a poet, and gives grace and 
solidity to poetry; as may be seen in 
the " Georgics," the " Seasons," and 
the " Pleasures of Imagination :" but this 
acquaintance, if it is any thing more 
than superficial, will do a poet rather 
harm than good ; and will give his mind 
that turn for minute observation which 
enfeebles the fancy by restraining it, and 
counteracts the native energy of judg- 
ment, by rendering it fearful and sus- 
picious. 

LETTER VI. 

Dr. Beattie to Sir William Forbes. 

Aberdeen, 17th January, 1768. 
I HAVE been intending, for these several 
weeks, to write to you, though it were 
only to assure you of the continuance of 
my esteem and attachment. This place, 
you know, furnishes little amusement, 
either political or literary ; and at this 
season it is rather more barren than 
usual. 

I have, for a time, laid aside my fa- 
vourite studies, that I might have leisure 
to prosecute a philosophical inquiry, less 
amusing indeed than poetry and criti- 
cism, but not less important. The ex- 
traordinary success of the sceptical phi- 
losophy has long filled me with regret. 
I wish I could undeceive mankind in re- 
gard to this matter : perhaps this wish is 
vain ; but it can do no harm to make 
the trial. The point I am now labouring 
to prove, is the universality and immu- 
tability of moral sentiment, a point 
which has been brought into dispute, 
both by the friends and by the enemies 
of virtue. In an age less licentious in 
its principles, it would not, perhaps, be 
necessary to insist much on this point. 



At present it is very necessary. Philo- 
sophers have ascribed all religion to hu- 
man policy. Nobody knows how soon 
they may ascribe all morality to the 
same origin ; and then the foundations 
of human society, as well as of human 
happiness, will be effectually undermin- 
ed. To accomplish this end, Hobbes, 
Hume, Mandeville, and even Locke, 
have laboured ; and I am sorry to say, 
from ray knowledge of mankind, that 
their labour has not been altogether in 
vain. Not that the works of these phi- 
losophers are generally read, or even 
understood by the few who read them. 
It is not the mode, now-a-days, for a 
man to think for himself; but they 
greedily adopt the conclusions, without 
any concern about the arguments or 
principles whence they proceed; and 
they justify their own credulity by ge- 
neral declamations upon the transcend- 
ant merit of their favourite authors, 
and the universal deference that is paid 
to their genius and learning. If I can 
prove those authors guilty of gross mis- 
representations of matters of fact, un- 
acquainted with the human heart, ig- 
norant even of their own principles, the 
dupes of verbal ambiguities, and the vo- 
taries of frivolous though dangerous 
philosophy, I shall do some little service 
to the cause of truth ; and all this I will 
undertake to prove, in many instances of 
high importance. 

You have, no doubt, seen Dr. Black- 
lock's new book*. I was very much 
surprised to see my name prefixed to the 
dedication, as he never had given me the 
least intimation of such a design. His 
friendship does me great honour. I 
should be sorry, if, in this instance, it 
has got the better of his prudence ; and 
I have some reason to fear, that my 
name will be no recommendation to the 
work, at least in this place, where, how- 
ever, the book is very well spoken of, by 
some who have read it. I should like 
to know how it takes at Edinburgh. 

LETTER VII. 

Fro7n the same to the same. 

Aberdeen, 4th May, 1770. 
Nothing, I think, is stirring in the 
literary world. All ranks are run mad 

* " Paraclesis, or Consolations." 



Sect. IV. 



RECENT. 



609 



witli politics; and I know not whether 
there was any period at which it was 
more unseasonable to publish new books. 
I do not mean, that the nation has no 
need of instruction; I mean only, that 
it has neither leisure nor inclination to 
listen to any. 

I am a very great admirer of Arm- 
strong's poem on " Health ;" and there- 
fore, as soon as I heard that the same 
author had puhlished two volumes of 
*' Miscellanies," 1 sent a commission for 
them with great expectations : but I am 
miserably disappointed. I know not 
what is the matter with Armstrong ; but 
he seems to have conceived a rooted 
aversion at the whole human race, ex- 
cept a few friends, who, it seems, are 
dead. He sets the public opinion at de- 
fiance ; a piece of boldness which neither 
Virgil nor Horace were ever so shame- 
less as to acknowledge. It is very true, 
that living authors are often hardly dealt 
with by their contemporaries ; witness 
Milton, Collins the poet, and many 
others : but I believe it is equally true, 
that no good piece was ever published, 
which did not, sooner or later, obtain the 
public approbation. How is it possible 
it should be otherwise ? People read for 
amusement. If a book be capable of 
yielding amusement, it will naturally be 
read ; for no man is an enemy to what 
gives him pleasure. Some books, in- 
deed, being calculated for the intellects 
of a few, can please only a few ; yet if 
they produce this effect, they answer all 
the end the authors intended ; and if 
those few be men of any note, which is 
generally the case, the herd of mankind 
will very willingly fall in with their judg- 
ment, and consent to admire what they 
do not understand. I question whether 
there are now in Europe two thousand, 
or even one thousand persons, who un- 
derstand a word of Newton's " Princi- 
pia ;" yet there are in Europe many mil- 
lions who extol Newton as a very great 
philosopher. Those are but a small 
number who have any sense of the beau- 
ties of Milton ; yet every body admires 
Milton, because it is the fashion. Of 
all the English poets of this age, Mr. 
Gray is most admired, and, I think, 
with justice ; yet there are, compara- 
tively speaking, but a few Avho know any 
thing of his, but his " Church-yard Ele- 
gy," which is by no means the best of 
his works. I do not think that Dr. 



Armstrong has any cause to complain of 
the public : his " Art of Health" is not 
indeed a popular poem, but it is very 
much liked, and has often been pruited. 
It will make him known and esteemed 
by posterity ; and 1 presume he will be 
the more esteemed, if all his other works 
perish with him. In his " Sketches," 
indeed, are many sensible, and some 
striking remarks ; but they breathe such 
a rancorous and contemptuous spirit, 
and abound so much in odious vulgar- 
isms and colloquial execrations, that in 
reading we are as often disgusted as 
pleased. I know not what to say of his 
" Universal Almanack :" it seems to me 
an attempt at humour ; but such hu- 
mour is either too high or too lov/ for 
my comprehension. The plan of his 
tragedy, called the " Forced Marriage," 
is both obscure and improbable ; yet 
there are good strokes in it, particularly 
in the last scene. 

As I know your taste and talents in 
painting, I cannot help communicating 
to you an observation, which I lately 
had occasion, not to make, for I had 
made it before, but to see illustrated in 
a very striking manner. I Vvas readings 
the Abbe du Bos' " Reflections on 
Poetry and Painting." In his 13th sec- 
tion of the first volume, he gives some 
very ingenious remarks on two of Ra^ 
phael's cartoons. Speaking of " Christ's 
Charge to Peter," he says of one of the 
iigures in the group of apostles, '^ Pres 
de lui est place un autre Apotre eiaba- 
rasse de sa contenance : on le discerne 
pour 6tre d'un temperament melancho- 
iique a la mfdgreur de son visage livide, 
a sa barbe noire et plate, a 1 habitude 
de son corps, enfin a tons les traits que 
les naturalistes ontassignes a ce temper- 
ament. 11 se courbe ; et les yeux fixe- 
ment attaches sur J. C. il est devore 
dune jalousie morne pour une choix dont 
il ne se plaindra point, mais dont il con- 
servera long tems un vif ressentiment ; 
enfin on reconnoit la Judas aussi dis- 
tinctenient qu' a le voir pendu aufiguier, 
une bourse renversee au col. Je n' ai 
point pr6te d'esprit a Raphael," &c. 
You see the ingenious Abbe is very po- 
sitive ; and yet you will immediately re- 
collect, that the charge of " Feed my 
sheep," to which this cartoon refers, was 
given to Peter after the resurrection, 
and when, consequently, Judas could 
not be present (John xxi. 16). If it be 
2R 



^10 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



said, that this charg-e refers to the keys, 
which Peter carries in his hosom; a 
charge given long" before ; I answer, 
first, that the sheep in the back-ground 
is a presumption of the contrary ; and 
secondly, that the wounds in the feet 
and hands of Jesus, and the number of 
apostles present, which is only eleven, 
are a certain proof, that the fact to 
which this cartoon relates happened after 
the resurrection. The Abba's mistake 
is of little moment in itself; but it 
serves to illustrate this observation, that 
the expression of painting is at the best 
very indefinite, and generally leaves 
scope to the ingenious critic de preter 
d esprit to the painter. 



LETTER VIII. 

Dr. Beattie to Dr. Blacklock. 

Aberdeen, 27th May, 1770. 
I CANNOT express how much I think 
myself indebted to your friendship, in 
entering so warmly into all my concerns, 
and in making out so readily, and at 
such length, the two critical articles. 
The shortest one was sent back, in 
course of post, to Mr. Kincaid*, from 
whom you would learn the reasons that 
induced me to make some alterations in 
the analysis you had there made of my 
book. The other paper I return in this 
packet. I have made a remark or two 
at the end, but no alterations. Indeed, 
how could I ? you understand my philo- 
sophy as perfectly as I do ; you express 
it much better, and you embellish it with 
a great many of your own sentiments, 
which, though new to me, are exceed- 
ingly apposite to my subject, and set 
some parts of it in a fairer light than I 
have been able to do in my book. I 
need not tell you how happy I am in 
the thought, that this work of mine has 
your approbation ; for I know you too 
well to impute to mere civility the many 
handsome things you have said in praise 
of it. I know you approve it, because I 
know you incapable to say one thing and 
think another ; and I do assure you, I 
would not forego your approbation to 
avoid the censure of fifty Mr. Humes. 
What do I say ? Mr. Hume's censure I 
am so far from being ashamed of, that I 

* The publishor. 



think it does me honour. It is, next to 
his conversion (which I have no reason 
to look for), the most desirable thing I 
have to expect from that quarter. I 
have heard, from very good authority, 
that he speaks of me and my book with 
very great bitterness (1 own, I thought 
he would rather have affected to treat 
both with contempt) ; and that he says 
I have not used him like a gentleman. 
He is quite right to set the matter upon 
that footing. It is an odious charge ; 
it is an objection easily remembered, 
and, for that reason, will be often re- 
peated by his admirers ; and it has this 
farther advantage, that being (in the 
present case) perfectly unintelligible, it 
cannot possibly be answered. The truth 
is, I, as a rational, moral, and immortal 
being, and something of a philosopher, 
treated him as a rational, moral, and 
immortal being, a sceptic, and an athe- 
istical writer. My design was, not to 
make a book full of fashionable phrases 
and polite expressions, but to undeceive 
the public in regard to the merits of the 
sceptical philosophy, and the pretensions 
of its abettors. To say that I ought not 
to have done this \nth plainness and 
spirit, is to say, in other words, that I 
ought either to have held my peace, or 
to have been a knave. In this case, I 
might, perhaps, have treated Mr. Hume 
as a gentleman ; but I should not have 
treated society, and my own conscience, 
as became a man and a Christian. I have 
all along foreseen, and still foresee, that 
I shall have many reproaches, and cavils, 
and sneers, to encounter on this occa- 
sion ; but I am prepared to meet them. 
I am not ashamed of my cause ; and, if 
I may believe those whose good opinion 
I value as one of the chief blessings of 
life, I need not be ashamed of my work. 
You are certainly right in your conjec- 
ture, that it will not have a quick sale. 
Notwithstanding all my endeavours to 
render it perspicuous and entertaining, it 
is still necessary for the person who reads 
it to think a little; a task to which 
every reader will not submit. My sub- 
ject too is unpopular, and my principles 
such as a man of the world would blush 
to acknowledge. Hovi^ then can my 
book be popular ? If it refund the ex- 
pense of its publication, it will do as 
much as any person, who knows the 
present state of the literary world, can 
reasonably expect from it. 



Sect. IV. 



RECENT. 



611 



LE^ITER IX. 

Dr. Beattie to Mrs. IngUs. 

Aberdeen, 24th Dscember, 1770. 
While I lived in your neighbourhood, I 
often wished for an opportunity of giv- 
ing- you my opinion on a subject, in 
which I know you are very ,deeply in- 
terested ; but one incident or other al- 
ways put it out of my power. That sub- 
ject is the education of your son, whom, 
if I mistake not, it is now high time to 
send to some public place of education. 
I have thought much on this subject ; I 
have weighed every argument that I 
could think of, on either side of the 
question. Much, you know, has been 
written upon it, and very plausible ar- 
guments have been offered, both for and 
against a public education. I set not 
much value upon these ; speculating 
men are continually disputing, and the 
world is seldom the wiser. I have some 
little experience in this way ; I have no 
hypothesis to mislead me ; and the opi- 
nion or prejudice, which I first formed 
upon the subject, was directly contrary 
to that, M^iich experience has now taught 
me to entertain. 

Could mankind lead their lives in that 
solitude, which is so favourable to many 
of our most virtuous affections, I should 
be clearly on the side of a private edu- 
cation. But most of us, when we go 
out into the world, find difficulties in 
our way, which good principles and in- 
nocence alone will not qualify us to en- 
counter ; we must have some address 
and knowledge of the world different 
from what is to be learnt in books, or 
we shall soon be puzzled, disheartened, 
or disgusted. The foundation of this 
knowledge is laid in the intercourse of 
school-boys, or at least of young men 
of the same age. When a boy is always 
under the direction of a parent or tutor, 
he acquires such a habit of looking up to 
them for advice, that he never learns to 
think or act for himself ; his memory is 
exercised, indeed, in retaining their ad- 
vice, but his invention is suffered to lan- 
guish, till at last it becomes totally in- 
active. He knows, perhaps, a great deal 
of history or science ; but he kiiows not 
how to conduct himself on those ever- 
changing emergencies, which are too 
minute and too numerous to be com- 
prehended in any system of advice. He 



is astonished at the most common ap- 
pearances, and discouraged with the most 
trifling (because unexpected) obstacles ; 
and he is often at his wit's end, where a 
boy of much less knowledge, but more 
experience, would instantly devise a 
thousand expedients. Conscious of his 
own superiority in some things, he won- 
ders to find himself so much inferior in 
others ; his vanity meets with continual 
rubs and disappointments, and disap- 
pointed vanity is very apt to degenerate 
into sullenness and pride ; he despises, 
or affects to despise, his fellows, because, 
though superior in address, they are in- 
ferior in knowledge ; and they, in their 
turn, despise that knowledge, which 
cannot teach the owner how to behave 
on the most common occasions. Thus 
he keeps at a distance from his equals, 
and they at a distance from him ; and 
mutual contempt is the natural conse- 
quence. 

Another inconvenience, attending pri- 
vate education, is the suppressing of the 
principle of emulation, without which it 
rarely happens that a boy prosecutes his 
studies with alacrity or success. I have 
heard private tutors complain, that they 
were obliged to have recourse to flattery 
or bribery to engage the attention of 
their pupil : and 1 need not observe, 
how improper it is to set the example of 
such practices before children. True 
emulation, especially in youag and in- 
genuous minds, is a noble principle ; I 
have known the happiest effects pro- 
duced by it : I never knew it to be pro- 
ductive of any vice. In all public schools 
it is, or ought to be, carefully cherish- 
ed. Where it is wanting, in vain shall 
we preach up to children the dignity 
and utility of knowledge : the true ap- 
petite for knowledge is wanting ; and 
when that is the case, whatever is 
crammed into the memory will rather 
surfeit and enfeeble, than improve the 
understanding. I do not mention the 
pleasure which young people take in the 
company of one another, and what a 
pity it is to deprive them of it. I need 
not remark, that friendships of the ut- 
most stability and importance have often 
been founded on school-acquaintance; 
nor need I put you in mind, of what 
vast consequence to health are the exer- 
cises and amusements which boys con- 
trive for themselves. I shall only ob- 
serve further, that, when boys pursue 
2R 2 



612 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



their studies at home, they are apt to 
contract either a habit of idleness, or 
too close an attachment to reading ; the 
former breeds innumerable diseases, 
both in the body and soul : the latter, 
by filling young and tender minds with 
more knowledge tlian they can either 
retain or arrange properly, is apt to 
make them superficial and inattentive ; 
or, what is worse, to strain, ahd conse- 
quently impair, the faculties, by over- 
stretching them. I have known several 
instances of both. The human mind is 
miore improved by thoroughly under- 
standing one science, one part of a sci- 
ence, or even one subject, than by a 
superficial knowledge of twenty sciences 
and a hundred different subjects ; and I 
would rather wish my son to be tho- 
roughly master of " Euclid's Elements," 
than to have the whole of " Chambers's 
Dictionary " by heart. 

The great inconvenience of public 
education arises from its being danger- 
ous to morals. And indeed every con- 
dition and period of human life is liable 
to temptation. Nor will I deny, that 
our innocence, during the first part of 
life, is much more secure at home, than 
any where else ; yet even at home, when 
we reach a certain age, it is not perfect- 
ly secure. Let young men be kept at 
the greatest distance from bad company, 
it will not be easy to keep them from 
bad books, to which, in these days, all 
persons may have easy access at all 
times. Let us, however, suppose the 
best ; that both bad books and bad com- 
pany keep away, and that the young 
man never leaves his parents' or tutor's 
side, till his mind be well furnished with 
good principles, and himself arrived at 
the age of reilection and caution : yet 
temptations must come at last ; and 
when they come, will they have the less 
strength, because they are new, unex- 
pected, and surprising? 1 fear not. 
The more the young man is surprised, 
the more apt will he be to lose his pre- 
sence of mind, and consequently the less 
capable of self-government. Besides, if 
his passions are strong, he will be dis- 
posed to form comparisons between his 
past state of restraint, and his present of 
liberty, very much to the disadvantage 
of the former. His new associates will 
laugh at him for his reserve and precise- 
ness ; and his unacquaintance with their 
mannei's, and with the world, ns it will 



render him the more obnoxious to their 
ridicule, will also disqualify him the 
more, both for supporting it with dignity, 
and also for defending himself against 
it. Suppose him to be shocked with 
vice at its first appearance, and often to 
call to mind the good precepts he re- 
ceived in his early days ; yet when he 
sees others daily adventuring upon it 
without any apparent inconvenience ; 
when he sees them more gay (to ap- 
pearance), and better received among 
all their acquaintance than he is ; and 
when he finds himself hooted at, and in 
a manner avoided and despised, on ac- 
count of his singularity ; it is a wonder, 
indeed, if he persist in his first resolu- 
tions, and do not now at last begin to 
think, that though his former teachers 
were well-meaning people, they were by 
no means qualified to prescribe rules for 
his conduct. " The world," he will say, 
*' is changed since their time (and you 
will not easily persuade young people 
that it changes for the worse) ; we 
must comply with the fashion, and live 
like other folks, otherwise we must give 
up all hopes of making a figure in it." 
And when he has got thus far, and be- 
gins to despise the opinions of his in- 
structors, and to be dissatisfied with 
their conduct in regard to him, I need 
not add, that the worst consequences 
may not unreasonably be apprehended. 
A young man, kept by himself at home, 
is never well known, even by his parents ; 
because he is never placed in those cir- 
cumstances, which alone areable effec- 
tually to rouse and interest his passions, 
and consequently to make his character 
appear. His parents, therefore, or tu- 
tors, never know his weak side, nor what 
particular advices or cautions he stands 
most in need of; whereas, if he had at- 
tended a public school, and mingled in 
the amusements and pursuits of his 
equals, his virtues and his vices would 
have been disclosing themselves every 
day ; and his teachers would have known 
what particular precepts and examples 
it was most expedient to inculcate upon 
him. Compare those who have had a 
public education with those who have 
been educated at home ; and it will not 
be found, in fact, that the latter are, 
either in virtue or in talents, superior to 
the former. I speak, madam, from ob- 
servation of fact, as well as from attend- 
ing to the nature of the thing. 



Sect. IV. 



RECENT. 



613 



LETTER X. 

Dr. Beattie to the Right Hon. the 
Doivager Lady Forbes*. 

Aberdeen, 1-ith October, 1772. 

I WISH the merit of the " Minstrel" 
were such as would justify all the kind 
things you have said of it. That it has 
merit, every hody would think me a hy- 
pocrite if I were to deny : I am willing 
to believe that it has even consider- 
able merit; and I acknowledge, with 
much gratitude, that it has obtained 
from the public a reception far more 
favourable than I expected. There are 
in it many passages, no doubt, ^vhich I 
admire more than others do ; and, per- 
haps, there are some passages which 
others are more struck with than I am. 
In all poetry, this, I believe, is the case, 
more or less ; but it is much more the 
case in poems of a sentimental cast, such 
as the '* Minstrel" is, than in those of 
the narrative species. In epic and dra- 
matic poesy there is a standard acknow- 
ledged, by which we may estimate the 
merit of the piece ; whether the narra- 
tive be probable, and the characters well 
drawn and well preserved ; w^hether all 
the events be conducive to the catas- 
trophe ; whether the action is unfolded 
in such a way as to command perpetual 
attention, and undiminished curiosity — 
these are points of which, in reading an 
epic poem, or tragedy, every reader 
possessed of good sense, or tolerable 
knowledge of the art, may hold himself 
to be a competent judge. Common life, 
and the general tenor of human affairs, 
is the standard to which these points 
may be referred, and according to which 
they may be estimated. But of senti- 
mental poetry (if I may use the expres- 
sion), there is no external standard. 
By it the heart of the reader must be 
touched at once, or it cannot be touched 
at all. Here the knowledge of critical 
rules, and a general acquaintance of hu- 
man affairs, will not form a true critic ; 
sensibility, and a lively imagination, are 
the qualities which alone constitute a 
true taste for sentimental poetry. Again, 
your ladyship must have observed, that 
some sentiments are common to all men ; 
others peculiar to persons of a certain 
character. Of the former sort are those 

* Mrs. Dorothea Dale, widow of the right 
hon. William Lord Forbes. 



which Gray has so elegantly expressed 
in his '• Church -yard Elegy," a poem* 
which is universally understood and ad- 
mired, not only for its poetical beauties, 
but also, and perhaps chiefly, for its ex- 
pressing sentiments in which every man 
thinks himself interested, and which, at 
certain times, are familiar to all men. 
Now the sentiments expressed in the 
" Minstrel," being not common to all 
men, but peculiar to persons of a certain 
cast, cannot possibly be interesting, be- 
cause the generality of readers will not 
understand nor feel them so thoroughly 
as to think them natural. That a boy 
should take pleasure in darkness or a 
storm, in the noise of thunder, or the 
glare of lightning ; should be more gra- 
tified with listening to music at a dis- 
tance, than with mixing in the merri- 
ment occasioned by it ; should like better 
to see every bird and beast happy and 
free, than to exert his ingenuity in de- 
stroying or ensnaring them — these, and 
such like sentiments, which, 1 think, 
would be natural to persons of a certain 
cast, will, 1 know, be condemned as un- 
natural by others, who have never felt 
them in themselves, nor observed them 
in the generality of mankind. Of all 
this I was sufficiently aware before I 
published the-" Minstrel," and, there- 
fore, never expected that it would be a 
popular poem. Perhaps, too, the struc- 
ture of the verse (which, though agree- 
able to som.e, is not to all), and the 
scarcity of incidents, may contribute to 
make it less relished than it would have 
been, if the plan had been different in 
these particulars. 

From the questions your ladyship is 
pleased to propose, in the conclusion of 
your letter, as well as from some things 
I have had the honour to hear you ad- 
vance in conversation, I find you are 
willing to suppose, that, in Edwin, I 
have given only a picture of myself, as 
I was in my younger days. I confess 
the supposition is not groundless. I 
have made him take pleasure in the 
scenes in which 1 took pleasure, and en- 
tertain sentiments similar to those of 
which, even in my early youth, I had 
repeated experience. The scenery of a 
mountainous country, the ocean, the 
sky, thoughtfulness and retirement, and 
sometimes melancholy objects and ideas, 
had charms in my eyes, even when I was 
a schoolboy ; and at a time when I was 



614 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



SOOK IV. 



so far from being able to express, that I 
did not understand, my own feelings, or 
perceive the tendency of such pursuits 
and amusements ; and as to poetry and 
music, before I was ten years old I 
could play a little on the violin, and 
was as much master of Homer and Vir- 
gil, as Pope's and Dryden's translations 
could make me. But I am ashamed to 
write so much on a subject so trifling as 
myself and my own works. Believe 
me, madam, nothing but your lady- 
ship's commands could have induced me 
to do it. 



LETTER XI. 

Dr. Beattie to Sir William Forbes. 

Abevde«^n, 13th February, 1773. 

I AM deeply sensible of your goodness, 
in communicating to me, in so tender 
and soothing a manner, the news of a 
misfortune, which is indeed one of the 
severest I have ever felt. For these two 
months past my spirits have been unu- 
sually depressed, so that I am but ill 
prepared for so terrible a stroke. Of 
the loss which society and which his fa- 
mily have received ; of the incomparable 
loss which I sustain, by the death of this 
excellent person, 1 can say nothing; my 
heart is too full, and 1 have not yet re- 
covered myself so far as to think or 
speak coherently, on this or any other 
subject. 

You justly observe, that his friends 
may derive no small consolation from 
the circumstance of his death having 
been without pain *, and from the well- 
grounded hope we may entertain, of his 
having made a happy change. But I 
find I cannot proceed : I thought I 
should have been able to give you some 
of my thoughts on this occasion ; but 
the subject overpowers me. Write to 
mt; as soon, and as fully as you can, of 
tlie situation of his family, and whatever 
you may think I would wish to know. 
I shall endeavour to follow your kind 
advice, and to reconcile myself to this 
great affliction as much as I am able. 
My reason, I trust, is fully reconciled : 
I am thoroughly convinced that every 
dispensation of Providence is wise and 

* Dr. Gregory was found dead in bed, pro- 
bably from an attack of the gout, to which he 
was subject. '' 



good ; and that, by making a proper im- 
provement of the evils of this life, we 
may convert them all into blessings. It 
becomes us, therefore, to adore the Su- 
preme Benefactor, when he takes away, 
as well as when he gives ; for He is wise 
and beneficent in both. 



LETTER XII. 

Dr. Beattie to Mrs. Montagu. 

Aberdeen, 3d May, 1773. 
I HAVE just now finished the business 
of a melancholy winter. When I wrote 
to you last, which was in January, my 
health and spirits were in a very low 
state. In this condition, the unexpect- 
ed death of the best of men, and of 
friends, came upon me with a weight, 
which at any time I should have thought 
almost insupportable, but whicb, at 
that time, was afflicting to a degree 
which human abilities alone could never 
have endured. But Providence, ever 
beneficent and gracious, has supported 
me under this heavy dispensation ; and 
I hope I shall in time be enabled to re- 
view it, even v/ith that cheerful submis- 
sion which becomes a Christian, and 
which none but a Christian can enter- 
tain. 1 have a thousand things to say 
on this most affecting subject ; but for 
your sake, madam, and for my own, I 
shall not, at present, enter upon them. 
Nobody can be more sensible than you 
are, of the irreparable loss which, not 
only his own family and friends, but 
which society in general sustains by the 
loss of this excellent person : and I need 
not tell you, for of this too I know you 
are sensible, that of all his friends (his 
own family excepted), none has so much 
cause of sorrow, on this occasion, as I, 
I should never have done, if I were to 
enter into the particulars of his kindness 
to me. For these many years past, I 
have had the happiness to be of his inti- 
mate acquaintance. He took part in all 
my concerns ; and as I concealed no- 
thing from him, he knew my heart and 
my character as well as I myself did ; 
only the partiality of his friendship made 
him think more favourably of me than I 
deserved. In all my diiSculties, I ap- 
plied to him for advice a\id comfort, 
both which he had the art of communi- 
cating in such a way as never failed to 



Sest. IV. 



RECENT. 



615 



compose and strengthen my mind. His 
zeal in promoting my interest and re- 
putation is very generally known. In a 
word (for I must endeavour to quit a 
subject, which will long be oppressive 
to my heart), my inward quiet, and ex- 
ternal prosperity, were objects of his 
particular and unwearied care ; and he 
never missed any opportunity of pro- 
moting both, to the utmost of his 
power. I wrote to his son soon after 
the fatal event ; and have had the com- 
fort to hear from several hands, that 
he, and his sisters, and the whole 
family, behave with a propriety that 
charms every body. In continuing his 
father's lectures he acquits himself to 
universal satisfaction. 

LETTER XIII. 

From the same to the same. 

Aberdeen, 15th October, 1773. 
I PURPOSELY delayed for a few days to 
answer your letter, that I might be at 
leisure to think seriously before I should 
venture to give my opinion, in regard to 
the important matter, about which you 
did me the honour to contult me. A 
religious education is indeed the great- 
est of all earthly blessings to a young 
man ; especially in these days, when 
one is in such danger of receiving im- 
pressions of a contrary tendency. I 
hope, and earnestly wish, that this, and 
every other blessing, may be the lot of 
your nephew, who seems to be accom- 
plished and promising far beyond his 
years. 

I must confess, I am strongly prepos- 
sessed in favour of that mode of edu- 
cation that takes place in the English 
universities. I am well aware at the 
same time, that in those seminaries, 
there are, to some young men, many 
more temptations to idleness and dissi- 
pation, than in our colleges in Scotland; 
but there are also, if I mistake not, 
better opportunities of study to a studi- 
ous young man, and the advantages of a 
more respectable and more polite society, 
to such as are discreet and sober. The 
most valuable parts of human literature, 
I mean the Greek and Latin classics, are 
not so completely taught in Scotland as 
in England ; and I fear it is no advan- 
tage, I have sometimes known it a mis- 



fortune, to those young men of distinc- 
tion that come to study with us, that 
they find too easy and too favourable an 
admittance to balls, assemblies, and 
other diversions of a like kind, where 
the fashion not only permits, but re- 
quires, that a particular attention be 
paid to the younger part of the female 
world. A youth of fortune, with the 
English language, and English address, 
soon becomes an object of consideration 
to a raw girl ; and equally so, perhaps, 
though not altogether on the same ac- 
count, to her parents. Our long vaca- 
tions, too, in the colleges in Scotl^id, 
though a convenience to the native stu- 
dent (who commonly spends those in- 
tervals at home with his parents), are 
often dangerous to the students fron^ 
England ; who being then set free from 
the restraints of academical discipline, 
and at a distance from their parents or 
guardians, are too apt to forget, that it 
was for the purpose of study, not of 
amusement, they were sent into this 
country. 

All, or most of these inconveniencies, 
may be avoided at an English university, 
provided a youth have a discreet tutor, 
and be himself of a sober and studious 
disposition. There, classical erudition 
receives all the attentions and honours it 
can claim ; and there the French philo- 
sophy, of course, is seldom held in very 
high estimation; there, at present, a 
regard to religion is fashionable ; there, 
the recluseness of a college-life, the 
wholesome severities of academical dis- 
cipline, the authority of the university, 
and several other circumstances I could 
mention, prove very powerful restraints 
to such of the youth as have any sense 
of true honour, or any regard to their 
real interest. 

We, in Scotland, boast of our profes- 
sors, that they give reg'ular lectures in 
all the sciences, which the students are 
obliged to attend ; a part of literary 
ceconomy which is but little attended to 
in the universities of England. But I 
will venture to affirm, from experience, 
that if a professor does no more than 
deliver a set of lectures, his young- 
audience will be little the wiser tor 
having attended him. The most pro- 
fitable part of my time is that which I 
employ in examinations, or in Socratical 
dialogue with my pupils, or in com- 



616 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV, 



inenting upon ancient authors, all 
which may be done by a tutor in a pri- 
vate apartment, as well as by a pro- 
fessor in a public school. Lectures 
indeed I do, and must give ; in order 
to add solemnity to the truths I would 
inculcate ; and partly, too, in compli- 
ance with the fashion, and for the 
sake of my own character (for this, 
though not the most difficult part of our 
business, is that which shows the speaker 
to most advantage) ; but I have always 
found the other methods, particularly 
the Socratic form of dialogue, much 
more effectual in fixing the attention, 
and improving the faculties of the stu- 
dent. 

I will not, madam, detain you longer 
with this comparison : it is my duty to 
give you my real sentiments, and you 
will be able to gather them from these 
imperfect hints. If it is determined that 
your nephew shall be sent to an univer- 
sity in Scotland, he may, I believe, have 
as good a chance for improvement; at 
Edinburgh or Glasgow, as at any other : 
if the law is to form any part of his stu- 
dies, he ought, by all means, to go to 
one or other of these places ; as we have 
no law professors in any other part of 
this kingdom, except one in King's col- 
lege, Aberdeen, whose office has been a 
sinecure for several generations. Whe- 
ther he should make choice of Edin- 
biirgii or of Glasgow, I am at a loss to 
say : I was formerly well enough ac- 
quainted with the professors of both 
those societies, but, tempora mutantur. 
Dr. Reid is a very learned, ingenious, 
and worthy man ; so is Dr. Blair : they 
are both clergymen ; so thatj 1 am con- 
fident, your nephew might lodge safely 
and profitably with either. Whether 
they would choose to accept of the office 
of tutor to any young gentleman, they 
themselves only can determine ; some 
professors would decline it, on account 
of the labor] 01! sn ess of their office ; it is 
partly on this account, but chiefly on 
account of my health, that I have been 
obliged to decline every offer of this 
sort. 



LETTER XIV. 

Dr. Beattie to Mrs. Montagu. 

Aberdeen, 3d May, 1774, 
I AM greatly obliged and honoured by 
what the hierarchy have done, and are 
doing for me. Of Dr. Law's attack I 
shall take no further notice. 

I received a letter, two days ago, 
from Dr. Hurd*. It is a very kind 
letter, and much in praise of the '* Min- 
strel." Lord Chesterfield's Letters, he 
says, are well calculated for the purpose 
of teaching " manners without morals " 
to our young people of quality. This 
opinion I had indeed begun to forra con- 
cerning them, from some short extracts 
in the newspapers. In one of these ex- 
tracts I was greatly surprised to see 
such a pompous encomium on Boling- 
broke's Patriot King; which has always 
appeared to me a mere vox et praterea 
nihil. Plato was one of the first who 
introduced the fashion of giving us fine 
words instead of good sense ; in this, as 
in his other faults, he has been success- 
fully imitated by Shaftesbury ; but I , 
know not whether he, or any other au- J 
thor, has ever put together so many "' 
words, with so little meaning, as Boling- 
broke, in his papers on patriotism. 

Lord Monboddo's second volume has 
been published some time. It is, I 
think, much better than the first, and 
contains much learning, and not a little 
ingenuity : but can never be very inte- 
resting, except to those who aim at a 
grammatical and critical knowledge of 
the Greek tongue. Lord Kaimes's 
" Sketches" I have seen. They are 
not much different from what I ex- 
pected. A man who reads thirty years, 
with a view to collect facts in support 
of tvv^o or three whimsical theories, 
may, no doubt, collect a great number 
of facts, and make a very large book. 
The world will wonder when they hear 
of a modern philosopher, who seriously 
denies the existence of such a principle 
as universal benevolence; — a point of 
which no good man can entertain a 
doubt for a single moment. 

I am sorry for poor Goldsmith. There 
were some things in his temper which I 
did not like ; but I liked many things in 
his genius : and I was sorry to find, last 



* Afterwards lord bishop of Worcester. 



Sect. IV. 



REGENT 



«17 



summer, that he looked upon me as a 
person who seemed to stand between 
him and his interest. However, when 
next we meet, all this will be forgotten ; 
and the jealousy of authors, which Dr. 
Gregory used to say was next in ran- 
cour to that of physicians, will be no 
more. 

I am glad that you are pleased with 
the additional stanzas of the second 
canto of the " Minstrel;" but I fear 
you are too indulgent. How it will be 
relished by the public, 1 cannot even 
guess. 1 know all its faults : but I can- 
not remedy them, for they are faults in 
the first concoction; they result from 
the imperfection of the plan. I am 
much obliged to you, madam, for advis- 
ing that two copies should be presented 
to their majesties ; which, Dilly writes 
me word, has been done by my good 
friend Dr. Majendie. This honour I 
meant to have solicited when the second 
edition came out, which will be soon. 
My reason for this delay was, that the 
fiirst edition having been put to the press, 
and some sheets of it printed off before I 
knew, I had it not in my power to order 
any copies on fine paper. But it is bet- 
ter as it is : the paper of the copy I have 
is not at all amiss. 

My " Essay on Laughter" advances 
but slowly. I have all my materials at 
hand ; but my health obliges me to la- 
bour very moderately in reducing them 
into order. I am very unwilling to re- 
linquish the hope of receiving from you, 
madam, some assistance in completing 
my volume. I beg you will think of it. 
Perhaps you may find more leisure when 
you come into the north. 

Mr. Mason has never answered the 
letter I wrote to him, concerning the 
subscription. 1 guessed from the tenor 
of his letters, that he is (as you say) out 
of humour with the Avorld. Mr. Dilly 
writes me word, that he says he is 
tempted to throw his Life of Mi\ Gray 
(which is now finished, or nearly so) 
into the fire, so much is he dissatisfied 
with the late decision on literary pro- 
perty. By the way, I heartily wish 
the legislature may, by a new law, set 
this matter on a proper footing. Lite- 
rature must suffer, if this decision re- 
mains unobviated. 



LETTER XV. 

The Rev. Dr. Porteus to Dr. Beattie. 

Hunton, near Maidstone, Kent, 
July 24, 1774. 

I am desired, by one of the episcopal 
bench*, whose name I am not yet at 
liberty to mention, to ask you, whether 
you have any objections to taking orders 
in the Church of England. If you have 
not, there is a living now vacant in his 
gift, worth near five hundred pounds a- 
year, which will be at your service. 

Be pleased to send me your answer t» 
this, as soon as possible, and direct it to 
me at Peterborough, in Northampton- 
shire, where I shall probably be, before 
your letter can reach me. 1 feel myself 
happy in being the instrument of com- 
municating to you so honourable and 
advantageous a proof of that esteem, 
which your literary labours have secured 
to you amongst all ranks of people. 

LETTER XVI. 

Dr. Beattie to the Rev. Dr. Porteus. 

Peterhead, Aug. 4, 1774. 
I HAVE made many efforts to express, in 
something like adequate language, my 
grateful sense of the honour done me by 
the right reverend prelate, who makes 
the offer conveyed to me in your most 
friendly letter of the 24th July. But 
every new effort serves only to convince 
me, 'more and more, how unequal I am 
to the task. 

When 1 consider the extraordinary 
reception which my weak endeavours in 
the cause of truth have met with, and 
compare the greatness of my success 
with the insignificance of my merit ; 
what reasons have I not to be thankful 
and humble ! to be ashamed that I have 
done so little public service, and to re- 
gret that so little is in viy power ! to 
rouse every power of my nature to pur- 
poses of benevolent tendency, in order 
to justify, by my intentions at least, the 
unexampled generosity of my benefac- 
tors ! 

My religious opinions would, no doubt, 
if I were to declare them, sufficiently 
account for, and vindicate, my becoming 
a member of the Church of England : 
and I flatter myself, that my studies, 



* Dr. Thouias, bishop ofVVinchestcr. 



618 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



way of life, and habits of thinking, have 
always been such as would not disqua- 
lify me for an ecclesiastical profession. 
If I were to become a clergyman, the 
Church of England would certainly be 
my choice ; as I think, that, in regard 
to church government, and church ser- 
vice, it has many great and peculiar ad- 
vantages. And 1 am' so far from having 
any natural disinclination to holy or- 
ders, that I have several times, at differ- 
ent periods of my life, been disposed to 
enter into them, and have directed my 
studies accordingly. Various accidents, 
however, prevented me ; some of them 
pretty remarkable, and such as I think 
I might, without presumption, ascribe 
to a particular interposition of Provi- 
dence. 

The offer, now made me, is great and 
generous beyond all expectation. I am 
well aware of all the advantages and ho- 
Bours that would attend my accepting, 
and yet I find myself obliged, in con- 
science, to decline it ; as I lately did 
another of the same kind (though not so 
considerable) that was made me, on the 
part of another English gentleman. The 
reasons which did then, and do now, de- 
termine me, I beg leave, sir, briefly to 
lay before you. 

I wrote the " Essay on Truth," with 
the certain prospect of raising many 
enemies, with very faint hopes of at- 
tracting the public attention, and with- 
out any views of advancing my for- 
tune. I published it, however, because 
I thought it might probably do a little 
good, by bringing to nought, or at least 
lessening the reputation of, that wretch- 
ed system of sceptical philosophy, which 
had made a most alarming progress, and 
done incredible mischief to this coun- 
try. My enemies have been at great 
pains to represent my views, in that 
publication, as very different: and that 
my principal or only motive was to 
make a book, and, if possible, to raise 
myself higher in the world. So that, if 
I were now to accept preferment in the 
church, I should be apprehensive that I 
might strengthen the hands of the gain- 
say er, and give the world some ground 
to believe, that my love of truth was not 
quite so ardent, or so pure, as I had pre- 
tended. 

Besides, might it not have the ap- 
pearance of levity and insincerity, and, 
by some, be construed into a want of 



principle, if I were at these years (for 
I am now thirty-eight) to make such 
an important change in my way of life, 
and to quit, with no other apparent mo- 
tive than that of bettering my circum- 
stances, that church of which 1 have 
hitherto been a member? If my book 
has any tendency to do good, as I flatter 
myself it has, I would not, for the 
wealth of the Indies, do any thing to 
counteract that tendency ; and I am 
afraid, that tendency might in some 
measure be counteracted (at least in 
this country), if I were to give the 
adversary the least ground to charge 
me with inconsistency. It is true, that 
the force of my reasonings cannot be 
really affected by my character ; truth 
is truth, whoever be the speaker : but 
even truth itself becomes less respecta- 
ble, when spoken, or supposed to be 
spoken, by insincere lips. 

It has also been hinted to me, by 
several persons of very sound judgment, 
that what I have written, or may here- 
after write, in favour of religion, has 
a chance of being more attended to, if I 
continue a layman, than if I were to be- 
come a clergyman. Nor am I with- 
out apprehensions (though some of my 
friends think them ill-founded), that, 
from entering so late in life, and from 
so remote a province, into the Church of 
England, some degree of ungracefulness, 
particularly in pronunciation, might ad- 
here to my performances in public, suf- 
ficient to render them less pleasing, and 
consequently less useful. 

Most of these reasons were repeatedly 
urged upon me, during my stay in Eng- 
land, last summer ; and I freely own, 
that, the more I consider them, the more 
weight they seem to have. And from 
the peculiar manner in which the king 
has been graciously pleased to distin- 
guish me, and from other circumstances, 
I have some ground to presume, that it 
is his majesty's pleasure that I should 
continue where I am, and employ my 
leisure hours in prosecuting the studies 
I have begun. This I can find time to 
do more effectually in Scotland than in 
England, and in Aberdeen than in Edin- 
burgh ; which, by the bye, was one of 
my chief reasons for declining the Edin- 
burgh professorship. The business of 
my professorship here is indeed toilsome ; 
but I have, by fourteen years' practice, 
made myself so much master of it, that 



Sect. IV. 



RECENT. 



61^ 



it now requires little mental labour ; and 
our long- summer vacation, of seven 
months, leaves me at my own disposal, 
for the greatest and best part of the 
year : a situation favourable to literary 
projects, and now become necessary to 
my health. 

Soon after my return home, in au- 
tumn last, I had occasion to write to the 
archbishop of York on this subject. I 
specified my reasons for giving up all 
thoughts of church preferment ; and his 
grace was pleased to approve of them % 
nay, he condescended so far as to say, 
they did me honour. I told hi& grace,, 
moreover, that 1 had already given a 
great deal of trouble to ray noble and 
generous patrons in England, and could 
not think of being any longer a burden 
to them, now that his majesty had so 
graciously and so generously made for 
me a provision equal to my wishes, and 
such as puts it in my power to obtain^ 
in Scotland; every convenience of life to 
which I have any title, or any inclination 
to aspire. 

I must, therefore, make it my request 
to you, that you would present my hum- 
ble respects, and most thankful acknow- 
ledgments, to the eminent person at 
whose desire you wrote your last letter 
(whose name I hope you will not be un- 
der the necessity of concealing from me), 
and assure him, that, though I have 
taken the liberty to decline his generous 
offer, I shall, to the last hour of my life, 
preserve a most grateful remembrance 
of the honour he has condescended to 
confer upon me ; and, to prove myself 
not altogether unwortliy of his good- 
ness, shall employ that health and leisure 
which Providence may hereafter afford 
me, in opposing infidelity, heresy, and 
error, and in promoting sound litera- 
ture, and Christian truth, to the utmost 
of my power. 



LETTER XVII. 

Dr. Beattie to the Rev. Dr. Porteus. 

Aberdeen, March 4, 1775. 
I HAVE just finished a hasty perusal of 
Dr. Johnson's " Journey." It contains 
many things worthy of the author, and 
is, on the whole, very entertaining. His 
account of the Isles, is, I dare say, 
very just; I never was there, and there- 



fore can say nothing of them, from my 
own knowledge. His accounts of so7ne 
facts, relating to other parts of Scot- 
land, are not unexceptionable. Either 
he must have been misinformed, or he 
must have misunderstood his informer, 
in regard to several of his remarks on 
the improvement of the country. I am 
surprised at one of his mistakes, which 
leads him once or twice into perplexity, 
and false conjecture : he seems not to 
have known, that, in the common lan- 
guage of Scotland, Irish and Earse are 
both used to denote the speech of the 
Scots Highlanders ; and are as much 
synonymous (at least in many parts of the 
kingdom) as Scotch and Scottish. Irish 
is generally thought the genteeler appel- 
lation, and Earse the vulgar and collo- 
quial. His remarks on the trees of Scot- 
land must greatly surprise a native. In 
some of our provinces, trees cannot be 
reared by any method of cultivation we 
have yet discovered ; in some, where 
trees flourish extremely well, they are 
not much cultivated, because they are 
not necessary : but in others, we have 
store of wood, and forests of great ex- 
tent, and of great antiquity. I am sorry 
to see in Johnson some asperities, that 
seem to be the effect of national preju- 
dice. If he thinks himself thoroughly 
acquainted with the character of the 
Scots as a nation, he is greatly mistaken. 
The Scots have virtues, and the Scots 
have faults, of which he seems to have 
had no particular information. 1 am 
one of those, who wish to see the English 
spirit and English manners prevail over 
the whole island ; for I think the Eng- 
lish have a generosity and openness of 
nature, which many of us want. But 
we are not all, without exception, a na- 
tion of cheats and liars, as Johnson 
seems willing to believe, and to repre- 
sent us. Of the better sort of our peo- 
ple, the character is just the reverse. I 
admire Johnson's genius ; I esteem him 
for his virtues ; I shall ever cherish a 
grateful remembrance of the civilities I 
have received from him : I have often, in 
this country, exerted myself in defence 
both of his character and writings : but 
there are in this book several things 
which I cannot defend. His unbelief in 
regard to Ossian I am not surprised at; 
but I wonder greatly at his credulity in 
regard to the second sight. I caimot 
iraa^'ine on what {irounds he could say. 



620 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



that, in the universities of Scotland, every 
master of arts may he a doctor when he 
pleases. I never heard of such a thing, 
and I have been connected Avith our uni- 
versities ever since I was a boy. Our 
method of giving doctor's degrees I do 
not approve of; but we proceed on a 
principle quite different from what Dr. 
Johnson mentions. 



LETTER XVIIL 

Mrs. Montagu to Dr. Beattie. 

Tunbridgc Wells, Sept. 3, 1773. 
It was not without trembling and hor- 
ror 1 read the account of your overturn, 
and the dangerous circumstances with 
which it was attended. The traveller 
who is obliged to traverse a pathless 
wilderness, or in a frail boat to cross the 
angry ocean, devoutly prays to the 
Omnipotent to assist and preserve him ; 
the occasion awakens his fears, and ani- 
mates his devotion : but it is only from 
experience and reflection we are taught 
to consider every day, which passes in 
safety and closes in peace, as a mercy. 
If I had known, when you had set out 
from Denton, how near to a precipice 
you would have been thrown, I should 
more earnestly have prayed for your pre- 
servation through the journey : but the 
incident at once makes me sensible, that 
our safety depends not on the road, but 
the hand that upholds and guides us. 

I left Denton the first day of August. 
On the second, by noon, 1 reached the 
episcopal palace of our friend, the arch- 
bishop of York'^, at Bishop's Thorpe. I 
had before visited him at his family seat 
at Brodsworth. The man, who has a 
character of his own, is little changed 
by varying his situation : I can only say, 
that at his family seat I found him the 
most of a prelate of any gentleman, and, 
at his palace, the most of a gentleman I 
had ever seen. Native dignity is the 
best ground work of assumed and spe- 
cial dignity. We talked a great deal of 
you ; the subject was copious and plea- 
sant. We considered you, as a poet, 
with admiration ; as a philosopher, with 
respect ; as a Christian, with veneration ; 
and as a friend, with affection. His 
grace's health is not quite what we could 

* Hon. ]:)r. Hay Drumniond, at that tir^e 
archbishop of York. 



wish. I could indulge myself in no 
longer than one day's delay at Bishop's 
Thorpe. I then made the best of my 
way to London, and, after a very short 
stay there, came to Tunbridge. I have 
the happiness of having Mrs. Carter in 
my house, and Mrs. Vesey is not at a 
quarter of a mile's distance : thus, though 
1 live secluded from the general world, I 
have the society of those I love best. I 
propose to stay here about three weeks, 
then I return to London, to prepare for 
my expedition to the south of France. I 
have written to a gentleman at Montau- 
ban to endeavour to get for me a large 
house in any part of that town. I am as- 
sured that the climate of Montauban is 
very delightful ; the air is dry, but not 
piercing, as at Montpelier. There is but 
little society ; but there are some provin- 
cial noblesse, amongst whom I hope to 
find some who are more in the ton of 
Louis XIV's court, than 1 should at 
Versailles. It is long before the polish- 
ed manners of a court arrive at the dis- 
tant regions of a great country ; but 
when there, they acquire a permanent 
establishment. At Paris, the minister, 
or the favourite of the day, is taken for 
the model, and there is a perpetual 
change of manners. I think with some 
pleasures of escaping the gloom of our 
winter and the bustle of London, and 
passing my time in the blessings of cheer- 
ful tranquillity and soft sunshine : at 
the same time, there is something pain- 
ful in removing so far from one's dearest 
friends. 

I wish much to see the verses on the 
pretty incident of the dove's alighting 
on Shakspeare's statue. Of whatever 
nature and disposition the animal had 
been, he might have been presented as a 
symbol of Shakspeare. The gravity and 
deep thought of the bird of wisdom ; the 
sublime flight of the eagle to the starry 
regions and the throne of Jove ; the 
pensive song of the nightingale, when 
she shuns the noise of folly, and soothes 
the midnight visionary ; the pert jack- 
daw, that faithfully repeats the chit- 
chat of the market or the shop ; the 
sky lark, that, soaring, seems to sing to 
the denizens of the air, and set her mu- 
sic to the tone of beings of another re- 
gion — would all assort with the genius 
of universal Shakspeare. 



Sect. lY. 



REGENT. 



621 



LETTER XIX. 

Dr. Seattle to Mrs. Montagu. 

Aberdeen, September \1, 1175. 
Your reflections on the little disas- 
ter, with which our journey conclud- 
ed, exactly coincide with mine. I 
agree with Hawkesworth, that the peril 
and the deliverance are equally provi- 
dential ; and I wonder he did not see, 
that both the one and the other may be 
productive of the very best efl'ects. These 
little accidents and trials are necessary 
to put us in mind of that superintend- 
ing- goodness, to which we are indebted 
for every breath we draw, and of which, 
in the hour of tranquillity, many of us 
are too apt to be forgetful. But you, 
madam, forget nothing which a Chris- 
tian ought to remember ; and therefore 
I hope and pray that Providence may 
defend you from every alarm. By the 
way, there are several things, besides 
that preface to which I just now referred, 
ill the writings of Hawkesworth, that 
shew an unaccountable perplexity of 
mind in regard to some of the princi- 
ples of natural religion. I observed, in 
his conversation, that he took a pleasure 
in ruminating upon riddles, and puz- 
zling questions and calculations ; and 
he seems to have carried something of 
the same temper into his moral and theo- 
logical researches. His " Almoran and 
Hamet" is a strange confused narrative, 
and leaves upon the mind of the reader 
some disagreeable impressions in regard 
to the ways of providence ; and from the 
theory of pity, which he has given us 
somewhere in the '* Adventurer," one 
would suspect that he was no enemy to 
the philosophy of Hobbes. However, I 
am disposed to impute all this rather to 
a vague way of thinking, than to any 
perversity of heart or understanding. 
Only I wish, that in his last work he 
had been more ambitious to tell the 
plain truth, than to deliver to the world 
a wonderful story. I confess, that from 
the first I was inclined to consider his 
vile portrait of the manners of Otaheite 
as in part fictitious ; and I am now as- 
sured, upon the very best authority, that 
Dr. Solander disavows some of those 
narrations, or at least declares them to 
be grossly misrepresented. There is, in 
almost all the late books of travels I 
have ^een, a disposition on the part of 



the author to recommend licentious 
theories. I would not object to the truth 
of any fact, that is warranted by the tes- 
timony of competent witnesses. But 
how few of our travellers are competent 
judges of the facts they relate ! How few 
of them know any thing accurately of 
the language of those nations, whose 
laws, religion, and moral sentiments, they 
pretend to describe ! And how few of 
them are free from that inordinate love 
of the marvellous, which stimulates 
equally the vanity of the writer, and the 
curiosity of the reader ! Suppose a Ja- 
panese crew to arrive in England, take 
in wood and water, exchange a few 
commodities ; and, after a stay of three 
months, to set sail for their own coun- 
try, and there set forth a his^tory of the 
English government, religion, and man- 
ners : it is, I think, highly probable, 
that, for one truth, they would deliver 
a score of falsehoods. But Europeans, 
it will be said, have more sagacity, and 
know more of mankind. Be it so : but 
this advantage is not without inconve- 
niences, sufficient perhaps to counter- 
balance it. When a European arrives in 
any remote part of the globe, the na- 
tives, if they know any thing of his coun- 
try, will be apt to form no favourable 
opinion of his intentions, with regard to 
their liberties ; if they know nothing of 
him, they will yet keep aloof, on ac- 
count of his strange language, com- 
plexion, and accoutrements. In either 
case he has little chance of understand- 
ing their laws, manners, and principles 
of action, except by a long residence in 
the country, which would not suit the 
views of one traveller in five thousand. 
He therefore picks up a few strange 
plants and animals, which he may do 
with little trouble or danger ; and, at 
his return to Europe, is welcomed by 
the literati, as a philosophic traveller of 
most accurate observation, and unques- 
tionable veracity. He describes, per- 
haps, with tolerable exactness, the soils, 
plants, and other irrational curiosities of 
the new country, which procures credit 
to what he has to say of the people ; 
though his accuracy in describing the 
material phrenomena is no proof of his 
capacity to explain the moral. One can 
easily dig to the root of a plant, but it is 
not so easy to penetrate the motive of an 
action : and till the motive of an action 
be known, we are no competent judges 



m2 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



of its morality ; and in many cases the 
motive of an action is not to be known 
witho\it a most intimate knowledge of 
the language and manners of the agent. 
Our traveller then delivers a few facts 
of the moral kind, which perhaps he does 
not understand, and from them draws 
some inferences suitable to the taste of 
the times, or to a favourite hypothesis. 
He tells us of a. Californian, who sold 
his bed in a morning, and came wdth 
tears in his eyes to beg it back at night ; 
whence he very wisely infers, that the 
poor Californians are hardly one degree 
above the brutes in understanding, for 
that they have neither foresight nor me- 
mory sufficient to direct their conduct 
on the most common occasions of life. 
In a word, they are quite a different 
species of animal from the European 5 
and it is a gross mistake to think, that 
all mankind are descended from the same 
first parents. But one needs not go so 
far as to California, in quest of men 
who sacrifice a future good to a present 
gratification. In the metropolis of Great 
Britain one may meet with many re- 
puted Christians, who would act the 
same part, for the pleasure of carousing 
half a day in a gin-shop. Again, to il- 
lustrate the same important truth, that 
man is a beast, or very little better, 
we are told of another nation, on the 
banks of the Orellana, so wonderfully 
stupid, that they cannot reckon beyond 
the number three, but point to the hair 
of their head whenever they would sig- 
nify a greater number ; as if four, and 
four thousand, were to them equally in- 
conceivable. But, whence it comes to 
pass, that these people are capable of 
speech, or of reckoning at all, even so 
far as to three, is a difficulty of which 
our historian attempts not the solution. 
But, till he shall solve it, I must beg 
leave to tell him, that the one half of his 
tale contradicts the other, as effectually 
as if he had told us of a people, who 
were so weak as to be incapable of bodi- 
ly exertion, and yet that he had seen 
one of them lift a stone of a hundred 
weight. — 1 beg your pardon, madam, for 
running into this subject. The truth 
is, I was lately thinking to write upon 
it ; but I shall not have leisure these 
many months. 

Take no farther concern about your 
dwarf. The person, whom you honour 
with your noHce, I shall always think it 



my duty to care for, I have let it be 
known in the town what you have done 
for him ; which 1 hope will be a spur 
to the generosity of others. He has 
paid me but one visit as yet. His wants 
are few ; and he seems to be modest as 
well as magnanimous. Both virtues cer- 
tainly entitle him to consideration. 

I have not yet seen the verses on 
Shakespeare and the dove. One thing I 
am certain of, which is, that they will 
contain nothing so much to the purpose, 
or so elegant, as what you have said on 
the occasion in prose. You justly re- 
mark, that any bird of character, from 
the eagle to the sky-lark, from the owl 
to the mock-bird, might symbolize with 
one or other of the attributes of that 
universal genius. But, do not you think 
that his dove-like qualities are among 
those on which he now reflects with pe- 
culiar complacency? And I think it 
could be shewn, from many things in 
his writings, that he resembled the dove 
as much as the eagle. There are no 
Surly fellows among his favourite cha- 
racters : and he seems to excel himself 
in the delineation of a good-natured one. 
Witness his Brutus, who is indeed fi- 
nished con (unore ; and who, in gentle- 
ness of nature, exceeds even the Brutus 
of the good-natured Plutarch, as this 
last exceeded, by many degrees (if we 
are to believe some creditable historians), 
the true original Brutus, who fell at 
Philippi. There are besides, in the writ- 
ings of Shakespeare, innumerable pas- 
sages, that bespeak a mind peculiarly at- 
tentive to the rights of humanity and 
to the feelings of animal nature. Lear, 
when his distress is at the highest, sym- 
pathises with those, who, amidst the 
pinchings of want and nakedness, are 
exposed to the tempestuous elements. I 
need not put you in mind of the poor 
sequestered stag in "As you like it;" 
nor need I say more on a subject with 
which you are much better acquainted 
than I am. 



LETTER XX. 

Dr. Beattie to the Honourable Mr. Baron 
Gordon. 

Aberdeen, Gth February, 1776. 
I HAVE been very much employed in pre- 
paring some little things of mine for 



Sect. IV. 



RECENT. 



623 



the press ; otherwise I should sooner have 
acknowledged the favour of your most 
obliging letter. 

The last time I read Virgil, I took it 
into my head, that the tenth and ele- 
venth books of the ^neid were not so 
highly finished as the rest. Every body 
knows that the last six books are less 
perfect than the first six ; and I fancied 
that some of the last six came nearer to 
perfection than others. I cannot now 
recollect my reasons for this conceit ; 
but I propose to read the ^neid again, 
as soon as I have got rid of this publica- 
tion ; and I hope I shall then be in a 
condition to give something of a reason- 
able answer to any question you may do 
me the honour to propose in regard to 
that matter. 

I do not mean that the tenth or ele- 
venth books are at all imperfect ; I only 
mean, that they fall short of Virgilian 
perfection. And many passages there 
are in both, which Virgil himself could 
not, in my opinion, have made better. 
Such are the story of Mezentius and 
Lausus, in the end of the tenth book ; 
and that passage in the eleventh, where 
old Evander meets the dead body of his 
son. Mezentius is a character of Vir- 
gil's own contrivance, and it is extremely 
well drawn : an old tyrant, hated by 
his people on account of his impiety 
and cruelty, yet graced with one ami- 
able virtue, which is sometimes found in 
very rugged minds, a tender affection for 
a most deserving son. Filial affection is 
one of those virtues which Virgil dwells 
upon with peculiar pleasure ; he never 
omits any opportunity of bringing it in, 
and he always paints it in the most lovely 
colours. JEneas, Ascanius, Euryalus, 
Lausus, are all eminent for this virtue ; 
and Turnus, when he asks his life, asks 
it only for the sake of his poor old 
father. Let a young man read the iEneid 
with taste and attention, and then be an 
undutiful child if he can. I think there 
is nothing very distinguishing in Camilla. 
Perhaps it is not easy to imagine more 
than one form of that character. The 
adventures of her early youth are, how- 
ever, highly interesting and wildly ro- 
mantic. The circumstance of her being, 
when an infant, thrown across a river, 
tied to a javelin, is so very singular, that 
I should suppose Virgil had found it in 
some history ; and, if I mistake not, 
Plutarch has told such a story of king 



Pyrrhus. The battle of the horse, in the 
end of the eleventh book, is well con- 
ducted, considering that Virgil was there 
left to his shifts, and had not Homer to 
assist him. The speeches of Drances and 
Turnus are highly animated ; and no- 
thing could be better contrived to raise 
our idea of ^Eneas than the answer which 
Diomede gives to the ambassadors from 
the Italian army. 

I ought to ask pardon for troubling 
you with these superficial remarks. But 
a desire to approve myself wortliy of be- 
ing honoured with your commands, has 
led me into a subject for which I am not 
at present prepared. When I have the 
pleasure to pay my respects to you at 
Cluny, which I hope will be early in 
the summer, 1 shall be glad to talk over 
these matters, and to correct my opi- 
nions by yours. 



LETTER XXI. 

Dr. Beattic to the Duchess of Gordon, 

Aberdeen, 10th January, 1779, 
Major Mercer made me very happy 
with the news he brought from Gordon 
castle, particularly when he assured me 
that your grace was in perfect health. 
He told me too, that your solitude was 
at an end for some time ; which, I con- 
fess, I was not sorry to hear. Seasons 
of recollection may be useful ; but when 
one begins to find pleasure in sighing 
over Young's " Night Thoughts" in a 
corner, it is time to shut the book, and 
return to the company. I grant, that, 
while the mind is in a certain state, those 
gloomy ideas give exquisite delight ; but 
their effect resembles that of intoxication 
upon the body ; they may produce a 
temporary fit of feverish exultation, but 
qualms, and weakened nerves, and de- 
pression of spirits, are the consequence. 
I have great respect for Dr. Young, both 
as a man and as a poet ; I used to de- 
vour his " Night Thoughts" with a sa- 
tisfaction not unlike that, which, in my 
younger years, I have found in walking 
alone in a churchyard, or in a wild 
mountain, by the light of the moon, at 
midnight. Such things may help to soften 
a rugged mind ; and I believe I might 
have been the better for them. But 
your grace's heart is already " too feel- 
ingly alive to each fine impulse ;" and, 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



therefore, to you I would recommend 
gay thoughts, cheerful hooks, and 
sprightly company: I might have said 
company without any limitation, for 
wherever you are the company must be 
sprightly. Excuse this obtrusion of ad- 
vice. We are all physicians who have 
arrived at forty ; and as T have been 
studying the anatomy of the human 
mind these fifteen years and upwards, I 
think I ought to be something of a soul- 
doctor by this time. 

When I first read Young, my heart was 
broken to think of the poor man's afflic- 
tions. Afterwards, I took it in my head, 
that where there was so much lamenta- 
tion there could not be excessive suffer- 
ing ; and I could not help applying to 
him sometimes those lines of a song, 

" Believe me, the shepherd but feigns 
He's wretched, to shew he has wit." 

On talking with some of Dr. Young's 
particular friends in England, I have 
since found that my conjecture was right ; 
for that while he was composing the 
" Night Thoughts" he was really as 
cheerful as any other man. 

I well know the effect of what your 
grace expresses so properly, of a cold 
yes returned to a warm sentiment. One 
meets with it often in company ; and, in 
most companies, with nothing else. And 
yet it is perhaps no great loss, upon the 
whole, that one's enthusiasm does not 
always meet with an adequate return. A 
disappointment of this sort, now and 
then, may have upon the mind an efifect 
something like that of the cold bath upon 
the body ; it gives a temporary shock, 
but is followed by a very delightful glow 
as soon as one gets into a society of the 
right temperature. They resemble too 
in another respect. A cool companion 
may be disagreeable at first, but in a 
little time he becomes less so ; and at 
our first plunge we are impatient to get 
out of the bath, but if we stay in it a 
minute or two, we lose the sense of its 
extreme coldness. Would not your grace 
think, from what I am saying, or rather 
preaching, that I was the most social man 
upon earth ? And yet I am become al- 
most an hermit : I have not made four 
visits these four months. Not that I am 
running away, or have any design to run 
away, from the world. It is, I rather 
think, the world that is running away 



No character was ever more fully or 
more concisely drawn than that of ma- 
jor Mercer by your grace. I was cer- 
tain you would like him the more, the 
longer you knew him. With more learn- 
ing than any other man of my acquaint- 
ance, he has all the playfulness of a 
schoolboy ; and unites the wit and the 
wisdom of Montesquieu, with the sensi- 
bility of Rousseau, and the generosity of 
Tom Jones. Your grace has likewise a 
very just idea of Mrs. Mercer. She is 
most amiable, and well accomplished ; 
and in goodness and generosity of na- 
ture is not inferior even to the major 
himself. I met her the other day, and 
was happy to find her in better health 
than I think she has been for some years. 
This will be most welcome news to the 
major. Pray, does your grace think 
that he blames me for not writing to him 
this great while ? The true reason is, 
that I have not had this great while any 
news to send him, but what 1 knew would 
give him pain ; and therefore I thought 
it better not to write, especially as we 
have been in daily expectation of seeing 
him here these several weeks. Will your 
grace take the trouble to tell him this ? 
There is no man to whom I have been 
so much obliged ; and, with one or two 
exceptions, there is no m.an or woman 
whom I love so well. 



LETTER XXIL 

Dr. Beattie to the Duchess of Gordon. 
Aberdeen, 5th July, 1779. 

I NOW sit down to make good the 
threatening denounced in the conclusion 
of a letter which I had the honour to 
write to your grace about ten days ago. 
The request I am going to make 1 shovild 
preface with many apologies, if I did not 
know, that the personage to whom I ad- 
dress myself is too well acquainted with 
all the good emotions of the human heart 
to blame the warmth of a schoolboy at- 
tachment, and too generous to think the 
worse of me for wishing to assist an 
unfortunate friend. 

Three weeks ago, as 1 was scribbling 
in my garret, a man entered, whom at 
first I did not know ; but, on his desir- 
ing me to look him in the face, I soon 
recollected an old friend, whom I had 
not seen and scarcely heard of thees 



Sect. IV^. 



R E C E N T. 



625 



twenty years. He and I lodged in the 
same house when we attended the school 
of Laurencekirk, in the year IJ^J. I 
was then about ten years old, and he 
about fifteen. As he took a great liking 
to me, he had many opportunities of 
obliging me ; having much more know- 
ledge of the world, as well as more bo- 
dily strength, than I. He was, besides, 
an ingenious mechanic, and made forme 
many little things : and it must not be 
forgotten, that he first put a violin in my 
hands, and gave me the only lessons in 
music I ever received. Four years after 
this period I went to college, and he en- 
gaged in farming. But our acquaint- 
ance was renewed about five years after, 
when I remember he made me the con- 
fidant of a passion he had for the greatest 
beauty in that part of the country, whom 
he soon after married. 

I was very glad to see my old friend 
so unexpectedly ; and we talked over 
many old stories, which, though interest- 
ing to us, would have given little plea- 
sure to any body else. But my satisfac- 
tion was soon changed to regret, when, 
upon inquiring into the particulars of his 
fortune during these twenty years, I 
found he had been very unsuccessful. 
His farming projects had miscarried ; 
and happening to give some offence to a 
young woman, who was called the house- 
keeper of a gentleman on whom he de- 
pended, she swore she would be revenged, 
to his ruin ; and was as good as her 
word. He satisfied his creditors by giv- 
ing them all his substance ; and, retiring 
to a small house in Jolmshaven *, made 
a shift to support his family by working 
as a joiner ; a trade which, when a boy, 
he had picked up for his amusement. 
But a consumptive complaint overtook 
him ; and, though he got the better of it, 
he has never since been able to do any 
thing that requires labour, and can now 
only make fiddles, and some such little 
matters, for which there is no great de- 
mand in the place where he lives. He 
told me he had come to Aberdeen on 
purpose to put me in mind of our old 
acquaintance, and see whether I could 
do any thing for him. I asked, in what 
respect he wished me to sei-ve him. He 
would do any thing, he said, for his fa- 
mily that was not dishonourable : and, 
on pressing him a little further, I found 

* A small fishing town in the county of Kin- 
cardine. 



that the height of his ambition was to be 
a tide-waiter, a land-waiter, or an offi- 
cer of excise. I told him, it was par- 
ticularly unlucky that I had not the least 
influence, or even acquaintance, with 
any one commissioner, either of the ex- 
cise or customs : but, as I did not care 
to discourage him, I promised to think of 
his case, and to do what I could. I have 
since seen a clergyman, who knows my 
friend very well, and describes his con- 
dition as still more forlorn than he had 
represented it. 

It is in behalf of this poor man, that I 
now venture to implore your grace's ad- 
vice and assistance. I am well aware, 
that though his case is very interesting 
to me, there is nothing extraordinary in 
it, and that your grace must often be 
solicited for others in like circumstances. 
It is, therefore, with the utmost reluct- 
ance that I have taken this liberty. If 
your grace thinks that an application 
from me to Mr. Baron Gordon might be 
sufficient to procure one of the offices in 
question for my friend, I would not wish 
you to have any trouble ; but if my ap- 
plication were enforced by yours, it would 
have a better chance to succeed. This, 
however, I do not request, if it is not so 
easy to your grace as to be almost a 
matter of indifference. 

By the first convenient opportunity I 
hope to send your grace a sort of cu- 
riosity — four elegant Pastorals, by a 
Quaker ; not one of our Quakers of 
Scotland, but a true English Quaker, 
who says thee and thou, and comes into 
a room, and sits down in company, with- 
out taking off his hat. For all this, he 
is a very worthy man, an elegant scho- 
lar, a cheerful companion, and a par- 
ticular friend of mine. His name is 
John Scott, of Amwell, near Ware, Hert- 
fordshire, where he lives in an elegant 
retirement (for his fortune is very good) ; 
and has dug in a chalk-hill, near his 
house, one of the most curious grottos 
I have ever seen. As it is only twenty 
miles from London, I would recommend 
it to your grace, when you are there, 
as worth going to visit. Your grace 
will be pleased with his Pastorals, not 
only on account of their morality and 
sweet versification, but also for their 
images and descriptions, which are a 
very exact picture of the groves, Avoods, 
waters, and windmills, of that part of 
England where he resides. 
2S 



ELEGANT E F I 8 T I. E S. 



Book IV, 



LETTER XXIIl. 

Dr. Beattie to the Duchess of Gordon. 

Whitehall, 16th May, 1781. 
I HAVE seen most of the fashionable 
curiosities ; hut will not trouble your 
grace with any particular account of 
them. The exhibition of pictures at the 
Royal Academy is the best of the kind I 
have seen. The best pieces, in my opi- 
nion, are, Thais (with a torch in her 
hand) ; the Death of Dido ; and a Boy 
supposed to be listening to a wonderful 
story ; these three by sir Joshua Rey- 
nolds : a Shepherd Boy, by Gainsbo- 
rough ; some landscapes, by Barrett. 
Christ healing the Sick, by West, is a 
prodigious great work, and has in it great 
variety of expression ; but there is a 
glare and a hardness in the colouring, 
which makes it look more like a picture 
than like nature. Gainsborough's pic- 
ture of the King is the strongest likeness 
I have ever seen ; his Queen too is very 
well : but he has not given them atti- 
tudes becoming their rank ; the King has 
his hat in his hand, and the Queen looks 
as if she were going to curtsey in the 
beginning of a minuet. Others may 
think differently ; I give my own opi- 
nion. 

There is nothing at either playhouse 
that is in the least captivating ; nor, I 
think, one player, Mrs. Abingdon ex- 
cepted, whom one would wish to see a 
second time. I was shocked at Leoni, 
in " Had I a heart for falsehood," &c. 
A man singing with a woman's voice 
sounds as unnatural to me as a woman 
singing with a man's. Either may do in 
a private company, where it is enough 
if people are diverted ; but on a stage, 
where nature ought to be imitated, both 
are, in my opinion, intolerable. 

Johnson's new " Lives "are published. 
He is, as your grace heard he would be, 
very severe on my poor friend Gray. 
His life of Pope is excellent ; and in all 
his lives there is merit, as they contain a 
great variety of sound criticism and pleas- 
ing information. He has not done jus- 
tice to lord Lyttelton. He has found 
means to pay me a very great compli- 
ment, for which I am much obliged to 
him, in speaking of Mr. Gray's journey 
into Scotland in 1765. 

Copley's picture of Lord Chatham's 
Death is an exhibition of itself. It is 



a vast collection of portraits, some of 
them very like ; but, excepting three 
or four of the personages present, few 
t)f this vast assembly seem to be much 
affected with the great event; which 
divests the picture of its unity, and will 
in the next age make it cease to be in- 
teresting. 



LETTER XXIV. 

Dr. Beattie to Sir William Forbes. 

Hunton, near Maidstone, Kent, 
14th July, 1784. 

I AM now, my dear sir, arrived at a 
place where external nature wears a 
face of the most profound tranquillity ; 
and sit down to thank you for your two 
last letters, which came to hand the day 
before 1 left the town. It is so far for- 
tunate, that Mrs. B.'s removal to Mus- 
selburgh was attended with so little in- 
convenience. My confidence in your 
friendship and goodness entirely satisfies 
me that you will soon put matters on a 
right footing. I lament, indeed, that 
your attention to me and mine should 
give you so much trouble ; but the con- 
sciousness of doing good to the unfor- 
tunate and forlorn will in part reward 
you ; and no mind ever possessed that 
consciousness in a more exquisite de- 
gree than yours has reason to do. 

The hot weather made London so dis- 
agreeable, that I was obliged to leave it 
before I had seen all my friends : I must 
make a longer stay when I return thi- 
ther. I wish I had time and capacity to 
give you a description of this parsonage. 
It is delightfully situated about half way 
down a hill fronting the south, about a 
mile from Coxheath. My windows com- 
mand a prospect extending southward 
about twelve miles, and from east to west 
not less, I suppose, than forty. In this 
whole space I do not see a single speck 
of ground that is not in the highest de- 
gree cultivated ; for Coxheath is not in 
sight. The lawns in the neighbourhood, 
the hop-grounds, the rich verdure of the 
trees, and their endless variety, form a 
scenery so picturesque and so luxuriant, 
that it is not easy to fancy any thing 
finer. Add to this the cottages, churches, 
and villages, rising here and there among 
the trees, and scattered over the whole 
country ; clumps of oaks, and other 



Sect. IV. 



ii K C E N T. 



627 



lofty trees, disposed in ten thousand dif- 
ferent forms, and some of them visible 
in the horizon at the distance of more 
than ten miles ; and you will have some 
idea of the beauty of Hunton. The only 
thing wanting is the murmur of running 
water ; but we have some ponds and clear 
pools that glitter through the trees, and 
have a very pleasing effect. WitJi abun- 
dance of shade, we have no damp nor 
fenny ground : and though the country 
looks at a distance like one continued 
grove, the trees do not press upon us : 
indeed 1 do not at present see one that 
I could wish removed. There is no road 
within sight, the hedges that overhang 
the highways being very high ; so that 
we see neither travellers nor carriages, 
and indeed hardly any thing in motion ; 
which conveys such an idea of peace and 
quiet, as I think I never was conscious 
of before, and forms a most striking con- 
trast with the endless noise and restless 
multitudes of Piccadilly. 

But what pleases me most at Hunton 
is not now in view; for my friend, the 
bishop of Chester, is gone out a-riding. 
You are no stranger to the character of 
this amiable man. Mrs. Porteus is not 
less amiable. Their house is the mansion 
of peace, piety, and cheerfulness. The 
bishop has improved his parsonage and 
the grounds about it as much as they can 
be improved, and made it one of the 
pleasantest spots in England. The whole 
is bounded by a winding gravel walk, 
about half a mile in circumference. 
Close by lives a most agreeable lady, 
with whom we all breakfasted to-day. 
She is the widow of sir Roger Twisden, 
and, though not more than five-and- 
twenty, lives in this elegant retirement, 
and employs herself chiefly in the edu- 
cation of her daughter, a fine child of 
four years of age, who is mistress of her 
catechism, and reads wonderfully well. 
I expect soon to see our friend Mr. Lang- 
ton, as the bishop proposes to send him 
an invitation, Rochester being only ten 
miles off. Tunbridge Wells is fifteen 
miles the other way. 



PROM THE 
LETTKIIS OF SIR. WILLIAM JONFS. 



LETTER XXV. 

Mr, Jones (at the Age of Fourteen^ to 
his Sister. 

Dear sister, 
When I received your letter I was very 
concerned to hear the death of your 
friend Mr. Reynolds, which I consider 
as a piece of affliction common to us 
both. For although my knowledge of 
his name or character is of no long 
date, and though I never had any per- 
sonal acquaintance with him, yet (as you 
observe) we ought to regret the loss of 
every honourable man ; and if I had the 
pleasure of your conversation I would 
certainly give you any consolatory ad- 
vice that lay in my power, and make it 
my business to convince you what a real 
share I take in your chagrin. And yet, 
to reason philosophically, I cannot help 
thinking any grief upon a person's death 
very superfluous, and inconsistent with 
sense ; for what is the cause of our sor- 
row ? Is it because we hate the person 
deceased ? that were to imply strange 
contradiction, to express our joy by the 
common signs of sorrow. If, on the 
other hand, we grieve for one w^ho was 
dear to us, I should reply that we should, 
on the contrary, rejoice at his having 
left a state so perilous and uncertain as 
life is. The common strain is, " "Tis 
pity so virtuous a man should die :^' — 
but I assert the contrary ; and when I 
hecir the death of a person of merit, I 
cannot help reflecting, how happy he 
must be, who now takes the reward of 
his excellencies without the possibility 
of falling away from them, and losing the 
virtue which he professed ; on whose cha- 
racter death has fixed a kind of seal, and 
placed him out of the reach of vice and 
infamy ; for death only closes a man's 
reputation, and determines it as either 
good or bad. On the contrary, in life 
nothing is certain ; Avhilst any one is 
liable to alteration, we may possiltly be 
forced to retract our esteem for him, 
and some time or other he may appear 
to us as under a different light than 
Avhat he does at present ; for the life of 
no man can be pronounced either happy 
or miserable, virtuous or abandoned, be- 
2S2 



628 



ELEGANT EPISTLE S. 



Book IV. 



fore the conclusion of it. It was upon 
this reflection that Solon, being asked by 
Crcesus, a monarch of immense riches, 
Who was the happiest man ? answered, 
After your death I shall be able to de- 
termine. Besides, though a man should 
])ursiie a constant and determinate course 
of virtue, though he were to keep a re- 
gular symmetry and uniformity in his 
actions, and preserve the beauty of his 
reputation to the last, yet (while he 
lives) his very virtue may incur some 
evil imputation, and provoke a thousand 
murmurs of detraction ; for, believe me, 
ray dear sister, there is no instance of 
any virtue, or social excellence, which 
has not excited the envy of innumerable 
assailants, whose acrimony is raised 
barely by seeing others pleased, and by 
hearing commendation which another 
enjoys. It is not easy in this life for any 
man to escape censure; and infamy re- 
quires very little labour to assist its cir- 
culation. But there is a kind of sanc- 
tion in the characters of the dead, which 
gives due force and reward to their me- 
rits, and defends them from the sugges- 
tions of calumny. But to return to the 
point : What reason is there to disturb 
yourself on this melancholy occasion ? 
do but reflect that thousands die every 
moment of time ; that even while we 
speak, some unhappy wretch or other is 
either pining with hunger or pinched 
with poverty, sometimes giving up his 
life to the point of the sword, torn with 
convulsive agonies, and undergoing 
many miseries which it were superfluous 
to mention. We should therefore com- 
pare our afflictions with those who are 
more miserable, and not with those who 
are more happy. I am ashamed to add 
more, lest I should seem to mistrust your 
prudence ; but next week, when I un- 
derstand youi" mind is more composed, I 
shall write you word how all things go 
here. I designed to write you this letter 
in French, but I thought I could ex- 
press my thoughts with more energy in 
my own language. 

I come now, after a long interval, to 
mention some more private circum- 
stances. Pray give my duty to my 
mamma, and thank her for my shirts. 
They fit, in my opinion, very well, 
though Biddy says they are too little in 
the arms. You may expect a letter from 
me every day in the week till I come 
home; for Mrs. Biscoe has desired it, 



and has given me some franks. When 
you see her, you may tell her that her 
little boy sends his duty to her, and Mr. 
Biscoe his love to his sister, and desires 
to be remembered to miss Cleeve : he 
also sends his compliments to my mam- 
ma and you. Upon my word, I never 
thought our bleak air would have so 
good an efi^ect upon him. His com- 
plexion is now ruddy, which before was 
sallow and pale, and he is indeed much 
grown : but I now speak of trifles, I 
mean in comparison of his learning ; 
and indeed he takes that with wonderful 
acuteness ; besides, his excessive high 
spirits increase mine, and give me com- 
fort, since, after Parnell's departure, he 
is almost the only company 1 keep. As 
for news, the only article 1 know is, 
that Mrs. Par is dead and buried. Mr. 
and Mrs. Sumner are well : the latter 
thanks you for bringing the letter from 
your old acquaintance, and the former 
has inade me an elegant present. I am 
now very much taken up with study ; 
am to speak Antony's speech in Shak- 
speare's Julius Cresar (which play I 
will read to you when I come to town), 
and am this week to make a declama- 
tion. I add no more than the sin- 
cere well wishes of your faithful friend, 
&c. 



LETTER XXVI. 

Mr. Jones to hady Spencer, 

September 7, 1769. 
The necessary trouble of correcting t?ie 
first printed sheets of my history, pre- 
vented me to-day from paying a proper 
respect to the memory of Shakspeare, 
by attending his jubilee. But I was re- 
solved to do all the honour in my power 
to as great a poet, and set out in the 
morning, in company with a friend, to 
visit a place where Milton spent some 
part of his life, and where, in all proba- 
bility, he composed several of his earliest 
productions. It is a small village situ- 
ated on a pleasant hill, about three miles 
from Oxford, and called Forest Hill, be- 
cause it formerly lay contiguous to a 
forest, which has since been cut down. 
The poet chose this place of retirement 
after his first marriage, and he describes 
the beauties of his retreat in that fine 
passage of his L'Allegro — 



Sect. IV. 



RECENT. 



629 



Sometiaie walking, not unseen, 

By hedge-row elms, or hillocks green. 

While the ploughman, near at hand. 

Whistles o'er the furrow'd land. 

And the milkmaid singeth blithe. 

And the mower whets his scythej 

And ev'ry shepherd tells his tale. 

Under the hawthorn in the dale. 

Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures, 

Whilst the landscape round it measures: 

Russet lawns, and fallows grey. 

Where the nibbling flocks do stray ; 

Mountains, on whose barren breast 

The lab'ring clouds do often rest; 

Meadows trim, with daisies pied, 

Shallow brooks, and rivers wide; 

Towers and battlements it sees, 

Bosom'd high in tufted trees. 

****** 
Hard by, a cottage chimney smokes, 
From betwixt two aged oaks, &e. 

It was neither the proper season of the 
year, nor time of the day, to hear all the 
rural sounds and see all the ohjects men- 
tioned in this description ; but, by a 
pleasing concurrence of circumstances, 
we were saluted, on our approach to the 
village, with the music of the mower and 
his scythe ; we saw the ploughman intent 
upon his labour, and the milkmaid re- 
turning from her country employment. 

As we ascended the hill, the variety of 
beautiful objects, the agreeable stillness 
and natural simplicity of the whole scene, 
gave us the highest pleasure. We at 
length reached the spot whence Milton 
undoubtedly took most of his images ; it 
is on the top of the hill, from which there 
is a most extensive prospect on all sides ; 
the distant mountains, that seemed to 
support the clouds, the villages and tur- 
rets, partly shaded with trees of the finest 
verdure, and partly raised above the 
groves that surrounded them, the dark 
plains and meadows of a greyish colour, 
where the sheep were feeding at large ; 
in short, the view of the streams and 
rivers convinced us that there was not a 
single useless or idle word in the above- 
mentioned description, but that it was a 
most exact and lively representation of 
nature. Thus Avill this fine passage, 
which has always been admired for its 
elegance, receive an additional beauty 
from its exactness. After we had walk- 
ed, with a kind of poetical enthusiasm, 
over this enchanted ground, we returned 
to the village. 

The poet's house was close to the 
church ; the greatest part of it has been 
pulled down, and what remains belongs 



to an adjacent farm. I am informed, 
that several papers in Milton's own 
hand were found by the gentleman who 
was last in possession of the estate. The 
tradition of his having lived there is cur- 
rent among the villagers : one of them 
shewed us a ruinous wall, that made part 
of his chamber ; and I was much pleased 
with another, who had forgotten the 
name of Milton, but recollected him by 
the title of The Poet. 

It must not be omitted, that the groves 
near this village are famous for nightin- 
gales, which are so elegantly described 
in the Penseroso. Most of the cottage 
windows are overgrown with sweet- 
briars, vines, and honeysuckles ; and 
that Milton's habitation had the same 
rustic ornament wc may conclude from 
his description of the lark bidding- him 
good-morrow. 

Thro' the sweet-briar, or the vine. 
Or the twisted eglantine; 

for it is evident that he meant a sort of 
honeysuckle by the eglantine, though 
that word is commonly used for the 
sweet-briar, which he could not mention 
twice in the same couplet. 

If I ever pass a month or six weeks at 
Oxford in the summer, I shall be in- 
clined to hire and repair this venerable 
mansion, and to make a festival for a 
circle of friends, in honour of Milton, 
the most perfect scholar, as well as the 
sublimest poet, that our country ever 
produced. Such an honour will be less 
splendid, but more sincere and respect- 
ful, than all the pomp and ceremony on 
the banks of the Avon, I have, &c. 



LETTER XXVII. 

Mr. Jones to N. B. Halhed. 

Nice, March 1, 1770. 
I RECEIVED your short letter with great 
pleasure, as it convinced me that you 
were not insensible of my esteem for 
you, and such as resemble you. I wrote 
immediately to my friends, as you de- 
sired, most earnestly requesting them to 
promote your views, as if my own in- 
terest were concerned ; if they accede to 
my wishes in this respect they will oblige 
me and themselves too ; for doubtless I 
shall be ready to make them every return 
that I can. I think, however, that I shall 



630 



E i. !• G A N T E F I S T L K S. 



Book IV, 



have it in ray power to serve yon more 
effectually after my return to England; 
and I beg- you to ])elieve, that no incli- 
nation or efforts on my part shall ever 
be wanting to promote your wishes. 

My health is good ; but I long for those 
enjoyments of which I know not well 
how to bear the privation. When I first 
arrived here I was delighted witli a va- 
riety of objects, rarely, if ever, seen in 
my own country, — olives, raptles, vine- 
yards, pomegranates, palms, aromatic 
plants, and a surprising variety of the 
sweetest flowers, blooming in the midst 
of winter. But the attraction of novelty 
has ceased ; I am nov/ satiated, and be- 
gin to feel somewhat of disgust. The 
windows of our inn are scarcely thirty 
paces from the sea, and, as Ovid beauti- 
fully says — 

Tired, on the iniifo;-m expanse I i^aze. 

I have, therefore, no other resource 
than, with Cicero, to count the waves ; 
or, with Archimedes and Archytas, to 
measure the sands. 1 cannot describe to 
you how weary I am of this place, nor 
my anxiety to be again at Oxford, where 
I might jest with you, or philosophize 
with Poore. If it be not inconvenient, I 
wish you vrould write to me often, for I 
long to know how you and our friends 
are : but write if you please in Latin, 
and with gaiety, for it grieves me to ob- 
serve the uneasiness under which you ap- 
pear to labour. Let me ever retain a 
place in your affection, as you do in 
mine ; continue to cultivate polite lite- 
rature ; woo the muses ; reverence phi- 
losophy ; and give your days and nights 
to composition, with a due regard, how- 
ever, to the preservation of your health. 



LETTER XXVIIL 

Air. Jones to Ladj/ Spencer. 

Nice, April 14, HTU. 

It is with great pleasure that I acquaint 
your ladyship, that Mrs. Poyntz, lady 
Harriet, and her brother, are perfectly 
well ; Mrs. Poyntz goes this morning to 
Villa Franca; I am to be her knight, 
and am just equipped to mount my Ro- 
sinant^ : mademoiselle Annette is to go 
upon lady Mary Somerset's ass ; so we 
shall make a formidable procession. It 
is a delightful morning, and I hope 



Mrs. Poyntz will be pleased with her 
jaunt. We have had very bad weather, 
violent rains, and storms of thunder in 
the night, a close sultry heat all day, 
and a very sharp cold every evening; 
but the spring seems now to be pretty- 
well settled, and I fancy we shall have a 
continually clear sky, and a mild air, as 
long as we stay. We all promise our- 
selves great pleasure in our journey 
homewards ; and we have great reason to 
believe it will be enchantingly pleasant. 
I have every day more and more reason 
to be pleased with the unfolding of my 
pupil's disposition ; your ladyship will 
perhaps think these to be words of 
course, and what you might naturally 
expect from any other person in my 
situation ; but, believe me, I say them 
upon no other motive than their truth ; 
for if it were my nature to speak to any 
one what 1 do not think, 1 should at 
least speak truly to your ladyship, of 
whom I am, witli the greatest truth, &e. 



LETTER XXIX. 

From the same to the same- 

Paris, June 4, 1770. 

Your ladyship will be surprised at re- 
ceiving such a parcel of papers from 
me ; but 1 am willing to make amends 
for not writing all last month. The truth 
is, I had nothing particular to say at that 
time ; but on my arrival at Paris I found 
a letter from my friend Reviczki, with a 
very spirited ode composed by him upon 
the marriage of the archduchess. I dare 
say lord Spencer will like it, and I 
therefore take the liberty to inclose it for 
him. I have marked in this manner 
two or three passages that are faulty ; 
and I have put this sign <^ to one stanza 
that I do not quite understand. I have 
also sent with it the Baron's letter to 
me, which will serve as a comment upon 
many parts of the ode. You will have 
heard of the shocking accidents that hap- 
pened here the night of the fireworks. 
Above one hundred and thirty people 
were killed ; and several people of fa- 
shion were crushed to death in their 
carriages. We had the good fortnne ta 
arrive here two days after this dreadful 
catastrophe : which perhaps has saved 
some of us, if not from real danger, at 
least from the apprehension of it. We 



Sect. IV. 



REC ENT. 



631 



shall not be sorry to see Eng-land ag-ain, 
and hope to have that pleasure very soon. 
Soon after my return, I think of going to 
Oxford for a short time : but if lord Al- 
thorpe goes back to school this summer, 
as I sincerely hope he will, I shall not 
go to college till August ; for I am con- 
vinced that a public school has already 
been, and will continue to be, of the 
highest advantage to him in every re- 
spect. While Mrs. Poyntz staid at Lyons, 
I made an excursion to Geneva, in hopes 
of seeing Voltaire, but was disappointed. 
I sent him a note with a few verses, im- 
plying- that the muse of tragedy had left 
her ancient seat in Greece and Italy, 
and had fixed her abode on the borders 
of a lake, &c. He returned this an- 
swer : " The worst of French poets and 
philosophers is almost dying ; age and 
sickness have brought him to his last 
day ; he can converse with nobody, and 
entreats Mr. Jones to excuse and pity 
him. He presents him with his humble 
respects." But he was not so ill as he 
imagined ; for he had been walking- in 
his court, and went into his house, just 
as I came to it. The servants shewed me 
somebody at a window, who they said 
was he ; but I had scarce a glimpse of 
bim. 1 am inclined to think that Vol- 
taire begins to be rather serious, when 
he finds himself upon the brink of eter- 
nity ; and that he refuses to see com- 
pany, because he cannot display his for- 
mer wit and sprightliness. 1 find my 
book * is published ; I am not at all so- 
licitous about its success ; as I did not 
choose the subject myself, I am not an- 
swerable for the wild extravagance of the 
style, nor for the faults of the original ; 
but if your ladyship takes the trouble to 
read the dissertation at the end, you may 
perhaps find some new and pleasing 
images. The work has one advantage, 
it is certainly authentic. Lady Georgi- 
ana is so good as to inquire how Soliman 
goes on ; pray tell her he is in great 
aflBiiction, as he begins to suspect the 
innocence of Mustafa, who is just slain. 
To be serious ; my tragedy is just finish- 
ed, and I hope to shew it to your lady- 
ship in a short time. I am, &c. 

* Translation of the Life of Nadir Shah. 



LETTER XXX. 

Mr. Jone.<i to C. Reviczki. 

March, 1771. 
A PLAGUE on our men in office, who for 
six months have amused me with idle 
promises, which I see no prospect of 
their fulfilling, that they would forward 
my books and a letter to you ! They say, 
that they have not yet had an opportu- 
nity ; and that the apprehension of a 
Spanish war (which is now no more) fur- 
nishes them with incessant occupation. 
I have however so much to say to you, 
that I can no longer delay writing : I 
wish, indeed, I could communicate it in 
person. On my late return to England, 
I found myself entangled, as it were, in 
a variety of important considerations. 
My friends, companions, relations, all 
attacked me with urgent solicitations to 
banish poetry and Oriental literature for 
a time, and apply myself to oratory and 
the study of the law ; in other words, to 
become a barrister, and pursue the track 
of ambition. Their advice in truth was 
conformable to my own inclinations ; for 
the only road to the highest stations in 
this country is that of the law ; and I 
need not add, how ambitious and labori- 
ous 1 am. Behold me then become a 
lawyer, and expect in future that my 
correspondence will have somewhat more 
of public business in it. But if it ever 
should be my fortune to have any share 
in administration, you shall be my Atti- 
cus, the partner of my plans, the confi- 
dant of my secrets. Do not, however, 
suppose, that I have altogether renounced 
polite literature. I intend shortly to 
publish my English poems ; and I mean 
to bring my tragedy of Soliman on the 
stage, when I can find proper actors for 
the performance of it. I intend also 
composing an epic poem, on a nohle sub- 
ject, under the title of Britanneis : but 
this I must defer until I have more lei- 
sure, with some degree of independence. 
In the mean time, I amuse myself with 
the choicest of the Persian poets ; and I 
have the good fortune to possess many 
manuscripts, which I have either pur- 
chased, or borrowed from my friends, on 
various subjects, including history, phi- 
losophy, and some of the most cele- 
brated poetry of Persia. 

I am highly delighted with J ami's 
poem of Yuicf and Zuleika ; it contains 



632 



E f. E G A N T EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



somewhat more than four thousand cou- 
plets, each of which is a star of the first 
brilliance. We have six copies of this 
work at Oxford, one of which is correct ; 
it has the vowel points, and is illustrated 
with the notes of Golius. 1 also possess 
a copy, which, as soon as I have leisure, 
I will print. Let me ask, in the mean 
time, how you are employed. Do you 
continue your occupation of elucidating* 
your favourite Hafez? I will most wil- 
lingly give all the assistance in my power 
to the publication of your work, if you 
will have it printed in London ; but I 
scarcely think that any printer will un- 
dertake it at his own expense, unless 
the poems are accompanied with an Eng- 
lish or French translation, for you can- 
not conceive how few English gentlemen 
understand Latin. Let me recommend 
to you, therefore, to give a literal version 
of Hafez in French, with annotations in 
the same language ; and this I think will 
be more acceptable, even to your own 
countrymen, than a Latin translation ; 
though indeed you may annex to your 
work such odes as you have translated 
into that language. The new edition of 
Meninski goes on tolerably well. I in- 
close a specimen of the new Arabic 
types, and earnestly beg your opinion 
upon them, that any defects may be cor- 
rected as soon as possible. I have had 
a copper-plate engraving made of one of 
the odes of Hafez ; and may, perhaps, 
when my circumstances afford it, print 
an edition of Jami's whole poem in the 
game manner. A work of this kind on 
silken paper, would, I doubt not, be very 
acceptable to the governor of Bengal, 
and the other principal persons in India. 
I cannot conceive what is become of the 
book which I sent to you ; but I will 
take the first opportunity of transmitting 
a fairer and more correct copy, together 
with my little Treatise on the Literature 
of Asia, and my Grammar of the Per- 
sian Language, which is printed with 
some degree of elegance ; and I earnest- 
ly entreat you to tell me if any thing 
is wrong in it, or any thing omitted, 
that the next edition may be more per- 
fect. I only wait for leisure to publish 
my Commentaries on Asiatic Poetry. 

Do not, however, imagine that I de- 
spise the usual enjoyments of youth ; no 
one can take more delight in singing 
and dancing than I do, nor in the mo- 
derate use of wine, nor in the exquisite 



beauty of the ladies, of whom London 
afiTords an enchanting variety ; but 1 pre- 
fer glory, my supreme delight, to all 
other gratifications, and I will pursue it 
through fire and water, by day and by 
night. Oh ! my Charles (for I renounce 
all ceremony, and address you with an- 
cient simplicity), what a boundles scene 
opens to my view ! if I had two lives I 
should scarcely find time for the due ex- 
ecution for all the public and private pro- 
jects which I have in mind I 



LETTER XXXI. 

Mr, Jones to J. Wihnot, Esq. 

Univ. Coll. Oxford, 3d of June, 1771. 

My dear Wilmot, 
It makes me very happy to hear that 
my Lord Chief Justice does not retire 
on account of ill health, but from a 
motive which does him the highest ho- 
nour. He will now enjoy the greatest 
happiness of human life, ease with dig- 
nity, after having passed through the 
most honourable labour without danger. 
I should think myself highly blessed if I 
could pursue a similar course in my small 
sphere, and after having raised a compe- 
tency at the bar, could retire to the 
bowers of learning and the arts. 

I have just begun to contemplate the 
stately edifice of the laws of England, — 

" The gather'd wisdom of a thousand years," — 

if you will allow me to parody a line of 
Pope. I do not see why the study of 
the law is called dry and unpleasant ; 
and I very much suspect that it seems so 
to those only who would think any study 
unpleasant which required a great ap- 
plication of the mind, and exertion of 
the memory. I have read most atten- 
tively the two first volumes of " Black- 
stone's Commentaries," and the two 
others will require much less attention. 
I am much pleased with the care he takes 
to quote his authorities in the margin, 
which not only give a sanction to what 
he asserts, but point out the sources to 
which the student may apply for more 
diflPusive knowledge. I have opened two 
common-place books, the one of the law, 
the other of oratory, which is surely too 
much neglected by our modern speakers. 
I do not mean the popular eloquence, 
which cannot be tolerated at the bar, 



Sect, IV. 



RECENT. 



633 



but that correctness of style and ele- 
gance of method which at once pleases 
and persuades the hearer. But I must 
lay aside my studies for about six weeks, 
while I am printing my Grammar, from 
which a good deal is expected ; and which 
I must endeavour to make as perfect as 
a human work can be. When that is 
finished I shall attend the Court of King's 
Bench very constantly, and shall either 
take a lodging in Westminster, or accept 
the invitation of a friend in Duke Street, 
who has made me an obliging oflFer of 
apartments. 

I am sorry the characters you sent me 
are not Persian but Chinese, which 
I cannot decipher without a book, which 
I have not at present, but tons Chinois 
quails sont, I shall be able to make them 
out when the weather will permit me to 
sit in the Bodleian. In the mean time, 
I would advise you to inquire after a 
native of China, who is now in London ; 
I cannot recollect where he lodges, but 
shall know when I come to town, which 
will be to-morrow or Saturday. I shall 
be at Richardson's till my Grammar is 
finished, unless I can buy a set of cham- 
bers in the Temple, which I fear will be 
difiicult. I will certainly call upon you 
in a day or two. On one of the Indian 
pictures at your house there was a beau- 
tiful copy of Persian verses, which I will 
beg leave to transcribe, and should be 
glad to print it, with a translation, in the 
Appendix to my Grammar. I have not 
yet had my Persian proposals engraved ; 
but when you write to your brother you 
would much oblige me by desiring him to 
send me a little Persian manuscript, if he 
can procure it without much trouble. It 
is a small poem which I intend to print ; 
we have six or seven copies of it at Ox- 
ford, but if I had one in my possession 
it would save me the trouble of transcrib- 
ing it. I have inclosed its title in Persian 
and English. I am very glad that your 
family are well. I wish them joy upon 
every occasion; my mother and sister 
desire their compliments to you, and I 
am, with great regard, yours, &c. 

LETTER XXXII. 

Mr. Jones to Mr. Hawkins. 

November 5, 1771. 
I SHALL ever gratefully acknowledge, 
dear «ir, my obligations to you for the 



trouble you take in inspecting my trifles. 
Had Dryden and other poets met with 
such a friend, their poems would have 
been more polished, and consequently 
more fit to see the light. Your observa- 
tions are so judicious, that I wish you 
had not been so sparing of them. I en- 
tirely approve of all your corrections, 
&c. 

As to the years in which the poems 
were written, they are certainly of no 
consequence to the public, but (unless 
it be very absurd) I would wish to spe- 
cify them, for it would hurt me, as a stu- 
dent at the bar, to have it thought that 
I continue to apply myself to poetry; 
and I mean to insinuate, that I have 
given it up for several years, which I 
must explain more fully in the preface. 
For a man, who wishes to rise in the 
law, must be supposed to have no other 
object. 



LETTER XXXIII. 

Dr. Hunt to Mr. Jones. 

Ch. Church, March 2, 1774. 
Dear sir, 
I RETURN you my hearty thanks for 
your most acceptable present of your 
excellent book on the Asiatic poetry. 
I should have made you my acknow- 
ledgments for this great favour before, 
but I have b^en so entirely engaged in 
reading the book (which I have done 
from the beginning to the end), that I 
have not had time to think of its 
worthy author, any otherwise than by 
tacitly admiring, as I went along, his 
exquisitely fine parts, and wonderful 
learning. Indeed, so engaging is the 
beautiful style of this admirable per- 
formance, and so striking the observa- 
tions it contains, that it is next to im- 
possible for a person, who has any taste 
for this branch of literature, when he 
has once taken it into his hand, to lay 
it aside again without giving it a 
thorough perusal. I find you have en- 
riched this work with a great variety of 
curious quotations und judicious criti- 
cisms, as well as with the addition of 
several valuable new pieces, since you 
favoured me with the sight of it before, 
and tlie pleasure which I have now had 
in reading it has been in proportion. I 
hope this new key to the Asiatic poetry, 



634 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IT. 



with which you have obliged the world, 
will not be suffered to rust for Vv^ant of 
use ; but that it will prove, what you in- 
tended it to be, a happy instrument in 
the hands of learned and inquisitive men, 
for unlocking the rich treasures of wis- 
dom and knowledge which have been 
preserved in the Hebrew, Arabic, Persic, 
and the other Oriental languages ; and 
especially the Hebrew, that venerable 
channel, through which the sacred com- 
positions of the divinely inspired poets 
have been conveyed down to us. I hope 
this will find you well, and am, &c. 

P. S. 1 have seen your proposals 
for printing the mathematical works 
of my worthy friend your late father, 
and beg to be of the number of your 
subscribers. 



LETTER XXXIV. 

Mr. Jones to F. P. Bayer. 

Oct. 4, 1774. 
I CAN scarcely find words to express 
my thanks for your obliging present of 
a most beautiful and splendid copy of 
Sallust, with an elegant Spanish transla- 
tion. You have bestowed upon me, a 
private untitled individual, an honour 
which heretofore has only been conferred 
upon great monarchs, and illustrious 
universities, I really was at a loss to de- 
cide whether I should begin my letter by 
congratulating you on having so excel- 
lent a translator, or by thanking you for 
this agreeable proof of your remem- 
brance. I look forward to the increasing 
splendour which the arts and sciences 
must attain in a country, where the son 
of the king possesses genius and erudi- 
tion capable of translating and illustra- 
ting with learned notes the first of the 
Roman historians. How few youths 
amongst the nobility in other countries 
possess the requisite ability or inclina- 
tion for such a task ! The history of 
Sallust is a performance of great depth, 
wisdom, and dignity : to understand it 
well is no small praise ; to explain it 
properly is still more commendable ; but 
to translate it elegantly, excites admira- 
tion. If all this had been accomplished 
by a private individual, he would have 
merited applause ; if by a youth, he 
would have had a claim to literarv 



honours ; but when to the title of youth 
that of Prince is added, we cannot too 
highly extol, or too loudly applaud, his 
distinguished merit. 

Many years are elapsed since I applied 
myself to the study of your learned lan- 
guage, but I well remember to have read 
in it, with great delight, the heroic poem 
of Alonzo, the odes of Garcilasso, and 
the humorous stories of Cervantes : but I 
most sincerely declare, that I never 
perused a more elegant or polished com- 
position than the translation of Sallust ; 
and I readily subscribe to the opinion of 
the learned author in his preface, that 
the Spanish language approaches very 
nearly to the dignity of the Latin. 

May the accomplished youth continue 
to deserve well of his country and man- 
kind, and establish his claim to distinc- 
tion above all the princes of the age ! If 
I may be allowed to offer my sentiments, 
I would advise him to study most dili- 
gently the divine works of Cicero, which 
no man, in my opinion, ever perused 
without improving in eloquence and wis- 
dom. The epistle which he wrote to his 
brother Quintus, on the governmcBt of a 
province, deserves to be daily repeated 
by every sovereign in the world ; his 
books on offices, on moral ends, and the 
Tusculan question, merit a hundred pe- 
rusals ; and his orations, nearly sixty in 
number, deserve to be translated into 
every European language ; nor do I scru- 
ble to affirm, that his sixteen books of 
letters to Atticus are superior to almost 
all histories, that of Sallust excepted. 
With respect to your own compositions, 
I have read with great attention, and will 
again read, your most agreeable book. 
I am informed that you propose giving a 
Latin translation of it, and 1 hope you 
will do it for the benefit of foreigners. 
1 see nothing in it which requires altera- 
tion — nothing which is not entitled to 
praise. I much wish that you would pub- 
lish more of your treatises on the anti- 
quities of Asia and Africa. I am confi- 
dent they would be most acceptable to 
such as study those subjects. I have 
only for the present to conclude, by bid- 
ding you farewell in my own name, and 
that of the republic of letters. Fare- 
well. 



Sect. IV. 



R E C E N T. 



635 



LErrER XXXV, 

Mr. Jones to Lord Althorpe. 

Bath, Dec. 28, 1777. 

My dear lord, 
I TOi.D you, when I had the pleasure 
of seeing you in London, that it was 
douhtful whether I should pass my vaca- 
tion at Amsterdam or at Bath : the naiads 
of the hot springs have prevailed, you 
see, over the nymphs of the lakes, and I 
have been drinking the waters for a 
month, with no less pleasure than advan- 
tage to my health ; the improvement of 
which I ascribe, however, in great mea- 
sure, to my regular exercise on the downs, 
and to abstinence from any study that 
requires too much exertion of the mind. 
I should have skaited indeed in Holland 
from town to town, and a little voyage 
would have dissipated my bile, if I had 
any : but that scheme 1 must postpone 
till another winter, and have sent an 
excuse to my Dutch friend who expect- 
ed me. 

As I came hither entirely for the pur- 
pose of recreating my exhausted spirits 
and strengthening my stomach, I have 
abstained with some reluctance from 
dancing, an amusement which I am as 
fond of as ever, but which would be too 
heating for a water drinker ; and as for 
the idler diversions of a public place, they 
have not the recommendation of novelty, 
without which they cannot long please. 
You, my dear friend, are in the mean 
time relaxing yourself, from the severer 
pursuits of science and civil knowledge, 
with the healthy and manly exercise of 
the field, from which you will return 
with a keener appetite to the noble feast 
which the Muses are again preparing for 
you at Cambridge. And here, by way 
of parenthesis, I must tell you, that I 
joined a small party of hunters the other 
morning, and was in at the death of a 
hare ; but I must confess, that I think 
hare hunting a very dull exercise, and 
fit rather for a huntress than a mighty 
hunter, rather for Diana than Orion. Had 
I the taste and vigour of Actseon, without 
his indiscreet curiosity, my game would 
be the stag or the fox, and I should leave 
the hare in peace, without sending her to 
her many friends. This heresy of mine 
may arise from my fondness for every 
thing vast, and my disdain of every thing 
little ; and for the same reason I should 



prefer the more violent sport of the Asi- 
atics, who inclose a whole district with 
toils, and then attack the tigers and leo- 
pards with javelins, to the sound of trum- 
pets and clarions. Of music I conclude 
you have as much at Althorpe as your 
heart can desire ; I might here have more 
than my ears could bear, or ray mind 
conceive, for we have with us La Motte, 
Fischer, Rauzzini ; but, as I live in the 
house of my old master, Evans, whom 
you remember, I am satisfied with his 
harp, which I prefer to the Theban lyre 
as much as I prefer Wales to ancient or 
modern Egypt. 

1 was this morning with Wilkes, who 
shewed me a letter lately written to him 
from Paris, by Diderot ; as I have, you 
know, a quick memory, I brought away 
the substance of it, and give it to you in 
a translation almost literal. " Friend 
Wilkes, it delights me to hear that you 
still have sufficient employment foi* 
your active mind, without which you 
cannot long be happy. I have just 
read the several speeches, which you 
have delivered on the subject of your 
present war against the provincials ; 
they are full of eloquence, force, and 
dignity. I too have composed a speech . 
on the same subject, which I would 
deliver in your senate, had I a seat in 
it. 'I will wave for the present, my 
countrymen, all considerations of the 
justice or injustice of the measures you 
are pursuing ; I well know that to be 
an improper topic at the time when the 
public welfare is immediately concern- 
ed. I will not even question at pre- 
sent your power to reduce an exaspe- 
rated and desperate people ; but con- 
sider, I entreat you, that you are sur- 
rounded by nations by whom you are 
detested ; and say, for Heaven's sake, 
how long you will give them reason to 
laugh at the ridiculous figure you are 
making.' This is my harangue ; it is 
short in words, but extensive in mean- 
ing." So far, my dear lord, we have 
no reason to censure the thoughts or 
expressions of the learned Encyclo- 
pedist : what follows is so profligate, 
that I would not transcribe it, if I 
were not sure that you would join with 
me in condemning it. "As to yourself," 
he adds, " be cheerful, drink the best 
wines ; keep the gayest company ; and, 
should you be inclined to a tender pas- 
sion, address yourself to such women 



636 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



as make the least resistance ; they are 
as amusing and as interesting as others. 
One lives with them without anxiety, 
and quits them without regret." I want 
words, Diderot, to express the hase- 
ness, the folly, the brutality of this 
sentiment. I am no cynic, but as 
fond as any man at Paris of cheerful 
companj^, and of such pleasures as a 
man of virtue need not blush to en- 
joy ; but if the philosophy of the French 
academicians be comprised in your ad- 
vice to your friend Wilkes, keep it to 
yourself, and to such as you. I am of 
a diflferent sect. He concludes his letter 
with some professions of regard, and 
with a recommendation of a young 
Frenchman, who told Wilkes some 
speeches of Diderot to the empress of 
Russia, which you shall hear at some 
other time. I am interrupted, and 
must leave you with reluctance till the 
morning. 



LETTER XXXVL 

Edmund Burke to Mr. Jones. 

March ]'2, 1779. 
My dear sir, 
I GIVE you many thanks for your most 
obliging and valuable present, and feel 
myself extremely honoured by this mark 
of your friendship. My first leisure 
will be employed in an attentive perusal 
of an author, who had merit enough to 
fill up a part of yours, and whom you 
have made accessible to me with an ease 
and advantage, which one so many years 
disused to Greek literature as I have 
been, could not otherwise have. Isseus 
is an author of whom I know nothing 
but by fame : I am sure that any idea I 
had from thence conceived of him will 
not be at all lessened by seeing him in 
your translation. I do not know how it 
has happened, that orators have hitherto 
fared worse in the hands of the transla- 
tors than even the poets ; I never could 
bear to read a translation of Cicero. 
Demosthenes suffers I think somewhat 
less ; but he suffers greatly ; so much, 
that I must say, that no English reader 
could weU con{;eive from whence he had 
acquired the reputation of the first of 
orators. I am satisfied that there is now 
an eminent exception to this rule, and I 
sincerely congratulate the public on that 



acquisition. I am, with the greatest 
truth and regard, my dear sir, your, 
&c. 



LETTER XXXVIl. 

Mr. Jones to Lord Althorpe. 

Temple, Oct. ;3, 1778. 
My dear lord, captain, and friend (of 
all which titles no man entertains a 
juster idea than yourself), how shall I 
express the delight which your letter 
from Warley camp has given me ! I 
cannot sufliciently regret, that I was so 
long deprived of that pleasure ; for, in- 
tending to be in London soon after the 
circuit, 1 had neglected to leave any di- 
rections here about my letters ; so that 
yours has lain almost a month upon my 
table, where I found it yesterday on my 
return from the country. I ought in- 
deed to have written first to you, because 
I was a rambler, you stationary ; and 
because the pen has been my peculiar in- 
strument, as the sword has been yours, 
this summer ; but the agitation of forensic 
business, and the sort of society in which 
I have been forced to live, afforded me 
few moments of leisure, except those in 
which nature calls for perfect repose, 
and the spirits exhausted with fatigue 
require immediate reparation. I rejoice 
to see that you are a votary, as Archilo- 
cus says of himself, both of the Muses 
and of Mars ; nor do I believe, that a 
letter full of more manly sentiments, or 
written with more unaffected elegance, 
than yours, has often been sent from a 
camp. You know I have set my mind 
on your being a fine speaker in next par- 
liament, in the cause of true constitu- 
tional liberty, and your letters convince 
me that I shall not be disappointed. To 
this great object, both for your own 
glory and your country's good, your pre- 
sent military station will contribute not 
a little : for a soldier's life naturally in- 
spires a certain spirit and confidence, 
without which the finest elocution will 
not have a full effect. Not to mention 
Pericles, Xenophon, Caesar, and a hun- 
dred other eloquent soldiers among the 
ancients, I am persuaded that Pitt (whom 
by the way I am far from comparing to 
Pericles) acquired his forcible manner in 
the field where he carried the colours. 
This I mention in addition to the advan- 



Sect. IV. 



RECENT. 



637 



tages of your present situation, which 
you very justly point out : nor can I think 
your summer in any respect uselessly 
spent, since our constitution has a good 
defence in a well-regulated militia, offi- 
cered by men who love their country : 
and a militia so regulated may in due 
time be the means of thinning the formi- 
dable standing army, if not of extinguish- 
ing it. Captain **^ is one of the wor- 
thiest as well as tallest men in the king- 
dom ; but he, and his Socrates, Dr. 
Johnson, have such prejudices in politics, 
that one must be upon one's guard in 
their company, if one wishes to preserve 
their good opinion. By the way, the 
dean of Gloucester has printed a work, 
which he thinks a full confutation of 
" Locke's Theory of Government;" and 
his second volume will contain a new 
theory of his own ; of this when we meet. 
The disappointment to which you allude, 
and concerning which you say so many 
friendly things to me, is not yet certain. 
My competitor is not yet named ; many 
doubt whether he will be : I think he 
will not, unless the chancellor should 
press it strongly. It is still the opinion 
and wish of the bar, that I should be the 
man. I believe the minister hardly 
knows his own mind. I cannot legally 
be appointed till January, or next month 
at soonest, because I am not a barrister 
of five years' standing till that time : now 
many believe that they keep the place 
open for me till I am qualified. I cer- 
tainly wish to have it, because I wish to 
have twenty thousand pounds in my 
pocket before I am eight-and-thirty years 
old ; and then I might contribute in some 
little degree towards the service of my 
country in parliament, as well as at the 
bar, without selling my liberty to a pa- 
tron, as too many of my profession are 
not ashamed of doing ; and I might be a 
speaker in the house of commons in the 
full vigour and maturity of my age ; 
whereas, in the slow career of Westmin- 
ster Hall, I should not perhaps, even with 
the best success, acquire the same inde- 
pendent station till the age at which 
Cicero was killed. But be assured, my 
dear lord, that if the minister be offended 
at the style in which I have spoken, do 
speak, and will speak, of public affairs, 
and on that account should refuse to 
give me the judgeship, I shall not be at 
all mortified, having already a very de- 
cent competence, without a debt or a 



care of any kind. I will not break in 
upon you at Warley unexpectedly ; but 
whenever you find it most convenient, 
let me know, and I will be with you in 
less than two hours. 



LETTER XXXVIII. 

From the same to the same. 

Temple, Feb. 4, 17S(). 
The public piety having given me this 
afternoon what I rarely can obtain, a 
short intermission of business, can I 
employ my leisure more agreeably than 
in writing to my friend ? I shall send 
my letter at random, not knowing whe- 
ther you are at Althorpe or at Bucking- 
ham, but persuading myself that it will 
find you without much delay. May 
I congratulate you and our country on 
your entrance upon the great career of 
public life ? If there ever was a time 
when men of spirit, sense, and virtue, 
ought to stand forth, it is the present. 
I am informed, that you have attended 
some county meetings, and are on some 
committees. Did you find it neces- 
sary or convenient to speak on the state 
of the nation ? It is a noble subject, 
and, with your knowledge as well as 
judgment, you will easily acquire habits 
of eloquence ; but habits they are, no 
less than playing on a musical instru- 
ment, or handling a pencil : and as the 
best musicians and finest painters be- 
gan with playing sometimes out of tune, 
and drawing out of proportion, so the 
greatest orators must begin with leaving 
some periods unfinished, and perhaps 
with sitting down in the middle of a sen- 
tence. It is only by continued use, that 
a speaker learns to express his ideas 
with precision and soundness, and to 
provide at the beginning of a period for 
the conclusion of it ; but to this facility 
of speaking the habit of writing rapidly 
contributes in a wonderful degree. I 
would particularly impress this truth up- 
on your mind, my dear friend, because I 
am fully convinced, that an Englishman's 
real importance in his country will al- 
ways be in a compound ratio of his vir- 
tue, his knowledge, and his eloquence ; 
without all of which qualities little real 
utility can result from either of them 
apart ; and I am no l-ess persuaded, that 
a virtuous and knowing man, who has no 



r)38 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



I^OOK JV. 



natural impediment, may by habit ac- 
quire perfect eloquence, as certainly as 
a healthy man, who has the use of his 
muscles, may learn to swim or to skate. 
When shall we meet, and where, that Ave 
may talk over these and other matters ? 
There are some topics, which will be 
more properly discussed in conversation 
than upon paper, I mean on account of 
their copiousness ; for, believe me, I 
should not be concerned if all that I write 
were copied at the post-office, and read 
before the king" in council. '^" '^' "^ * * * 
At the same time I solemnly declare, that 
I will not enlist under the banners of a 
party : a declaration which is, I believe, 
useless, because no party would receive 
a man, determined as I am to think for 
himself. To you alone, my friend, and 
to your interests, I am firmly attached, 
both from early habit and from mature 
reason ; from ancient affection unchang-ed 
for a single moment, and from a full 
conviction, that such affection was well 
placed. The views and wishes of all 
other men I will analyse and weigh with 
that suspicion and slowness of belief, 
which my experience, such as it is, has 
taught me ; and to be more particular, 
although I will be jealous of the regal 
part of our constitution, and always lend 
an arm towards restraining its proud 
waves within due limits, yet my most 
vigilant and strenuous efforts shall be 
directed against any oligarchy that may 
rise : being convinced, that on tlie po- 
pular part of every government depends 
its real force, the obligation of its laws, 
its welfare, its security, its permanence. 
I have been led insensibly to write more 
seriously than I had intended ; my let- 
ters shall not always be so dull ; but 
with so many public causes of grief or 
of resentment, who can at all times be 
gay? 



LETTER XXXIX. 



May 8th, which I did not receive till this 
morning, is, without a compliment, the 
fairest and most pleasing fruit of the 
competition in which I am engaged. The 
rule of the University, which is a very 
noble one, forbidding me to solicit votes 
for myself, I have not been at liberty 
even to apply to many persons whom it 
is both a pleasure and honour to know. 
Your unsolicited approbation is a great 
reward of my past toil in my literary 
career, and no small incentive to future 
exertions. As to my integrity, of which 
you are pleased to express a good opi- 
nion, it has not yet been tried by any 
very strong temptations ; I hope it will 
resist them if any be thrown In my way. 
This only 1 may say (and I think with- 
out a boast), that my ambition was al- 
ways very much bounded, and that my 
views are already attained by profes- 
sional success adequate to my highest 
expectations. Perhaps 1 shall not be 
thought very unambitious if I add, that 
my great object of imitation is Mr. Sel- 
den ; and that if I could obtain the same 
honour which was conferred on him, I 
should, like him, devote the rest of my 
life to the service of my constituents and 
my country, to the practice of an useful 
profession, and to the unremitted study 
of our English laws, history, and lite- 
rature. To be approved by you, and 
such men as you (if many such could be 
found), would be a sufficient reward 
to, &c. 

P. S. Permit me to add an ode printed 
(but not published) before the present 
competition, and at a time when 1 should 
have been certainly made a judge in In- 
dia, by the kindness of lord North, if any 
appointment had taken place. It proves 
sufficiently, that no views or connections 
can prevent me from declaring my honest 
sentiments, when I think they may be 
useful to my country. 



Mr. Jones to the Rev. E. Cartwright. 

Lamb's Buildings, Temple, May 16, 1780. 
Dear sir. 
Since my friends have declared me a 
candidate for the very honourable seat 
which sir Roger Newdigate intends to 
vacate, i have received many flattering 
testimonies of regard from several re- 
spectable persons ; but your letter, dated 



LETTER XL. 

Mr. Jones to Dr. Wheeler. 

Septembers, 1780. 
My dear sir, 
The parliament being suddenly dissolv- 
ed, I must beg you, as one of my best 
and truest friends, to make it known in 
the University, that I decline giving the 



Sect. IV, 



RECENT. 



mf) 



learned body any further trouble, and am 
heartily sorry for that which has already 
been given them. It is needless to add, 
what you well know, that 1 should never 
have been the first to have troubled them 
at all. I always thought a delegation to 
parliament from so respectable a society 
a laudable object of true ambition ; but 
I considered it as a distant object, as a 
reward of long labour and meritorious 
service in our country ; and I conceived, 
that had I filled a judge's seat in India, 
with the approbation of my country- 
men, I might, on my return, be fixed on 
as a proper representative of the Uni- 
versity. Had not that happened, which 
you know, I should no more have thought 
of standing now, than of asking for a 
peerage. As to principles in politics, if 
my success at Oxford, at any future time, 
depend upon a change of them, my cause 
is hopeless : I cannot alter or conceal 
tliem, without abandoning either my rea- 
son or my integrity ; the first of which 
is my only guide, and the second my 
chief comfort in this passage through life. 
Were I inclined to boast of any thing, 
I should certainly boast of making those 
principles my rule of conduct, which 
I learned from the best of men in an- 
cient and modern times ; and which, my 
reason tells me, are conducive to the 
happiness of mankind. As to 7Jien, I am 
certainly not hostile to the ministers, 
from whom I have received obligations ; 
but I cannot in conscience approve their 
measures. 



unanimous, and it was carried with the 
sincere approbation and eagerness of all 
present. I am sorry to add, that lord 
Camden and the bishop of Chester'^ were 
rejected. When bishops and chancellors 
honour us with offering to dine with us 
at a tavern, it seems very extraordinary 
that we should ever reject such an offer ; 
but there is no reasoning on the caprice 
of men. Of our club I will only say, 
that there is no branch of human know- 
ledge, on which some of our members 
are not capable of giving information ; 
and I trust, that as the honour will be 
ours, so your lordship will receive some 
pleasure from the company, once a fort- 
nig^ht, of some of our first writers and 
critics, as well as our most virtuous se- 
nators and accomplished men. I think 
myself highly honoured in having been 
a member of this society near ten years, 
and chiefly in having contributed to add 
such names to the number of our friends 
as those of your lordship and lord Al- 
thorpe. I spoke yesterday in Westmin- 
ster Hall for two hours and a half on a 
knotty point of law, and this morning 
for above an hour, on a very interesting 
public question ; to-morrow I must ar- 
gue a great cause, and am therefore 
obliged to conclude with assuring your 
lordship, that I am, with the highest, &c. 



LETTER XLII. 

The Bishop of Si. Asaph f to Mr. Jones. 



LETTER XLL 

Mr. Jones to the Bishop of St. Asaph. 

November 23, 1780. 
My lord, 
Had I not been prevented by particular 
business from writing to your lordship 
on Tuesday evening and yesterday, I 
would have informed you before, that we 
had done ourselves the Jionour (and a 
very great one we shall ever esteem it) 
of electing your lordship a member of 
our club*. The election was of course 



* Generally known by the name of the Tiirk^s 
Head Club, held in Gerrard Street, Soho. The 
establishment of this club was first pi-oposed by 
sir Joshua Reynolds to Burke and Johnson, and 
the original members of it were the friends of 
these three. The number of members was gra- 



Nov. 3, 1781. 

Dear sir, 
A LETTER from you is always welcome, 
come sooner or later ; yet I cannot help 
rejoicing at that ceaseless hurry of 
business, which occasioned your delay in 
writing, and made me lose a very valu- 
able visit. Riches and reputation, after 
shewing a little coyness at first, are now 
making their advances at a very great 
rate, and will soon be as lavish of their 
charms as you could wish ; yet I know 
you think too liberally to let either your 
friends or your liberty suffer by their 
engrossing you too much. 

I thank you for the nuptial ode, which, 

dually increased to forty, comprehending men 
of the most distinguished characters, and emi- 
nent for their learning, talents, and abilities. 

* Dr. Porteus. 

f Dr. Shipley. 



640 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



notwithstanding its incorrectness, which 
you need not complain of, is the most 
genuine imitation of Pindar I have ever 
seen. I don't know whether I can assent 
to your criticism on the word replete, 
that it is never used in a good sense. 
Were it left to me, I would use it in no 
sense. It has but little meaning. It 
was never naturalized in conversation 
or in prose, and I think makes no figure 
in verse. 

I have another present of value to 
thank you for — your " Essay on the Law 
of Bailments." To own the truth, your 
name to the advertisement made me im- 
patient, and I had sent for it and read it 
before. It appears to me to be clear, 
just, and accurate ; 1 mean as clear as the 
subject will permit. My want of law 
language, and perhaps of a legal under- 
standing, made me feel great difficulty 
in following you through your very in- 
genious distinctions and consequences, of 
which I thought I could perceive the so- 
lidity. I foretel, that this will be your 
last work. For the future your business 
and the public will allow you to write 
no more. 

Though I fear it will not be consistent 
with your employment in Westminster 
Hall, I cannot help telling you, that for 
as many days as you can spare between 
this time and the meeting of parliament, 
you will find a warm bed and a hearty 
welcome at Chilbolton. Mrs. Shipley and 
her daughters desire their compliments, 
and join in the invitation. I am, &c. 



LETTER XLIII. 

Mr. Jones to Lord Althorpe. 

Jan. 5, 1782. 
O La hella cosa il far niente ! This was 
my exclamation, my dear lord, on the 
12th of last month, when I found myself, 
as 1 thought, at liberty to be a rambler, 
.or an idler, or any thing 1 pleased ; but 
my vial di gola took ample revenge for 
my abuse and contempt of it, when I 
wrote to you, by confining me twelve 
days with a fever and quinsey : and I am 
now so cramped by the approaching ses- 
sion at Oxford, that I cannot make any 
long excursion. I inclose my tragical 
song of '* A shepherdess going," with 
Mazzanti's music, of which my opinion 
at present is, that the modulation is very 



artificial, and the harmony good, but 
that Pergolesi (whom the modern Ita- 
lians are such puppies as to undervalue) 
would have made it more pathetic and 
heart-rending, if I may compose such 
word. I long to hear it sung by Mrs. 
Poyntz. Pray present the inclosed, in 
my name, to lady Althorpe. I hope that 
1 shall in a short time be able to think 
of you, when I read these charming lines 
of Catullus * : 

" And soon, to be completely blest, 

Soon may a young Tovquatus rise ; 
Who, hanging on his mother's breast, 

To his known sire shall turn his eyes, 
Outstretch his infant arms awhile, 
Half ope his little lips, and smile." 

Printed Translation. 

What a beautiful picture ! Can Domi- 
nichino equal it? How weak are all arts 
in comparison of poetry and rhetoric ! 
Instead however of Tovquatus, I would 
read Spencerus. Do you not think, that 
I have discovered the true use of the fine 
arts, namely, in relaxing the mind after 
toil? Man was born for labour; his con- 
figuration, his passions, his restlessness,, 
all prove it ; but labour would wear him 
out, and the purpose of it be defeated, if 
he had not intervals of pleasure ; and 
unless that pleasure be innocent, both he 
and society must sufi'er. Now what 
pleasures are more harmless, if they be 
nothing else, than those afforded by po- 
lite arts and polite literature ? Love was 
given us by the Author of our being as 
the reward of virtue, and the solace of 
care ; but the base and sordid forms of 
artificial (which 1 oppose to natural) 
society in which we live, have encircled 
that heavenly rose with so many thorns, 
that the wealthy alone can gather it with 
prudence. On the other hand, mere 
pleasure, to which the idle are not justly 
entitled, soon satiates, and leaves a va- 
cuity in the mind more unpleasant than 
actual pain. A just mixture, or inter- 
change of labour and pleasure, appears 
alone conducive to such happiness as this 
life affords. Farewell. I have no room 
to add my useless name, and still more 
useless professions of friendship. 

* The original is quoted by Mr. Jones: — 
Torquatus volo parvulus, 
Matris k gremio suae 
Porrigens teneras manus, 
Pulce rideat ad patrem, 
Semi-hiante labello. 



SncT. IV 



R E C E N T. 



641 



LETTER XLIV. 

Mr. Jones to Mr. Thomas Yeatts. 



Sir, 



Lamb's Buildings, Apnl 25, 1782. 



It was not till within these very fev/ days 
that I received, on my return from the 
circuit, your obliging- letter, dated the 
18th of March, which, had I been so 
fortunate as to have received earlier, I 
should have made a point of answering 
immediately. The society for constitu- 
tional information, by electing me one of 
their members, will confer upon me an 
honour which I am wholly unconscious 
of deserving, but which is so flattering 
to me, that I accept of their offer with 
pleasure and gratitude. I should indeed 
long ago have testified my regard for so 
useful un institution by an offer of my 
humble service in promoting it, if I had 
not really despaired, in my present situa- 
tion, of being able to attend your meet- 
ings as often as 1 should ardently wish. 

My future life shall certainly be de- 
voted to the support of that excellent 
constitution, which it is the. object of 
your society to unfold and elucidate ; and 
from this resolution, long and deliberately 
made, no prospects, no connection, no 
station here or abroad, no fear of dan- 
ger, or hope of advantage to myself j shall 
ever deter or allure me. 

A form of government so apparently 
conducive to the true happiness of the 
community, must be admired as soon as 
it is understood ; and, if reason and virtue 
have any influence in human breasts, 
ought to be preserved by any exertions, 
and at any hazard. Care must now be 
taken, lest, by reducing the regal power 
to its just level, we raise the aristocrati- 
cal to a dangerous height ; since it is 
from the people that we can deduce the 
obligation of our laws, and the authority 
of magistrates. 

On the people depend the welfare, the 
security, and the permanence of every 
legal government ; in the people must 
reside all substantial power ; and to the 
people must all those, in whose ability 
and knowledge we sometimes wisely, of- 
ten imprudently, confide, be always ac- 
countable for the due exercise of that 
power "with which they are for a time 
entrusted. 

If the properties of all good govern- 
ment be considered as duly distributed 



in the different parts of our limited re 
public, goodness ought to be the distin- 
guished attribute of the crown, wisdom 
of the aristocracy, but power and forti- 
tude of the people. 

May justice and humanity prevail in 
them all ! 

I am, &c. 



LETTER XLV. 

Mr. Jones to the Bishop of St. Asaph, 

Wimbledon Park, Sept. 13, 1782. 

My lord. 
If your lordship received my letter from 
Calais, you will not be much surprised 
to see the date of this, and the place 
where I now am writing, while lady 
Spencer is making morning visits. Mr. 
and Mrs. Poyntz have this instant left 
us. Lord Althorpe being in Northamp- 
tonshire, I must give myself some conso- 
lation for my disappointment in missing 
him, by scribbling a few lines to him as 
soon as I have finished these with v/hich 
I now trouble your lordship. My excur- 
sion to the United Provinces (which has 
been the substitute for my intended ex- 
pedition to the United States) was ex- 
tremely pleasing and improving to me. 
I returned last Monday, and, finding all 
my friends dispersed in various parts of 
England, am going for a few days into 
Buckinghamshire, whence I shall go to 
Oxford, and must continue there till the 
sessions. Should your lordship be in 
Hampshire any time in October, and 
should it be in all respects convenient to 
you, I will accept this year, with great 
pleasure, the obliging invitation to Chil- 
bolton, which I was unfortunately pre- 
vented from accepting last year. 1 la- 
ment the unhappy dissensions among 
our great men, and clearly see the vanity 
of my anxious wish, that they would 
have played in tune some time longer in 
the political concert. 

The delays about the India judgeship 
have, it is true, greatly injured me ; but, 
with my patience and assiduity, I could 
easily recover my lost ground. I must, 
however, take the liberty here to allude 
to a most obliging letter of your lordship 
from Chilbolton, which I received so long 
ago as last November, but was prevented 
from answering till you came to town. 
It was inexpressibly flattering to me ; but 
2 T 



042 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



my intimate knowledge of the nature of 
mj profession oblig-es me to assure you, 
that it requires the ivhole man^ and ad- 
mits of no concurrent pursuits ; that, 
consequently, I must either give it up, or 
it will engross me so much, that I shall 
not for some years be able to enjoy the 
society of my friends, or the siveets of li- 
berty. Whether it be a ¥/ise part to live 
uncomfortably, in order to die wealthy, 
is another question ; but this I know by 
experience, and have heard old practi- 
tioners make the same observation, that 
a lav/yer, who is in earnest, must be 
chained to his chambers and the bar for 
ten or twelve years together. In regard 
to your lordship's indulgent and flattering 
prediction, that my " Essay on Bailmetrt" 
would be my last work, and that, for the 
future, business and the public would 
allow me to write no more ; I doubt whe- 
ther it will be accomplished, whatever 
may be my practice or situation ; for 1 
have already prepared many tracts on ju- 
risprudence ; and when I see the volumes 
written by lord Coke, whose annual 
gains were twelve or fourteen thousand 
pounds, by lord Bacon, sir Matthew 
Hale, and a number of judges and chan- 
cellors, I cannot think that I should be 
hurt in my professional career, by pub- 
lishing now and then a law tract upon 
some interesting branch of the science ; 
and the science itself is indeed so com- 
plex, that, without ivriting, which is the 
chain of memory^ it is impossible to re- 
member a thousandth part of what we 
read or hear. Since it is my wish there- 
fore to become in time as great a lawyer 
as Sulpicius, I shall probably leave as 
many volumes of my works as he is said 
to have written. As to politics, I begin 
to think, that the natural propensity of 
men to dissent from one another, v/iil 
prevent them, in a corrupt age, from 
uniting in any laudable design ; and at 
present 1 have nothing to do but to rest 
on my oars, which the Greek philoso- 
phers, I believe, called sits^siv, a word 
which Cicero applies in one of his letters 
to the same subject. 

My best respects to the ladies, for 
whom I would certainly have brought 
some Virginia nightingales, if my western 
expedition had taken place, since I was 
informed by the captain, with w^hom I 
should have sailed, that they might have 
been kept in the cabin without any 
danger. 



LETTER aLVL 

Mr. Jones to Lady Spencer. 

Chilbolton, Oct. 21, 1782. 
Madam, 
Though 1 wrote so lately to your lady- 
ship, and cannot hope by any thing I 
can now say to make amends for the 
dulness of my last letter ; yet, as some of 
the ladies here are this moment writing 
to St. James's Place, I cannot prevail on 
myself to decline joining so agreeable a 
party, especially as the very favourable 
accounts which were last night received 
of lord Spencer's health have given me 
spirits, and made me eager to oflFer my 
sincere congratulations. Yes ; I rejoice 
with the truest sincerity, that his lord- 
ship's health is so likely to be re-esta- 
blished ; for I cannot name a man of rank 
in the nation, in whose health the pub- 
lic and all mankind, as well as his family 
and friends, are more truly interested. I 
have passed my time at Chilbolton so 
agreeably, that ten days have appeared 
like one ; and it gives me concern, that 
the near approach of the term will oblige 
me to leave so charming and improving 
a society at the end of this week ; after 
which I shall hope to find, my friends at 
Midgham in perfect health ; and then 
farewell, a long farewell to all my rational 
and interesting pleasures, which must be 
succeeded by the drudgery of drawing 
bills in equity, tlie toil of answering cases, 
the squabbles of the bar, and the more 
vexatious dissensions and conflicts of the 
political world, which I vainly depre- 
cated, and now as vainly deplore. How 
happy would it be if statesmen had more 
music in their souls, and could bring 
themselves to consider, that what har- 
mony is in a concert, such is union in a 
state ; but in the great orchestra of po- 
litics, I find so many musicians out of 
humour, and instruments out of tune, 
that I am more tormented by such dis- 
sonance than the man in Hogarth's 
print, and am more desirous than ever 
of being transported to the distance of 
five thousand leagues from all this fatal 
discord. Without a metaphor, I lament 
with anguish the bitterness and animo- 
sity with which some of my friends have 
been assailing others ; as if empty alter- 
cation could be the means of procuring 
any good to this afflicted country. I 
find myself, in more instances than one, 



Sect. IV 



RECENT. 



643 



like poor Petrarcli, wishing to pass my 
days 

iva' magnanimi pochi; a chiH ben piacc, 

Di lor chi iri' asseciira ? 

lo vo gridando pace, pace, pace. 

— but I shall not be heard, and must 
console myself with the pleasing hope, 
that your ladyship, and the few friends 
of virtue and humanity, will agree in this 
sentiment with, &c. 



LETTER XLVII. 

Sir William Jones to Lord Ashhurton. 
April '27, 1783. 

Your kind letter found me on board the 
Crocodile : I should have been very un- 
happy had it missed me, since I have 
long habituated myself to set the highest 
value on every word you speak, and 
every line you write. Of the two inclosed 
letters to our friends, Impey and Cham- 
bers, I will take the greatest care, and 
will punctually follow your directions as 
to the first of them. My departure was 
sudden indeed ; but the Admiralty were 
so anxious for the sailing of this frigate, 
and their orders were so peremptory, 
that it was impossible to wait for any 
thing but a breeze. Our voyage has 
hitherto been tolerably pleasant, and, 
since we left the Channel, very quick. 
We begin to see albicores about the ship, 
and to perceive an agreeable change of 
climate. Our days, though short, give 
me ample time for study, recreation, and 
exercise ; but my joy and delight proceed 
from the surprising health and spirits of 
Anna Maria, who joins me in aiiection- 
ate remembrance to lady Ashburton. As 
to you, my dear lord, we consider you as 
the spring and fountain of our happiness, 
as the author and parent (a Roman 
would have added, what the coldness of 
our northern language will hardly ad- 
mit, the god ) of our fortunes. It is pos' 
sible indeed, that by incessant labour 
and irksome attendance at the bar, I 
might in due time have attained all that 
my very limited ambition could aspire to ; 
but in no other station tlian that which 
I owe to your friendship, could I have 
gratified at once my boundless curiosity 
concerning the people of the East, con- 
tinued the exercise of my profession, in 
which I sincerely delight, and enjoyed at 



the same time the comforts of domestic 
life. The grand jury of Denbighshire 
have found, 1 understand, the bill against 
the dean of St. Asapli, for publishing ray 
dialogue ; but as an indictment for a 
theoretical essay on government was, I 
believe, never before known, I have no 
apprehension for the consequences. As 
to the doctrines in the tract, though I 
shall certainly not preach them to tlie 
Indians, who must and will be governed 
by absolute power, yet I shall go through 
life with a persuasion, that they are just 
and rational ; that substantial freedom is 
both the daughter and parent of virtue ; 
and that virtue is the only source of pub- 
lic and private felicity. Farewell. 



LETTER XLVIII. 

Sir Willicun Jones to Dr, Patrick Rufisel. 

Calcutta, March 10, 17S4. 
You would readily excuse my delay in 
answering your obliging letter, if you 
could form an idea of the incessant hurry 
and confusion, in which I have been kept 
ever since my arrival in Bengal, by ne- 
cessary business, or necessary formalities, 
and by the difficulty of settling myseh^ to 
my mind, in a country so different from 
that which I have left. I am indeed, at 
best, but a bad correspondent ; for I ne- 
ver write by candle-light ; and find so 
much Arabic or Persian to read, that all 
my leisure in a morning is hardly suffi- 
cient for a thousandth part of the read- 
ing that would be highly agreeable and 
useful to me ; and as I purpose to spend 
the long vacation up the country, I wish 
to be a match in conversation with the 
learned natives, v.hom I may happen to 
meet. 

I rejoice that you are so near, but la- 
ment that you are not nearer ; and am 
not without hope, that you may one day 
be tempted to visit Bengal, where I flat- 
ter myself you will give me as much of 
your company as possible. 

Many thanks for your kind hints in 
regard to my health. As to me, I do 
not expect, as long as I stay in India, to 
be free from a bad digestion, the morbus 
literatorum, for which tliere is hardly 
any remedy, but abstinence from too 
much food, literary and culinary. I rise 
before the sun, and batr.e after a genlle 
rid;' ; mvdiet i^^ lii^lit nnd spnrinjr, and I 
2T 2 



044 



ELEGANT EPISTLE S. 



Book IV. 



go early to rest ; yet the activity of my 
mind is too strong for ray constitution, 
though naturally not infirm, and I must 
be satisfied with a valetudinarian state 
of health . If you should meet with any 
curiosities on the coast, either in your 
botanical rambles or in reading, and will 
communicate them to our society, lately 
instituted for inquiring into the history, 
civil and natural, the antiquities, arts, 
sciences, and literature of Asia, we shall 
give you our hearty thanks. There is an 
Abyssinian here, who knew Mr. Bruce, 
at Gwender. I have examined him, and 
he confirms Bruce's account. Every day 
supplies me with something new in Ori- 
ental learning ; and if I were to stay here 
half a century, I should be continually 
amused. 



LETTER XLIX. 



Sii^ William Jones to 



April 13, 



1784. 



I AM discouraged from writing to you as 
copiously as I wish, by the fear that my 
letter may never reach you. I inclose 
however a hymn to the Indian Cupid, 
which is here said to be the only correct 
specimen of Hindu mythology that has 
appeared ; it is certainly new, and quite 
original, except the form of the stanza, 
which is Milton's. I add the character 
of lord Ash burton, which my zeal for 
his fame prompted me to publish. 

^ -X- -x- -X- -X- -X- * -x- 

Had I dreamt that the dialogue would 
have made such a stir, I should certainly 
have taken more pains with it. I Avill 
never cease to avow and justify the doc- 
trine comprised in it. I meant it merely 
as an imitation of one of Plato's, where a 
boy, wholly ignorant of geometry, is made 
by a few simple questions to demonstrate 
a proposition ; and I intended to incul- 
cate, that the principles of government 
were so obvious and intelligible, that a 
clown might be brought to understand 
them. As to raising sedition, I as much 
thought of raising a church. 

My dialogue contains my system, 
which I have ever avowed, and ever will 
avow ; but I perfectly agree (and no man 
of sound intellect can disagree) that such 
a system is wholly inapplicable to this 
country, where millions of men are Sq 



wedded to inveterate prejudices and ha- 
bits, that, if liberty could be forced up- 
on them by Britain, it would make 
them as miserable as the cruellest des- 
potism. 

Pray remember me affectionately to 
all my friends at the bar, whom I have 
not time to enumerate ; and assure my 
academical and professional friends, that 
I will write to them all when I have 
leisure. Farewell, &c. 



LETTER L. 

Sir Wm. Jones to Charles Chapman, Esq. 

Gardens, near Allipore, April 26, 1784 
Allow me, dear sir, to give you the 
warmest thanks, in my own name, and 
in that of our infant society, for the 
pleasure which we have received from 
your interesting account of Cochin Chi- 
na, with considerable extracts from which 
we have been favoured by our patrons. 
Our meetings are well attended, and the 
society may really be said, considering 
the recent time of its establishment, to 
flourish. 

We have been rather indisposed, the 
weather being such as we had no idea of 
in England, excessive heat at noon, and 
an incessant high wind from morning to 
night ; at this moment it blows a hurri- 
cane, and my study reminds me of my 
cabin at sea. Our way of life however 
is quite pastoral in this retired spot ; as 
my prime favourites, aniong all our pets, 
are two large English sheep, which came 
with us from Spithead, and, having nar- 
rowly escaped the knife, are to live as 
long and as happily Avith us as they can ; 
they follow us for bread, and are perfect- 
ly domestic. We are literally lulled to 
sleep by Persian nightingales ; and cease 
to wonder, that the Bulbul, with a thou- 
sand tales, makes such a figure in Orien- 
tal poetry. Since I am resolved to sit 
regularly in court as long as I am well, 
not knowing how soon I may be forced 
to remit my attention to business, I shall 
not be at liberty to enter my budgerow 
tin near the end of July, and must be 
again in Calcutta on the 22d of October, 
so that my time will be very limited ; and 
I shall wish if possible to see Benares. 



Sect. IV. 



RECENT. 



645 



LETTER LI. 

Sir William Jones to 3Iiss E. Shipley. 
On the Ganges, Sept. 7, 1786. 

You do too much honour, my dear ma- 
dam, to my compositions ; they amuse 
me ill the few hours of leisure that my 
business allows, and if they amuse my 
friends, I am amply rewarded. 

Ma si H Latino e H Greco 

Parian di me dopo la morte, e un vento y \ 

Ond^ io, perche pavento 

Aduna sempre quel cfi' nn ora sgombre, 

Vmrei H vero abbruciar lassando Vombre. 

We talk of the year 1/90, as the hap- 
py limit of our residence in this unpro- 
pitious climate ; but this must be a fa- 
mily secret, lest application should be 
made for my place, and I should be 
shoved out before my resignation. God 
grant that the bad state of my Anna's 
health may not compel her to leave In- 
dia before me ; 1 should remain like a 
man with a dead palsy on one of his 
sides ; but it w^ere better to lose one side 
for a time, than both for ever. I do not 
mean that she has been, or is likely to 
be, in danger from her complaints. I 
have proposed a visit to her friend, lady 
Campbell, and she seemed to receive the 
proposal with pleasure ; the sea air, and 
change of scene at a proper season, may 
do more than all the faculty, with all 
their prescriptions. As to politics and 
ministers, let me whisper another secret 
in your ear : 

lo non credo plu dl uero cA' aW azzurro; 

and, as to coalitions, if the nero be 
mixed with the azzurro^ they will only 
make a dirtier colour. India is yet se- 
cure, and improveable beyond imagina- 
tion ; it is not, however, in such a state 
of security, but that wise politicians may, 
with strong well-timed exertions and 
well-applied address, contrive to lose it. 
The discharge of my duty, and the study 
of Indian laws in their original languages 
(which is no inconsiderable part of my 
duty), are an excuse for my neglect of 
writing letters ; and indeed I find, by ex- 
perience, that I can take up my pen for 
that purpose but once a year, and I have 
a hundred unanswered letters now lying 
before me ; but my Anna, who is my se- 
cretary of state, and first, or rather sole, 
lady of the treasury, has written volumes. 
Loves and regards to all who love and 



regard us ; as to compliments, they are 
unmeaning things, and neither become 
me to send, nor you to convey. 1 am, &c. 

LETTER LII. 

Sir Williccm Jones to J. Shore, Esq. 

June 24. 
* -x- -x- -^ -^ -X- 

* * ^ I ^3j ^yell, rising 

constantly between three and four, and 
usually walking two or three miles be- 
fore sun-rise ; my wife is tolerably well ; 
and we only lament that the damp wea- 
ther will soon oblige us to leave our 
herds and flocks, and all our rural de- 
lights, on the banks of the Baghiratti. 
The business of the court will continue 
at least two months longer, after which 
I purpose to take a house at Bandeli, or 
Hiigli, and pass my autumnal vacation, 
as usual, v/ith the Hindu bards. I have 
read your pundit's curious book twice in 
Sanscrit, and will have it elegantly co- 
pied ; the Dabistaiij also, I have read 
through twice with great attention ; and 
both copies are ready to be returned, as 
you shall direct. Mr. R.Johnston thinks 
he has a young friend who will translate 
the Dahistan; and the greatest part of 
it would be very interesting to a curious 
reader, but some of it cannot be trans- 
lated. It contains more recondite learn- 
ing, more entertaining history, more 
beautiful specimens of poetry, more in- 
genuity and wit, more indecency and blas- 
phemy, than I ever saw collected in a 
single volume : the two last are not the 
author's, but are introduced in the chap- 
ters on the heretics and infidels of India. 
On the whole, it is the most amusing 
and instructive book I ever read in Per- 
sian. 

I hear nothing from Europe but what 
all the papers contain ; and that is enough 
to make me rejoice exceedingly that I 
am in Asia. Those with whom I have 
spent some of my happiest hours, and 
hope to spend many more on my return 
to England, are tearing one another to 
pieces, with the enmity, that is proverbial 
here, of the snake and the ichneumon. 
I have nothing left, therefore, but to wish 
what is right and just may prevail, to 
discharge my public duties with unre- 
mitted attention, and to recreate myselt 
at leisure with the literature of this inte- 
resting country. 



646 



E L i:GA NT E V i 8 T L E S. 



Book IV. 



LETTER LllL 

Sir WiUiam Jones to J. Shore, Esq. 

Chrisbna-nagur, Aug-. 1'^, 1786. 
I THANK you heartily, my dear sir, for 
the tender strains of the :infortunate 
Charlotte*, which have given us pleasure 
and pain ; the sonnets which relate to 
herself are incomparably the best. Pe- 
trarca is little known ; his sonnets, espe- 
cially the first book, are the least valu- 
able of his works, and contain less natu- 
ral sentiments than those of the swan of 
Avon ; but his odes, which are political, 
are equal to the lyric poems of the 
Greeks ; and his triumphs are in a tri- 
umphant strain of sublimity and magni- 
ficence. Anna Maria gives you many 
thanks for the pleasure you have procured 
her. We are in love Avith tliis pastoral 
cottage ; but though these three months 
are called a vacation, yet I have no va- 
cant hours. It rarely happens that fa- 
vourite studies are closely connected with 
the strict discharge of our duty, as mine 
happily are ; even in this cottage I am 
assisting the court, by studying Arabic 
and Sanscrit, and have now rendered it 
an impossibility for the Molsammedan or 
Hindu lawyers to impose upon us with 
erroneous opinions. 

This brings to my mind your honest 
pundit Rhadacaur.t, who refused, I hear, 
the office of pundit to the court, and told 
Mr. Hastings, that he would not accept of 
it if the salary were doubled ; his scru- 
ples were probably religious ; but they 
would put it out of my power to serve 
him, 'should the office again be vacant. 
His unvarnished tale I would have re- 
peated to you, if we had not missed one 
another on the river ; but since I de- 
spair of seeing you until my return to 
Calcutta, at the end of October, I will 
set it down here, as nearly as I can re- 
collect, in his own words : — 

*' My father (said he) died at the age 
of a hundred years, and my mother, who 
was eighty years old, became a sati, and 
burned herself to expiate sins. They 
left me little besides good principles. 
Mr. Hastings purchased for me a piece 
of land, which at first yielded twelve 
hundred rupees a year ; but lat^^y, either 
through my inattention or iliroiigh ac- 
cident, it has produced only one thou- 

* Sonnets by Charlotte Smith. 



sand. Thiii would be sufficient for me 
and my family ; but the duty of Brah- 
mans is not only to teach the youths of 
their sect, but to relieve those who are 
poor. I made many presents to poor 
scholars and others in distress, and for 
this purpose I anticipated my income : I 
was then obliged to borrow for my 
family expenses, and I now owe about 
three thousand rupees. This debt is my 
only cause of uneasiness in this world ; I 
v/ould have mentioned it to Mr. Shore, 
but I was ashamed." 

Now the question is, how he can be 
set upon his legs again, when I hope he 
will be more prudent. If Bahman * 
should return to Persia, I can afford to 
give him one hundred rupees a month, 
till his debt shall be discharged out of 
his rents ; but at present I pay more in 
salaries to my native scholars than I can 
well afford ; nevertheless I will cheerfully 
join you in any mode of clearing the ho- 
nest man, that can be suggested ; and I 
should assist him merely for his own 
sake, as I have more Brahmanical teach- 
ers than I can find time to hear. 

I send you not an elegant pathetic 
sonnet, but the wildest and strangest 
poem that was ever written, KhakaniV; 
comjiiaint in prison. The whole is a 
menace, that he would change his reli- 
gion, and seek protection among the 
Christians, or the Gabres. It contains 
one or two proper names, of which I find 
no full explanation, even in a commen- 
tary professedly written to illustrate the 
poem. The fire of Khakani's genius 
blazes through the smoke of his erudi- 
tion ; the measure of the poem, whicb 
will enable you to correct the errors of 
the copies, is 



with a strong accent on the last syllable 
of each foot. Adieu, my dear sir, &e. 



LETTER LIV. 

Sir Wrn. Jones to Thomas Ca-ldicotty Esq. 

Sept. 24, 1788. 
We had incessant labour for six hours 
a-day, for three whole months, in the 

* A parsi and a native of Yezd, emploj'ed 
by Sir William Jones as a reader. 



Sect. IV. 



R E C E N T, 



647 



Lot season between the tropics ; and, 
what is a sad consequence of long sit- 
tings, we have scarcely any vacation. I 
can, therefore, only write to you a few 
lines this autumn. Before your brother 
sent me " Lewisdon Hill," I had read it 
twice aloud to different companies, with 
great delight to myself end to them : 
thank the author in my name. I believe 
his nameless rivulet is called Brei or 
Brit (whence Biidiwri) by Michael 
Dravton, who describes the fruitful 
Marshwood. ^ ^ * « 

Pray assure all who care for me, or 
whom I am likely to care for, that I 
never, directly or indirectly, asked for 
the succession to sir E. Impey ; and 
that, if any indiscreet friend of mine has 
asked for it in my name, the request 
w^as not made by my desire, and never 
would have been made with my assent. 

" Co^ inagnanhni pochi, a chl '/ ben piace,-'' 

I have enough ; but if I had not, I think 
an ambitious judge a very dishonourable 
and mischievous character. Besides, I 
never would have opposed sir R. Cham- 
bers, who has been my friend twenty-five 
years, and wants money, which I do not. 
I have fixed on the year 1 800 for my 
return towards Europe, if I live so long, 
and hope to begin the new century aus- 
piciously among my friends in England. 

P. S. Since I wTOte my letter, I have 
amused myself with composing the an- 
nexed ode to Abundance. I took up 
ten or twelve hours to compose and copy 
it ; but I must now leave poetry, and re- 
turn for ten months to J. N. and J. S. 



LETTER LV. 

Sir William Jones to Mr. Justice Hyde. 

Sept. 19, 1789, 
You have given lady Jones great plea- 
sure by informing us, from so good 
authority, that a ship is arrived from 
England : she presents you with her best 
compliments. 

Most readily shall I acquiesce in any 
alleviation of Horrebow's misery, that 
you and sir Robert Chambers shall think 
just and legal. I have not one lawbook 
with me ; nor, if I had many, should I 
perfectly know where to look for a miti- 
gation by the court of a sentence, which 



they pronounced after full consideration 
of all its probable effects on the person 
condemned. I much doubt whether it 
can legally be done ; nor do I think the 
petition states any urgent reason for it. 
First, he mentions losses already su'taiued 
(not therefore to be prevented by his 
enlargement), and, in my opinion, they 
cannot easily be more than lie deserves. 
Next, his wife's health may have been 
injured by his disgrace, and may not be 
restored by our shortening the time of his 
confinement, which, if I remember, is 
almost half expired, and was as short as 
justice tempered with lenity v/ould allow. 
His own health is not said to be affected 
by the imprisonment in such a place, at 
such a season ; for if it were proved that 
he were dangerously ill, Ave might, I sup- 
pose, remove him to a healthier place, 
or even let him go to sea, if able sur- 
geons swore, that, in their serious opi- 
liion, nothing else could save his life. 
That is by no means the case, and I 
confess I have no compassion for him ; 
my compassion is for the enslaved chil- 
dren and their parents. Nevertheless I 
know the benevolence of your heart, and 
shall approve w^hatever you and sir R. C. 
may do, if any precedent can be found 
or recollected of a pov/er in the court to 
do what is now prayed. I am, &c. 



LETTER LVl. 

Sir Willia77i Jones to Sir Joseph Banks. 

Sept. 1 7, 1 789. 

Dear sir Joseph, 
The season for paying my annual epis- 
tolary rents being returned with the 
rough gales of the autumnal equinox, I 
am eager to offer my tribute where it is 
most due, to my best landlord, who, in- 
stead of claiming, like the India com- 
pany, sixteen shillings in the pound for 
the neat profits of my farm (I speak cor- 
rectly, though metaphorically), volun- 
tarily offers me indulgences, even if I 
should run in arrears. 

You have received, I trust, the pods 
of the finest Dacca cotton, with vrhicli 
the commercial resident at that station 
supplied me, and which I sent by differ- 
ent conveyances, some inclosed to your- 
self, some to sir George Young, and 
some by private hands. But I have al- 
ways found it safer to send letters and 



«48 



E L E G A N T E P } 8 T /. E S. 



Book fT. 



amall parcels by the })ublic packet, fclian 
by careless and inconsiderate individuals, 
I am not partial to the pryangu, which I 
now find is its true name ; but Mr. Shore 
found benefit from it, and procured the 
fresh plants from Arracan, which died 
unluckily in their way to Calcutta. But, 
seriously, it deserves a longer trial be- 
fore its tonic virtues, if it have any, can 
be ascertained. It is certainly not so 
fine a bitter as camomile or col umbo 
root. 

I wish politics at the devil, but hope 
that, when the king recovered, science 
revived. It gives me great pain to know, 
that parti/, as it is called (I call it fac- 
tion, because I hold party to be ground- 
ed on principles, and faction on self-in- 
terest, which excludes all principle), has 
found its way into a literary club, who 
meet reciprocally to impart and receive 
new ideas. I have deep-rooted political 
principles, which the law taught me; 
but I should never think of introducing 
them among men of science ; and if, on 
my return to Europe, ten or twelve years 
hence, I should not find more science 
than politics in the club, my seat in 
it will be at the service of any po- 
litician, who may wish to be one of the 
party. 

An intimate friend of Mr. Blane has 
written to him, at ray request, for the 
newly discovered fragrant grass ; and 
should the plants be sent before the last 
ships of the season sail, they shall be sent 
to you. Whether they be the nard of 
the ancients, 1 must doubt, because we 
have sweet grasses here of innumerable 
species ; and Reuben Burrow brought 
me an odoriferous grass from the place 
where the Ganges enters India, and where 
it covers whole acres, and perfumes the 
whole country. From his account of it, 
I suspect it to be Mr. Blane's ; but I 
could make nothing of the dry specimens, 
except that they differed widely from the 
Jatamansi, which I am persuaded is the 
Indian nard of Ptolemy. I can only 
procure the dry Jatamansi, but if I can 
get the stalks, roots j and flowers from 
Butan, I v/ill send them to you. Since 
the death of Koenig, we are in great want 
of a professed botanist. I have twice 
read with rapture the " Philosophia 
Botanica," and have Murray's edition 
of the " Genera et Species Plantarum" 
always with me ; but, as I am no 
lynx, like Linnaeus, I cannot examine 



minute blossoms, especially those of 
grasses. 

We are far advanced in the second vo- 
lume of our "Transactions." 



LETTER LVII. 

Sir Wm. Jones to Sir J. Macpherson, Barf. 

Clirishna-naguv, Oct. lo, 1790. 

I GIVE you hearty thanks for your post- 
script, which (as you enjoin secrecy) I 
will only allude to ambiguously, lest 
this letter should fall into other hands 
than yours. Be assured, that what I am 
going to say does not proceed from an 
imperfect sense of your kindness, but 
really I want no addition to my fortune^ 
which is enough for me ; and if the whole 
legislature of Britain were to offer me a 
different station from that which I now 
fill, should most gratefully and respect- 
fully decline it. The character of an 
ambitious judge is, in my opinion, very 
dangerous to public justice ; and if I 
were a sole legislator, it should be enact- 
ed, that every judge, as well as every bi- 
shop, should remain for life in the place 
which he first accepted. This is not the 
language of a cynic, but of a man who 
loves his friends, his country, and man- 
kind ; who knows the short duration of 
human life, recollects that he has lived 
four-and -forty years, and has learned to 
be contented. Of public affairs you will 
receive better intelligence than I am 
able to give you. My private life is si- 
milar to that which you remember : seven 
hours a day, on an average, are occupied 
by my duties as a magistrate, and one 
hour to the new Indian digest, for one 
hour in the evening I read aloud to lady- 
Jones. We are now travelling to the 
sources of the Nile with Mr. Bruce, 
whose work is very interesting and im- 
portant. The second volume of the 
" Asiatic Transactions" is printed, and 
the third ready for the press. I jabber 
Sanscrit everyday with the pundits, and 
hope, before I leave India, to understand 
it as well as I do Latin. Among my 
letters I find one directed to you ; I 
have unsealed it ; and though it only 
shews that I was not inattentive to the 
note with which you favoured me on 
the eve of your departure, yet I annex 
it because it was yours, though brought 
back by my servant. 



Sect. IV 



RECENT. 



64^ 



The latter part of it will raise melan- 
dioly ideas ; but death, if we look at it 
firmly, is only a change of place ; every 
departure of a friend is a sort of death ; 
and we are all continually dying and re- 
viving. We shall all meet : I hope to 
meet you again in India ; but wherever 
we meet, I expect to see you well and 
happy. None of your friends can wish 
for your health and happiness more ar- 
dently than, my dear sir, &c. 



or thinks he has found, an account of 
Africa and Europe, and even of Britain 
by name, in the Scanda Puran ; he has 
sent us a chart of the Nile from Sanscrit 
authorities, and I expect soon to receive 
his proofs and ilbistrations. Of public 
affairs in India I say little, because I 
can say nothing with certainty ; the sea- 
sons and elements have been adverse to 
us in Mysore. Farewell, my dear sir, 
and believe me to be, with unfeigned re- 
gard, yours, &c. 



LETTER LVIII. 

Sir Wm. Jones to Warren Hastings, Esq. 
^ Chrishua nagur, Oct. 17, 1791. 

My dear sir. 
Before you can receive this, you will, 
1 doubt not, have obtained a complete 
triumph over your persecutors ; and 
your character will have risen, not 
brighter indeed, but more conspicuously 
bright, from the furnace of their perse- 
cution. Happy should I be if I could 
congratulate you in person on your vic- 
tory ; but though I have a fortune in 
England which might satisfy a man of 
letters, yet I have not enough to esta- 
blish that absolute independence which 
has been the chief end and aim of my 
life ; and I must stay in this country a 
few years longer : lady Jones has, how- 
ever, promised me to take her passage for 
Europe in January 1793, and I will fol- 
low her when I can. She is pretty well, 
and presents her kindest remembrance to 
you and Mrs. Hastings, whom I thank 
most heartily for a very obliging and ele- 
gant letter. My own health has, by 
God's blessing, been very firm, but my 
eyes are weak, and I have constantly 
employed them eight or nine hours a 
day. My principal amusement is bota- 
ny, and the conversation of the pundits, 
with whom I talk fluently in the language 
of the gods; and my business, besides 
the discharge of my public duties, is the 
translation of " Menu," and of the digest 
which has been compiled at my instance. 
Our society still subsists, and the third 
volume of their Transactions is so far ad- 
vanced, that it will certainly be pub- 
lished next season. Samuel Davis has 
translated the " SiuryaSiddhanta," and is 
making discoveries in Indian astronomy ; 
while Wilford is pursuing his geographi- 
cal inquiries at Benares, and has found, 



LETTER LIX. 

Sir William Jones to Lord Teignmouth* 

My dear sir, 
A FEW days after I troubled you about 
the yacht, I felt a severe pang on hearing 
of your domestic misfortune : and i 
felt more for you than I should for most 
men, on so melancholy an occasion, be- 
cause I well know the sensibility of your 
heart. The only topic of consolation 
happily presented itself to you : reason 
perhaps might convince us, that the 
death of a created being never happens 
without the will of the Creator, who go- 
verns this world by a special interposi- 
tion of his providential care ; but, as this 
is a truth which Revelation expressly 
teaches us, our only true comfort in af- 
fliction must be derived from Christian 
philosophy, which is so far from encou- 
raging us to stifle our natural feelings, 
that even the Divine Author of it wept 
on the death of a friend. This doctrine, 
though superfluous to you, is always pre- 
sent to my mind ; and I shall have occa- 
sion in a few years, by the course of na- 
ture, to press it on the mind of lady 
Jones, the great age of whose mother is 
one of my reasons for hoping most 
anxiously, that nothing may prevent her 
returning to England this season. * * 
* * I will follow her as soon as I 
can, possibly at the beginning of 1795, 
but probably not till the season after 
that ; for although I shall have more than 
enough to supply all the wants of a man, 
who would rather have been Cincinnatus 
with his plough, than LucuUus with all 
his wealth, yet I wish to complete the 
system of Indian laws while I remain in 
India, because I wish to perform what- 
ever I promise, with the least possible 
imperfection ; and in so diflicidt a work 



C50 



ELEGANT EPISTLE S. 



Book IV, 



doubts miglit arise, which the pundits 
alone could remove. You continue, I 
hope, to find the gardens healthy ; no- 
thing can he more pleasant than the 
house in which we live ; but it might 
justly be called the temple of the winds, 
especially as it has an octagonal form, 
like that erected at Athens to those bois- 
terous divinities. I cannot get rid of the 
rheumatism, which their keen breath has 
given me, and submit with reluctance 
to the necessity of wrapping myself in 
shawls and flannel. We continue to be 
charmed with the perspicuity, modera- 
tion, and eloquence of Filangieri. 

Of European politics I think as little 
as possible ; not because they do not in- 
terest my heart, but because they give 
me too much pain. I have " good will 
towards men, and wish peace on earth ;' 
but I see chiefly under the sun the two 
classes of men whom Solomon describes, 
the oppressor and the oppressed. I have 
no fear in England of open despotism, nor 
of anarchy. I shall cultivate my fields 
and gardens, and think as little as 
possible of monarchs or oligarchs. I 
am, &c. 



1 rejoice, I greatly rejoice, to hear 
that you are better. Might not Bath be 
as much your friend as mine ? In some 
points our 'cases are similar. 

I think you told me in a letter, that 
you once found benefit from it ; if you 
could try again, I would attend you to 
your last hour. 

But, say you, are you idle all this 
time? No, I am on a great work,. 
How great a work is it to leant to die 
with safety and comfort? This is, as it 
should be, my business, unless I think it 
too much to spend my superannuated 
hours on that which ought to have been 
the business of my whole life. 

I am now (as it is high time) setting 
my house in order- — and therefore desire 
you to send by the carrier the parcel of 
sermons (which were packed i^p when I 
was in town), that I may commit them 
to the flames. 

And please to favour me with my full 
and long debt to you ; for I am in pain 
to have it discharged. 

That the wing of an indulgent Provi- 
dence may be ever stretched over you 
and yours, is the earnest prayer of, dear 
sir, &c. 



FROM THE 
LETTERS or MR. PJCflARDSON. 



LETTER LX. 

Dr. Young to Mr. Richardson. 

Bath, Jan. 3, 175S. 

My dearest friend. 
Numberless are your favours : Mr. and 
Mrs. Ditcher are to me extremely kind. 
I bless God, I at last find benefit from 
the waters, as to appetite, rest, and 
spirits. I have now for three nights 
had pretty good rest, after two sleepless 
months : and I believe that persevering 
in the waters is the point, at least in 
my complaint. 

But, at my time of day, how dare I to 
complain of small things, on the brink of 
the grave, and at the door of eternity ! 
What a mercy that I am still here ! 
What a fall have 1 seen around me ! I 
was here twenty years ago, and scarce 
find one of the generation alive. 



LETTER LXL 

Mr. Richardson to Dr. Young. 

Jan. 1758, 

Rev. and ever dear sir, 
I CONGRATULATE you, witli my whole 
heart, on the good effect the waters have 
at last had on your health. 

What may we not promise ourselves 
from so sound and good a constitution, 
from your regularity and temperance, 
and from the powers of such a mind, in- 
vigorating the whole ! a mind, which can 
enjoy, and even enlarge itself, by that 
very sleeplessness which tears in pieces 
the health of others ! 

" Our cases in som© points are simi- 
lar." Ah, my dear and good sir ! — But 
that exercise, that journeying, which will 
contribute to your cure, I am unable to 
take. What a motive do you give me to 
make you a Bath visit, were I able ! — 
But I hope, on your return, I shall not be 
deprived of the blessing of your com- 
pany, and the favour of Mrs. Hallowes's, 
as was my request, by my daughter 
Ditcher. I have been often at Bath ; 



Sect. IV. 



RECENT. 



661 



but remember not that I received benefit 
from the waters. The late wortliy Dr. 
Hartley once whispered me that I must 
not expect any. 

" You are about a great work : to learn 
to die with safety and comfort." My 
dear sir, you that have been so admir- 
able a teacher of this very doctrine in 
your excellent Night Thoughts, must be 
more than a learner. You have not left 
to superannuated hours (which, I hope, 
if ever they come, are far, very far dis- 
tant) that great work. How comfort- 
ably, therefore, may you enjoy life, as 
well as contemplate the closing scene. 
Your, &c. 

P. S. I am sorry that sleeplessness is 
your complaint. But, when you sleep, 
you are awake to noble purpose : 1, to 
none at all: my days are nothing but 
hours of dozings, for want of nightly rest, 
and through an impatience that I am 
ashamed of, because I cannot subdue it. 

LETTER LXII. 

Miss Collier to Mr. Richardson. 

Eyde, Oct. 3, 1755. 
Dear sir, 
I HAVE delayed answering the kind fa- 
vour of yours, in hopes I should have 
seen more of the island, which my good 
Mrs. Roberts proposed to have shewn 
me ; but the weather has been so very 
cold and comfortless here, that we have 
not had fine days enough successively to 
make the pleasant expedition we have in- 
tended : if we could have gone, I would 
have done my best to have given you a 
description of the views and pretty things 
I had seen ; but I met with some lines, 
the other day, in a translation of a fa- 
mous Italian poet, which, in a few ex- 
pressive words, gives a better account 
of this sweet country, than I could in a 
hundred : — 

** She wishes much to tarry in this land, 
That hoth both fruitful earth and pleasant 
air, 
And fountains sweet, and woods on ev'ry hand. 
And meadows green, and pastures fresh and 
fair; 
Besides large hav'ns, where ships at ease may 
stand, 
To which the merchants often make repair, 
By tempest driven, well loaden with good traf- 

fick. 
Of things that come from Egypt and from 
Afriok." 



This poem was the only book of amuse- 
ment I brought with me ; it is called 
Ariosto, or Orlando Furioso ; and is, in 
its way, a most wonderful piece of ima- 
gination, and really a very extraordinary 
work. My good friends at Appley are 
so kind to supply me with books when I 
am absent from them at my little cot- 
tage, which is not so often as to read a 
great deal. I am so apprehensive, now 
the weather groves cold, that I shall soon 
lose dear Mrs. Roberts and her amiable 
daughters, that I am as much with them 
as possible whilst I can have them so 
near me ; and their frequent society is 
what I fear I shall greatly miss when 
they go to London ; yet, for the sort of 
people in the low station my old folks 
are in, I hardly ever met with more 
simplicity and good sense than they both 
have ; and it is with some degree of 
pleasure that I sit in an evening with 
them, and hear the discourse and gossip- 
pings of the day : it makes me smile 
often, and sometimes rises to a down- 
right laugh ; and whatever promotes and 
causes this, with innocence and good 
humour, is as eligible (as far as I know, 
in the way of conversation) and as wor- 
thy to be ranked of the sort called de- 
lightful and pleasing, as in the routs and 
hurricanes of the great, or at court, or 
even in company with my lord Chester- 
field. I am acquainted with few others 
in this village besides my old folks ; but 
endeavour to get a speaking and how d'ye 
kind of knowledge of them all as I meet 
them ; and I hear by this behaviour I 
have acquired the title amongst them of 
" a civil gentlewoman," and " a very 
civil gentlewoman" many of them say ; 
the children bow and curtsey down to 
the ground, and whisper and jog each 
other when I am coming, crying, " Here 
is the gentlewoman coming :" this is 
homage and respect enough to gratify all 
the vanity and ambition I have now left, 
I think, sufficiently. Mrs. Roberts says, 
when she sees me in my very poor house, 
sitting on my earthen floor, eating my 
dinner out of a platter, and my poor 
bed-chamber without any door to it, and 
a little window peeping out from under 
the thatch, bare walls, and every thing 
suitably poor, that under this humble 
roof I can have no proud thoughts ; but 
must have killed every grain of worldly 
pride and vanity before I could sit down 
contented in such a place. I was forced 



65^ 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



to make a great slaughter, and lay about 
me prodigiously, before I could conquer 
those bitter enemies to peace and humi- 
lity, called passions ; but now I think and 
hope they all lie dead in heaps at several 
places in London and elsewhere ; and I 
brought nothing down with me but a 
bundle of mortifications ; or, to speak 
more seriously, a thorough and humble 
acquiescence to the Divine Will, and an 
earnest desire, with patience, resigna- 
tion, and serenity of mind, to work out 
my salvation, as soon as it will please God 
to release me : perhaps a little impa- 
tience still remains, which tempts me to 
add " The sooner the better;" and ma- 
dame Maintenon's words, in a letter of 
hers, occur to me, where she says, " It 
is high time to die ; why should 1 stay 
any longer in this world ? I have nothing 
to do in it ; and it is generally business 
and ambitious views that make us fond 
of staying here." 

I was sadly vexed, at my first coming, 
at a report which had prevailed here, of 
my being the author of Mr. Fielding's 
last work, " The Voyage to Lisbon:" 
the reason, which was given for supposing 
it mine, was to the last degree mortify- 
ing (viz, that it was so very bad a per- 
formance, and fell so far short of his 
other works, it must needs be the person 
with him who wrote it). This is the dis- 
advantageous light poor women are held 
in, by the ill-nature of the world. If 
they write well, and very ingeniously, 
and have a brother, then, to be sure — 
" She could not write so well ; it was 
her brother's, no doubt." If a man 
falls short of what is expected from his 
former genius in writing, and publishes a 
very dull and unentertaining piece, then 
*^ To be sure it was his sister, or some 
woman friend who was with him." 
Alas ! my good Mr. Richardson, is not 
this a hard case ? — To you I appeal, as 
the only candid man, I believe, with re- 
gard to women's understandings ; and 
indeed their only champion and pro- 
tector, 1 may say, in your writings ; for 
you write of angels, instead of women. 

Admiral Byng and admiral Hawke now 
lie at Spithead ; the latter brought in 
many French prizes with the fleet. 

I heard there was a wreck of a West- 
Indiaman, on the south side of the island, 
last Friday (but the crew saved), laden 
with sugar. — Poor souls ! it was a great 
distress the getting on shore, and being 



plundered, as in all likelihood they were. 
Had they been drowned, I think I should 
not have been so sorry ; for I pity no- 
body that dies : I pity those left behind. 
Oh, that I had died for thee, my dearest 
friend and sister ! — but it was not per- 
mitted me. Excuse me this sudden gust 
of grief: I should not, dare not, trust 
myself to write on this afflicting and 
tender subject; it makes me incapable, 
from want of eyes, to add more than my 
kindest and best respects to dear Mrs, 
Richardson and the miss Richardsons, 
to beg the continuance of your friend- 
ship, dear sir, and that you would be- 
lieve me to be, with the highest esteem, 
your, &c. 



LETTER LXIIL 

Mr. Richardson to Miss M. Collier. 

Dec. 24, 1735- 
If my dear miss Collier knew how much 
1 have been immersed in bricks, mor- 
tar, plasterers' and carpenters' work, all 
the summer, and till within this month 
past, and in that month wholly engrossed 
by the removal of all my printing mate- 
rials into the new building, she would 
think the less hardly of my long si- 
lence to a letter that I admire in every 
line of it. 

Do not let this silence deprive me of 
the description you intended to give me 
of the views, prospects, situations, that 
were to offer to you in the excursions 
you were to make with your hospitable 
friend, Mrs. Roberts, and her amiable 
daughters. 

Alas ! they have left you, I doubt ! 
How are you now ? Who have you to 
associate with, when you carry yourself 
out of that happy circle ? Happy it must 
be ; your ambition trodden under foot — 
your passions calmed. What a happy 
creature must you be in these conquests, 
in your lot, even as you describe it, 
though it would draw a tear from the 
eyes of readers less subdued. Your old 
couple, methinks I love them. I must, 
if they remain kind to you. Sweetly do 
you describe the power your amiable af- 
fability has given you over the affections 
of the children in your neighbourhood. 
— " The gentlewoman," my dear miss 
Collier ! The honest villagers distinguish 
well : you are indeed the gentlewoman. 



Sect. IV 



RECENT. 



653 



and, what is far greater, the Christian! 
i always loved you ; but never so well as 
since 1 have had the favour of your last 
letter. Hoav often have I determined to 
sit down to answer it, and to tell you 
all I thought of it and you, in the time 
of this long silence. 

You regret, my dear miss Collier, the 
hard fate of women of genius, in being 
denied the merit of their own works, 
when well received, and in having them 
attributed to their brothers and other 
men friends, &c. But think you not 
that this is a great deal owing to your 
own sex, who (the capable ones I mean) 
hide their talents in a napkin, and are 
afraid, lovely dastards, of shewing them- 
selves capable of the perfections they are 
mistresses of? — it is well I have not the 
punishing of such degraders of their own 
sex, so I was going to call them ; for do 
they not, by their wilful and studious 
concealments of the gifts God has blessed 
them with, confess, at least, indirectly, 
an inferiority to the other ? Wliat is it 
they fear, in asserting themselves with 
modesty, and when occasionally called 
forth ? Is it that the men will be afraid 
of them, and shun them as wives ? Un- 
worthy fear ? Let the wretches shun and 
be afraid of them. Unworthy of such 
blessings, let such men not dare to look 
up to merits so superior to their own ; 
and let them enter into contract with 
women, whose sense is as diminutive as 
their own souls. What loss would a wo- 
man of high attainments and of genius 
have, in a man of a character so low, 
as to be afraid of the perfections of the 
woman, who would give him the honour 
of calling her his ! 

1 was not a little pleased to hear that 
you kept up a correspondence with so 
excellent a woman as Mrs. Berth on is 
described to be by my good friend Mrs. 
Watts. Miss Lodwich, another admira- 
ble lady! But who can forbear being ex- 
tremely anxious for them, and for many 
others, among the multitudes that have 
perished in the most tremendous catas- 
trophe of Lisbon ? ^Vliat a dreadful 
dispensation ! 

Some impatience, in my dear miss 
Collier, seems still remaining to be con- 
quered ; and when that can be done, and 
a thorough reliance made on the Divine 
goodness, so as neither to covet life, nor 
to wish for death, but to wait the ap- 
pointed time vnth cheerfulness — who 



will be so happy as my dear friend in the 
Isle of Wight? 

But what shall we do for a door to 
your apartment this cold weather? Can- 
not you find a way to draw upon me, 
payable at sight, for five guineas ? Oblige 
me, my dear miss Collier, in the grant 
of this request. — The promissory note I 
annex*. 

My wife and girls most particularly 
desire their best wishes to be wafted to 
you. 

Once more excuse my long silence ; 
and believe me to be, with great truth, 
your, &c. 



LETTER LXIV. 



From the 



to the saine. 



London, Jan. 5, 1756. 

I am sorry my dear Miss Collier had 
the thought of returning the note she 
mentions, unused. Give me not, madam, 
that mortification : I hope you will not ; 
and, in that hope, will say no more on 
the subject. 

The miss B 's ! True, my dear ; 

they are among the dastards I had in my 
head, when I inveighed so vehemently, 
you say, against the geniuses of your 
sex, who studiously, in many inexpli- 
cable plaits, wrap up their napkin'd ta- 
lents. *' Punish them." I wish it were 
in my power. How do you think it 
should be, for the first fault, on convic- 
tion? Why, to banish them for three 
months to Ryde, in the Isle of Wight.— 
Miss Collier to be the inflictor, and the 
example, too, of all human divestments 
(allow me the odd expression) for that 
space of time. 

But think you, my good miss Collier, 
that this elaborate concealment of God- 
given talents is an honest one ? Would 
these girls put a cheat upon some little- 
minded creatures, who would be afraid 
of such talents in their respective wives, 
as would do them credit ? Would they 
break upon them, when they could not 
help themselves, and astun them with a 
superiority of good sense? Rather let 
me ask, would such girls be afraid that 
such men would slight them were they to 
unplait their napkins ? Would they con- 
descend to join hands with men capable 

* A note for five sjuineas. 



f>54 



E L E G A N r EPISTLE S. 



Book JV. 



of slighting them for the excellencies 
they gave not to themselves ? Can you, 
who read Ariosto, help thinking that you 
see, on such an idea as this will raise, a 
lady possessed of the shield of Ruggiero, 
uncovering it, hy surprise, and darting 
radiant glory in the face of her husband ; 
the caitiff, as in one of the cuts of 
Harrington's translation, sprawling, 
dazzled, at her feet ? 

You honour me with the noble title 
of a vindicator of your sex ; but let me 
desire you to whisper in the ears of 
the ladies you mention — "Who, my 
dears, shall vindicate the honour of a 
sex, the most excellent of which desert 
themselves?" — Don't mind their blush- 
ing looks at one another by turns : — 
whisper over again the question, till 
they are determined to amend ; or — 
what or ? — be sent to the Isle of Wight. 
No severe punishment, neither, I hope ! 
— the complicated fault considered. 

Mrs. Berthon and family, I have the 
pleasure of telling you, are safe in their 
persons. Mr. Millar has a letter from 
Mr. W. — I have not seen it. That gen- 
tleman was almost miraculously saved. 
Terribly extensive, indeed, has been this 
earthquake ! God Almighty preserve us 
from the effects of these terraqueous 
convulsions. Were we to persuade our- 
selves that they are sent as judgments, 
what have not we of this kingdom to 
fear ? 

Your poor frantic girl, perhaps, 
thought she was avoiding the evil to 
come, and which she had prophesied 
would come when she sought her death 
in the water. There have been unhappy 
people, more in their senses than she 
seems to have been, who have thrown 
themselves into the arms of death, for 
fear of dying. This girl must have been 
earthquake mad, as well as otherwise 
delirious. Don't you think so? 

My wife, my girls, desire their parti- 
cular respects to you, and join with me 
in wishing the begun year may be the 
happiest you have ever known. In the 
enviable frame of mind you are in, it 
must be so. 

God bless you ! adieu ! and adieu, my 
dear miss Collier ! 



LETTER LXV. 

Miss Collier to Mr. Richardson, 

Feb. 11, 1756. 
I AM much of your opinion, dear sir, 
as to the dishonesty of those girls who 
studiously conceal, in many inexplicable 
plaits (as you say) the glorious talents 
bestowed on them. I wish they had cou- 
rage to assert themselves before marriage, 
and ustun the caitiffs vile, in order to 
get rid of them; for I think, should they 
fall prostrate and sprawling before the 
dazzling shield of the lady, it would be a 
properer and more becoming posture for 
a lover than a husband ; besides, it would 
be highly dishonest in such surpassing 
geniuses to marry men of inferior under- 
standings in another light than that of 
deceiving ; for ought not the power and 
government to rest with those who have 
the superiority of judgment and wisdom ? 
And who would be so base and wanting^ 
to her own worth, as voluntarily to enter 
into a state of submission and acqui- 
escence to the will of a person less qua- 
lified to govern than herself — when this 
would be to enter into a state of the 
vilest servitude, and the only one truly 
so called : as the divine Milton describes 
it, where he says, 

" It is notservitude to serve whom G'od ordains. 
Or Nature ; God and Nature bid the same ^ 
When he who rules is worthiest, and excels 
Them whom he governs. This is servitude. 
To serve the unwise, or him who hath rebell'd 
Against his worthier." 

You say (and truly) that there are 
little-minded creatures who would be 
afraid of such talents in their respective 
wives as would outshine themselves. — 
And again, ask if such girls would be 
afraid that such men should slight them ? 
Why no, surely. — But O I Mr. Rich- 
ardson (with a deep sigh I say it) that I 
never had heard men of real good sense, 
great parts, and many fine qualities lower 
themselves down to these little-minded 
creatures, in inveighing with warmth 
against an uncommon share of under- 
standing in a wife ; and shewing but toa 
plainly in their practice, when they come 
to marry, that they are as much afraid 
of a rivalship of understanding in their 
wives as those men you mention. — In- 
deed, indeed sir, I have heard and seen 
this in men of unquestionable good sense ! 
— Where, then, shall we find husbands foi; 



Sect. iV. 



11 E C E N T. 



m5 



our dear uncommon geniuses of girls ? — 
Are not tliey under a kind of necessity 
(if tliey ever intend to marry) to con- 
tinue their napkins in plaits before mar- 
riage, nor ever daretounfokl them, even 
after marriage, to the generality of men, 
except they could meet with a noble- 
minded Sir Charles Grandison, or such 
as have grace enough to endeavour to 
tread in his steps. 

I have a mixture of joy and tender 
concern in the account you give me of 
my friends at Lisbon, and from what I 
have heard from others. They are safe 
in their persons, it seems ; but poor Mr. 
St — bs and family have lost every shil- 
ling they had in the world, it's said. 
Dear ! what a trying circumstance is 
this to people in great affluence, as they 
were. I pray God support and comfort 
them under this heavy affliction : they 
are worthy good people, and 1 hope they 
will find friends to assist them. 

My good old folks — you can't think 
how I love them ! — the more, I believe, 
because they hearken with such atten- 
tion and admiration to Clarissa and Sir 
Charles Grandison, which latter I have 
now begun to them. They believe both 
Clarissa and Sir Charles to be real sto- 
ries, and no work of imagination ; and I 
don't care to undeceive them. The good 
man is more than threescore, he be- 
lieves ; but quite alive, and has none of 
the infirmities of age. She has one of 
the most agreeable and placid counte- 
nances I ever saw. They love each 
other, and the husband rejoices in the 
balance of sense being of her side, which 
it is, in some degree ; and glories in her 
being able to read and write, which he 
can scarcely do. I can't quit my old folks 
without expressing my happiness in 
them, and gratitude to all my kind 
friends, who put it in my power, by the 
help my little pittance is to them, to 
afford them more of the necessaries and 
comforts of life than they enjoyed be- 
fore I came. 

In short, my good Gaffer and his wife, 
I believe, are just such good old folks as 
Mr. and Mrs. Andrews, in Pamela. 

Compliments to dear Mrs. Richard- 
son ; and believe me to be, dear sir, 
your, &c. 



LETTER LXVL 

Mr. Richardson to Miss Higltmorc. 

Tunbridge Wells, Aug-. 2, 1748. 
What say you to m.e here, miss High- 
more ? — " Sure, if you go to Tun- 
bridge (says a lady you dearly love, 
but not better than every one who has 
the pleasure of knowing her, loves), you 
will not value travelling a few miles in 
order to visit us." Tunbridge Wells are 
about thirty-eight miles distant from 
London i Hatch (I have inquired) is 
about forty : and no extraordinary roads. 
I, a bad traveller, cannot sit a horse — 
come hither to drink the waters for 
health sake — can ill spare the time — 
propose but three weeks — have been here 
one, last Friday — this Jtiy situation. 

The geniuses of Hatch, how different 
theirs ! Nothing to do but study their 
diversion and amusement. Tunbridge, 
in high season, a place devoted to amuse- 
ment. — Time entirely at command, 
though not hanging heavy ; impossible 
indeed it should. — Vehicles, whether 
four-wheeled or four-legged, at will ; 
riding, a choice. — And the worthy Dr. 
Knatchbuil here. What says my fair 
correspondent ? — What her worthy and 
kind friends to this ? 

Do come and see how your other old 
lover spins away, hunting after new faces, 
at fifty-seven. You will see him in his 
kingdom ; and he will read to you anew 
performance, calculated, indeed, for the 
perts of the place; " A Dialogue be- 
tween a Father and a Daughter," very 
sprightly ; a little sprinkling of some- 
thing better in it, but very sparingly 
sprinkled ; as if the author were afraid 
that his mind should be thought as an- 
tique as his body. — Calculated to recon- 
cile fatherly authority with filial obedi- 
ence (so he says) : — But, I think, to 
level the former, and throw down dis- 
tinction. 

He read it to the speaker, who thought 
it better managed than he expected : but 
referred him to me upon it ; for I was 
present, and objected to it. I have, ac- 
cording to my usual prolixity, given him 
half a sheet upon half a page. He wants 
me to go on with my remarks — has al- 
tered two or three passages ; but I think 
not for the better : it is a task, therefore, 
that I decline. For I am told I should 
not scribble — have alargecorrespondence 



636 



ELEGANT E F 1 S T L E S. 



Book IV. 



ypon my hands. Business, besides, very 
ill sparing me ; and post and coach em- 
ployed to carry up my directions, and in 
receiving accounts of management ; with 
about one half of which, only, I can be 
pleased. 

Lord, Lord ! miss Highmore ! What 
figures do Mr. Nash and Mr. Gibber 
make, hunting after new beauties, and 
with faces of high importance traversing 
the walks ! God bless you, come and see 
them ! — And if you do, I will shew you a 
still more grotesque figure than either : 
A sly sinner, creeping along the very 
edges of the walks, getting behind 
benches ; one hand in his bosom, the 
other held up to his chin, as if to keep 
it in its place: afraid of being seen, as 
a thief of detection. The people of 
fashion, if he happen to cross a walk 
(which he always does with precipita- 
tion), unsmiling their faces, as if they 
thought him in their way; and he, as 
sensible of so being, stealing in and out 
of the booksellers shop, is if he had one 
of their glass-cases under his coat. Come 
and see this odd figure ! You never will 
see him, unless I shew him to you: and 
who knows when an opportunity for that 
may happen again at Tunbridge ? 

And here have I turned over. — But 
how ready are you to catch at a pretence 
for making your letter short, when you 
say, that you are afraid that 1 should de- 
sign mine for an example in that respect ! 
But how little reason have you to call 
mine short, when I write more (in quan- 
tity) in one line, than you do in three % 
and more in half a page than you do in 
four whole ones. What, though my 
length is my dispraise, I cannot help it : 
I have no patent for brevity : nor is it 
every one who, like miss Highmore, can 
write a great deal in a little compass. 
Who can paint the dew-dropt meadows, 
every spire of grass glittering like dia- 
monds of the first water — the obscuring 
clouds — the sunny glories of the great 
luminary — the shady lanes, perfumed 
and enamelled with honeysuckles — the 
fragrant fields of new cut hay — the light 
lasses, and nimble lads, resting on their 
rakes and forks, lost in wonder and re- 
verence, when they behold the horse- 
folks, as you humbly phrase it ! Who 
can anticipate the yellow harvest, the 
busy hinds, and the reward of industry ! 
—Who can figure out, in still superior 
lights, the beauties of contemplation 



which she enjoys in her Clarissa-closet 
(as she is pleased to call it), with pen, 
pencil, and books ! — The agreeable con- 
versation, at other times, of her enliven- 
ing friends ; and the charms of dear va- 
riety, that soul of female pleasure : and 
fifty and fifty other no less delightful 
subjects ; and bring them all into the 
compass of a letter of fifty or sixty short 
lines ! — This is given to miss Highmore 
to do ; but not to me. 

Dr. KnatchbuU desires his aflFectionate 
compliments to all at Hatch. He gives 
me his countenance in wishing to see 
you all here. My respectful ones to sir 
Wyndham and Mrs. KnatchbuU, Mr. 
Gibber's duty attends you. And I am, 
my dear miss Highmore, your, &c. 

P. S. You might have gone on with 
your subject of happiness ; for who is it 
that tastes it, knows it, and deserves it, 
if miss Highmore does not ? 



LETTER LXVn. 

Mr. Richardson to Miss Highmore. 

London, Julj' 15, 1753. 
My dear miss Highmore was very good 
to write so soon after her arrival at 
Weston House : and had I not been 
obliged to pass two days at Enfield, 
which set me behind-hand with all my 
business, she should have had her kind 
expectations answered before the last 
week had elapsed. 

But why filled my amiable girl the 
first side of her sheet with so melancholy 
an account of her depression of spirits, 
on leaving a father, so well beloved by 
every body, to go to a delightful spot, 
and to a lady of whom she is so fond, 
and who was always so fond of her? 

" I hope the vain girl (say you) has 
not represented herself of too much con- 
sequence." You have not, my dear. Do 
we not all know that you are of the ut- 
most to that indulgent parent ; and of 
very high to all who have the pleasure of 
your acquaintance ? But looks it not as 
if one of the frankest-hearted girls in 
Britain took a little hardly some of my 
past truly paternal freedoms, when she 
adds — " If she has, I am sure Mr. Rich- 
ardson will cure her of that mistake." 
Well, but my dear Highmore, this shall 
not hinder me from telling you of your 



Sect. IV 



R E C E N T, 



657 



faults, if any appear to me ; and 1 hope 
you will deal as freely with me ; — I have 
multitudes — I wish I were but half as 
good as I think you. 

Your papa writes so well, and is so 
fond of writing- to his beloved daughter, 
that I wiU leave it to hira to tell you how 
happy he thinks himself in knowing you 
to be so ; and that you are right in sup- 
posing, " that his benevolent heart ex- 
pands with delight at the account he 
receives of your health and felicity." 
When, therefore, you can turn the bright 
side of things outward, as you do, your 
mental jEsculapius (as you do a certain 
man the honour to call him) tells you, 
that you have prudence and reflection 
enough to be your own physician ; and, 
that had not your spirits been weakened 
by indisposition, and a train of disagree- 
able perplexities, that have affected one 
of the evenest tempers in woman, you 
would not have had reason to paint your 
sensibilities in such dark colours, oi^ 
your leaving, for such agreeable friends, 
even a father, whose paternal goodness 
you have from infancy so largely expe- 
rienced. 

How sweetly, as you describe, do you 
pass your time ! I rejoice, with all my 
heart, in Mrs. God — U's happiness. One 
of the greatest pleasures that a bene- 
ficent mind can know, is to have it in 
her power to lay an obligation on a 
worthy, on a grateful, mind. 

"A strong taste for literature ; a mind 
well stocked and improved by the pro- 
ductions of authors, ancient and mo- 
dern ; an amiable disposition ; good 
sense." Where could your fair friend 
have made a better choice ? Where else 
so good a one, in such an age as this, of 
foplings and petit maitres ? I wonder 
not that such a young gentleman " be- 
haves so properly (as you say) to his 
lady ; and that your esteem for him 
rises every day, more and more, as you 
are a witness of that his proper and 
affectionate behaviour to her." I had 
both reverence and love for her excellent 
mother ; methinks I could wish her to be 
permitted to look down from her heaven, 
to see how happy that beloved daughter 
is, for whose happiness she was so anx- 
ious. God continue it to them both — 
and them to each other, as an example 
of that conjugal piety, which is so very 
rare in the present age, among people of 
condition ! 



" What a strange character does that 
of Cicero always appear to you." It is a 
strange one ; yet he was a glorious crea- 
ture. Great geniuses, we are told, have 
not small faults. You have made such 
proper observations on this great man's 
failings, that it is needless to add to 
them. And charmingly do you say, 
" that the truly noble and exemplary 
character is that, which is uniformly 
good, great, and Avise, in every trial." 

What a wretched creature is the man 
of title you mention ! But I have not 
so much pity for the lady as you have. 
She knew whom she married, and, I 
doubt not, proposed to herself at first 
counterbalances which would content 
her ; and this is evident to me, by the 
way in which she lives. Wh^t signifies 
to her the low company " he keeps," so 
as he confines himself " to an obscure 
corner of his own magnificent house 
with them ;" and leaves her (in the cha- 
racter of '* an amiable woman," and, in 
every one's eye, the more amiable for 
her misfortunes) " to receive in the rest, 
and nobler parts of the house, the visits 
of every creditable family around her ?" 
— so long as she finds herself " honoured 
and beloved by her visitors ; and has the 
credit, as well as the power, of having 
ornamented the noble house she reigns 
in, with absolute sovereignty, according 
to her own directions ?" — so long as 
she has " an equipage and retinue of her 
own, every prospect art or nature can 
afford to please surrounding her stately 
habitation?" With all these advantages, 
and such a lord, ask you, can she be 
tolerably happy? Yes, madam, exqui- 
sitely so, as a managing woman, and as 
one who knew (as I hinted) beforehand 
the wretched creature she chose to marry 
And, indeed, you answer your own ques- 
tion : — "She appears so," say yow 
" (well she may !) ; and having been long 
accustomed to the present method (an 
enviable one it may be called ! for must 
not the man be a loathsome creature ?) 
may really be (the deuce is in her if 
she be not !) as tranquil and cheerful as 
her easy and polite deportment seems to 
denote." 

This advantage she moreover reaps 
from the low and servile company lie 
keeps, that through them she can ma- 
nage her lord as she pleases ; since they 
and he are hers in absolute propertv. 
Come, come, madam, let us shew our 
2 U 



658 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



pity in the right place. The tranquil 
lady deserves it not — she is a managing 
woman, as I said : all women love power ; 
she has it in its perfection. She has, 
perhaps, shewn it, eccentrically, in more 
instances than one ; and every body 

knows, that lady O- can be lord as 

well as lady O , whenever she 

pleases — and fit she should, when the 
poor creature, her lord, so behaves as to 
be the jest as well as companion of his 
own menials. 

Next Thursday my good-naturedly 
perverse wife thinks of going to North 
End ! ! ! O, miss Highmore ! women 
ought to be controlled, if they are like 
my wife — in pity to themselves they 
ought. For, when left to their own will, 
how do they choose ! how are they 
puzzled ! 

Mrs. G has done me favour in her 

remembrance of me. My best respects 
attend her, and, if acceptable, hers. I 
am involved in sentiraentizing : — very 
hard, among so many charming girls, 
that I could not get myself excused from 
this task. No helps from any of you. 
Go, naughty, idle chits — to pretend to 
approve what I am about, as if it would 
be promotive of the public good ; and 
yet, when I hoped a finger from every 
one of you, to find no aid — not so much 
as extracts from a work ready written to 
your hands ! yet call me papa, boast of 
filial regards, and so forth : yet, do- 
tard as I am, I cannot forbear priding 
myself in my girls — and on every occa- 
sion styling myself, as now to you, 
your, &c. 



LETTER LXVin. 

Mr. Richardson to Miss Highmore. 

London, Jan. 31, 1751. 
I AM, when I recollect some of the free 
things I have formerly written to my 
dear miss Highmore, extremely angry 
with myself. I believe I loved to blame 
rather than commend, some years ago. 
Fie upon me, for my ill-nature, if so— 
and vainly too — setting up for a Mentor, 
when I was but a Momus. But do I 
grow better-natured, and see clearer, as 
I grow older? I congratulate myself 
upon that, if I do. \^Tiat admirable ob- 
servations you make on the consequence 
it is of for young persons to be thrown 



early into good and improving company ! 
I had a good mind to transcribe every 
word you wrote on this subject, and to 
beg of you to let it pass for my own. 
What a poor creature was I at your age ! 
And you were always so good — were you 
not? 

But, though I love you for your cha- 
rity, when you infer from premises very 
laudable, that we should make great al- 
lowances in errors, not grossly immoral, 
for those who have not had the benefit 
of being accustomed in their youth to 
good and improving company, I cannot 
allow of the abatement you mention to 
be made, of the merit of those who have 
had better opportunities, and improved 
by them. I will not, my dear miss High- 
more, allow of your level; in order to 
bring down to a state of nature, those 
who owe their merit to actions that are 
the consequences of habitual virtue. Let 
us judge of merit and demerit as they 
appear to us, from whatever source they 
spring ; and not, my dear child, think it 
assurance to condemn the contemptible. 
We shall then encourage merit (too apt 
to be despised by such, in order to bring 
it down to their own level), and, through 
shame, have a chance to amend the 
faulty, and make them strive to be mea- 
sured by the standard of the others. It 
is not to be imagined what it is in the 
power of women to do in this particu- 
lar : especially of those who are amiable 
in person, and have a reputation for 
good sense. Often have I seen a cox- 
comb, who set out with all the confi- 
dence of a laughing Sir Hargrave, shrink 
into himself, merely at the reproving 
eye, and restrained smile, of a young lady 
of judgment ; and particularly, if she 
has had the address to turn round on 
the spot, and distinguish, by her smiling 
familiarity, another man in company 
with whom she had reason to be better 
pleased. 

No vain woman can be more fond of 
admiration, than men of this cast : let 
them be conscious of a judiciously given 
disappointment, and no men are such 
nothings. The sensible woman, who 
laughs with the creature she should 
laugh at, debases herself; puts herself 
on a level with him. But this is the 
judgment, to avoid superciliousness, and 
being really prudish (no matter for the 
aspersion) in the correction she looks ; 
for a look will give it. I am speakinjf of 



S BCT. I¥. 



RECENT. 



659 



a sensible woman, you know I — such wo- 
men, scores of which, I was going to say, 
i have the happiness to know. 

" The admonitions of parents can ne- 
ver have the effect on young minds, that 
the examples of persons near their own 
age will produce ; and reasons why it 
must be so are obvious aud natural 

enough." Never, miss H ! where 

the parents are companionable to their 
children ; and can allow for the foibles 
of youth — such as yours, suppose ! 
Where the children are reasonable, and 
have no points in view, which they are 
ashamed to own ! — What ! never, miss 
H- 



? And are there no such cases ? 
Cannot there be such open-hearted, 
frank girls as Harriet, where there is a 
Mrs. Harley or Mrs. Selby ?— Unhappy 
that there are not more such indulgent 
parents, and such undisguisedly-minded 
children ! How obvious, soever, the rea- 
son for what you say is, there cannot be 
a more dangerous doctrine propagated 
among young people, than that which 
springs from an allowance of this nature. 
And I have, therefore, taken notice in 
print, that youngpeople, in certain cases, 
should never be determined by the advice 
of young people ; and the less by that of 
those who are in the same circumstances 
with themselves. It is not, I have said, 
what you would do, Polly, Sukey, &c. 
were you in my case ; but what ought to 
be done. I know that your observation 
is rather owing to facts than justice. 
But we will not, if you please, too readily 
give up justice to facts, lest we should 
make custom a law ; where it would be 
of general use to applaud the exception, 
and to endeavour to weaken the force of 
the faulty rule. 

Give me leave to say, that I intended 
more by setting in stronglights the frank- 
ness of Harriet's character, in one of the 
most delicate circumstances of female 
life, than what, at first sight, may be 
thought of, on a cursory reading. What 
do you think I have had the confidence 
to answer to the pressing instances of two 
persons, for whom I have great honour, 
that I would begin a new piece ? — that I 
would think of doing so, when I had rea- 
son to believe, that the many delicate 
situations that this last piece, as well as 
Clarissa, abounded with, were generally 
understood and attended to! What a 
deuce ! must a man be always writing ? 

Fie upon me, for taking the first sheet 



of paper that came to hand : I am come 
to the end of it already ; and how much 
unsaid! — I have no room to add more, 
than that I am vour, &c. 



LETTER LXIX. 

Frotn the same to the same. 

London, Sept. 19, 1757. 
I WRITE, my dear miss Highmore, in 
gratitude, in fear, in love, in hope, in 
pain. In gratitude — for your favour to 
me of Sept. 6th, and to thank good Mrs. 
God — 11, through your hands, for her 
kind remembrance of me. 

In fear — of hurting your good papa, 
who grudges me the favour of so kindly- 
long a letter from you (the thanks I got 
for communicating it to him), by doing 
offence to your eyes : — but a little bit of 
jealousy in his fear, for all that, lest any 
should, by accident, receive from you a 
letter one line longer than any one of 
those you wrote to himself. What will 
he do, if you should take heart at last< 
and marry, aud your husband be some- 
times distant from you ! 

In love — because I cannot help it, if I 
would ; and take delight in the account 
you give of that health, and serenity of 
mind, which 1 pray may ever attend you. 

In pain — because I cannot pour out 
my heart as glibly as usual, or rather as 
formerly to my beloved friends, when I 
paid my duty to them on paper, by rea- 
son of paralytic and failing fingers, when 
that heart is as sincerely theirs as ever. 

In hope — (I had like to have forgot 
that, having so little left for myself) that 
you and all you love, if that be possible, 
continue always as happy, with some ne- 
cessary variations, however, to keep the 
pool of life from stagnating, as you de- 
scribe yourself to be at the penning of 
the letter before me. 

Hush ! hush ! hush ! dear Mr. High- 
more ! No such thing, as the above par- 
ticularization, being an infallible sign of 
a long answer. I will be brief in the rest, 
for your sake ; and also for my own ; 
though once I loved to prattle to this 
dear girl. 

I am delighted with your account of 
your studies, your pursuits, your diver- 
sions, and with those of the more atliletic 
of your own sex with you, mentioned by 
you with so much advantage to them all. 
2U-2 



660 



E L E G A N ']' E P I S 1 L E S. 



Hook IV^ 



" Your well-furnislied library," amuse- 
ment equally entertaining- and instruc- 
tive ! 

" Henry and Francis ;" of all books of 
the kind? — That it has been read by 

Mrs. is recommendation with 

numbers ! Mrs. Montague, lady Brad- 
shaigh, miss Highmore. Well, I'll take 
it up again, and try to like it better than 
I did, when T dipped into it last. No one 
has a higher opinion of these names, and 

of Mrs. D 's judgment, than J. 

" My opinion of Mr. Gray's Odes?" 
You know I admire the author. I have 

heard that you and Mr. G have both 

studied them together, and have found 
out all their beauties. I have no doubt 
but they are numberless — but indeed 
have not had head clear enough to read 
them more than once, as yet. But from 

you I expect the result of Mr. G 's 

studies and discoveries on the subject, 
as also your marginal notes ; which will 
not, I hope, be too severe, &c. — Why 
that caution to me, my miss Highmore ? 
I am glad I did not say all I said to lady 

B about Henry and Francis. 

" And then comes the kindly felicitat- 
ing subject ;" to which I directed Patty 
to answer. — She did, 1 hope. 

And there, Mr. Highmore, is an end, 
I hope, of your tender solicitude for the 
eyes of our dear girl, on my account, for 
the present ! 

Excuse bad writing, interlining, &c. — 
" Was J it not always bad?" Yes; but 
never so bad as now. Repeated respects 
to Mrs. God— 11. I am, &c. 



LETTER LXX. 

Ladi/ Echlin to Mr. Richardson. 

Sept. 27, 1754. 
I THANK you, dear sir, for your tender 
concern, good wishes, and hearty prayer 
for my worthy friend, Mr. Tickell. I 
have the satisfaction to assure you, his 
late disorder has not so greatly impaired 
his strength, nor sunk his spirits to that 
miserably low state, which his over- 
anxious mother's fear made her appre- 
hend. God be praised, she is comforted, 
by a hopeful appearance of her beloved 
son's perfect recovery. He is pretty well 
in health, at present, thank God. 

I protest I am at a loss how to answer 
some parts of your last obliging favour. 



Give me leave to say, you have more! 
good nature, humility, and patience, 
than any other man upon earth, or you 
certainly are the greatest hypocrite under 
the sun. If I could suspect Mr. Richard- 
son's veracity, I should look upon your 
submission to my inferior judgment as 
a polite piece of complaisance. I begin 
to fear you think me too peremptory, 
and self-sufficient; if so, you resolve, 
perhaps, to acquiesce, rather than con- 
tend, with a positive woman. You are 
extremely indulgent, and I ought ta 
thank you for every favourable allow- 
ance you aiford me, who have not any 
of that delightful, spirited wit, and 
charming vein of humour, which plead 
excuse for not quite right things in lady 

B . 

Mrs. Belfour has given you a right no- 
tion of this mad-cap, and I could tales 
unfold ; but — I never could manage her ; 
nor will I have any more boxing bouts 

with madam . If our favourite 

charming Harriet cannot make this 
sprightly lady blush a little, at her un- 
reasonable aversion ; or, at least, silence 
her exclamation against old maids, I 
pronounce her incurable. 

The worthy maiden you mention is an 
honourable woman. I really believe 1 
was fond of this good-natured aunt Ca- 
therine before I could speak. Lady 

B is as well acquainted with her 

real worth ; but I will not tell all I know^ 
because you are sufficiently informed al- 
ready. I most sincerely love this un- 
governable lady B ; we always were 

aflFectionate sisters, although her over- 
hasty disposition did not altogether please 
my graver turn. She has been blest with 
constant good health, and, thank God, 
she still enjoys that great blessing. I 
ever was, and am, less happy in this 

respect ; and yet this lady B , with 

her high health, and a continual flow of 
fine spirits, never was active in using 
necessary exercise : that neglect is at- 
tended with a consequence which gives 
me concern ; because it renders her in- 
capable of using that exercise which 
I think needful for preserving health. I 
cannot help pitying a human creature, 
loaded with fat ; it ever was my endea- 
vour to guard against that heavy con- 
dition ; and I am very thankful, that I 
can reap benefit and pleasure from my 
nimble feet, and a trotting horse. 

After much ado about nothing, let me 



Sect. IV. 



R E C E N T. 



661 



assure you, sir, I have more than the 
shadow of an inclination to oblige you. 
I willingly comply with your request. 
Pray, dear sir, call not the fragment, you 
desire to peruse, the amended History of 
Clarissa. I have only attempted to alter 
particular parts abruptly. It is, in short, 
a medley. I told you 1 had weakly en- 
deavoured to imitate. No matter what 
I intended by some foolish things, thrown 
amongst the heap — if you can read it, 
you shall. 

After scribbling this long epistle, I 
have not fully, I think, answered your 
last letter. Here is enough, however, 
to try your patience ; allow me, at pre- 
sent, to subscribe myself, your obliged, 
&c. 



LETTER LXXI. 

Mr. Ridiardson to Lady Echlin. 

October 10, 1754. 
Alj.ow me to congratulate your lady- 
ship on Mr. Tickell's amendment, and 
the prospect of his perfect recovery. I 
join with you, madam, to bless God for 
'it. 

Lady Bradshaigh acquaints me, that 
she, as well as your ladyship, meets with 
persons who quarrel with Sir Charles 
Orandison. They are welcome. A good 
character is a gauntlet thrown out. As 
some apprehend it reflects upon them- 
selves, they perhaps think they have a 
right to be affronted. The character of 
a mere mortal cannot, ought not, to be 
quite perfect. It is sufficient, if its errors 
be not premeditated, wilful, and unre- 
pented of; and I shall rejoice if there be 
numbers of those who find fault with the 
more perfect characters in the piece 
because of their errors, and who would 
be themselves above being guilty of the 
like in the same situation. Many things 
are thrown out in the several characters, 
on purpose to provoke friendly debate ; 
and perhaps as trials of the reader's 
judgment, manners, taste, and capacity. 
£ have often sat by in company, and been 
silently pleased with the opportunity 
given me, by different arguers, of looking 
into the hearts of some of them, through 
windows, that at other times have been 
close shut up. This is an advantage 
that will always be given by familiar 
writing, and by characters drawn from 



common life. A living author, who suc- 
ceeds tolerably, will have more enemies 
than a dead one. A time will come, and 
perhaps it is not far off, when the writer 
of certain moral pieces will meet with 
better quarter from his very censurers. 
His obscurity — a man in business pre- 
tending to draw characters for warning 
to one set of people ; for instruction to 
another : Presumptuous ! — But enough 
of this subject. I ought to be, and am 
abundantly satisfied with the kind recep- 
tion given to what I have obtruded upon 
the world in a new light, and in the 
approbation of many truly pious and 
good. 

Your ladyship is at a loss, you say, 
to answer some parts of my last letter. 
You are pleased to magnify my patience 
and humility: For what? — For having 
a great opinion of your judgment, and 
for inviting your correction. " Either 
(you say) 1 have more good-nature 
than any man on earth, or am certainly 
tbe greatest hypocrite under the sun." 
From the knowledge I hope I have 
of my own heart, with that whole 
heart I disclaim hypocrisy, the lowest 
of all vices, ingratitude excepted. Faith- 
ful are the wounds of a friend; and 
can it require any great degree of 
patience to hear characters blamed 
that were not intended to be perfect? 
What battles have your beloved sister 
and I fought ? She has reason to blame 
me for my rusticity, rather than for my 
yielding. 

Your ladyship " could tales unfold." 

I hope lady B will not be quiet, that 

you may be provoked to unfold them. I 
am particularly glad that your ladyship 
has not the dislike to a certain class of 
females, whom that lady is so fond of 
satirizing. O ! how I have used her on 
this occasion ! She can hardly forbear : 
but just touches them now, and away. I 
think I have made her half afraid. But 
this miss Do — Let us join forces, ma- 
dam, against this miss Do. There is 
not a better lady on earth than your 
sister, when miss Do is out of the way. 
Strange ! that so excellent a lady as lady 

B (your ladyship's sister) should be 

so misled by such a flirt as miss Do. — 
Yet, not so very strange neither : for I 
know not how it is, but I myself, though 
I could sometimes beat miss Do, see 
something to be pleased with in that lively 
girl. Favour me, dear madam, with the 



662 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



history of this young lady, and her airs, 
that I may either like her more or less. 
I am sure she must have some g-ood qua- 
lities, or she could never have had such 
an interest in the heart of a sister of 
lady Echlin. 

O that I could have the honour to see 
you two dear sisters under my happy 

roof I Lady B— gives me hope, that 

she will be in London this winter. Then 
would your ladyship and I, if there were 
occasion, join ; hut there would be no 
occasion. She would be all goodness. 
Miss Do would not be with her. She 
never once, in the visits she honoured 
me with, when last in tov/n, brought that 
girl with her. She only is her compa- 
nion in her closet or dressing-room ; and 
now and then writes a paragraph for her 
there. And my lady is, in her absence, 
80 mild, so meek ! Bless us, madam, 
you cannot think how mild ! how meek ! 
And I am so awkward, for not seeing 
any thing reprovable in her, yet remem- 
bering many flightinesses in her writing, 
that I know not how to behave myself 
to her. 

A thousand thanks to your ladyship 
for your kind compliance with my re- 
quest to be entrusted with your papers 
on the History of Clarissa. When ? By 
what way will they come? I was in 
hopes, that the permission and notice of 
the transmission would have been given 
in the same letter. They shall be very 
safe when they arrive, and attend your 
ladyship's commands in the return. 

I have written to Mr. Skelton. Let 
me entreat your acceptance of his Dis- 
courses from me. Your ladyship would 
greatly oblige me if you could inform 
me of any thing I or mine could do here 
to give you pleasure. I am, &c. 



LETTER LXXn. 

Lady Echlin to Mr, Richardson. 

July 31, 1757. 
Dear sir, 
I KNOW you are inclined to judge fa- 
vourably ,^ and naturally disposed to pity 
the afflicted : I therefore doubt not 
your making a reasonable allowance, nor 
your having tender compassion for me, 
when I assure you my long silence hath 
been occasioned by a woeful misfortune, 
which sorely afflicts my heart. I cannot 



describe what my anxious mind suffered 
between slender hope and tormenting 
fear before a melancholy event made me 
a sorrowful widow. Indeed, sir, I have 
lost a tender husband ; a very worthy, 
valuable man. No wonder I am bit- 
terly afflicted for such a lamentable 
loss : but I endeavour to moderate my 
grief by considering it is my duty to 
submit patiently to the will of God. Al- 
mighty wisdom, seeing what was best, 
and good for us, has punished me de- 
servedly ; and under this trial let me be 
thankful, that I have not the least doubt 
of my dear husband being happily re- 
leased from a miserable state of healths 
A blessed change it was for him, who' 
endured a long and painful illness with 
exemplary patience and resignation ; 
contented to live or die, as it pleased 
God Almighty. No mortal ever quitted 
this life with more apparent tranquillity. 
The last sad scene, so distressing to me, 
was not unhappy to him I am sure ; and 
that is my consolation. Excuse me, dear 
sir, troubling you with my groans. I 
shall add a few lines more concerning my 
present condition ; for I cannot help tell- 
ing you, my dear departed friend hath 
testified his respect and dependence on a 
faithful wife, by appointing me sole exe- 
cutrix ; and 1 am also guardian to his- 
only nephew, who inherits bis good 
uncle's estate and title. I am as anxious 
for this young man's welfare as if he 
were my own child r and his uncle and I 
have been parents to him from the hour 
he was born. This boy's father died se- 
veral months before the child came into 
the world ; and his mournful mother, 
overwhelmed with grief, expired imme- 
diately after the birth of her son. An 
infant, thus deprived of both father and 
mother, is a most pitiable case : but he 
has not been an unhappy orphan ; and I 
heartily wish my great loss may not 
prove a greater misfortune to him. At 
his early time of life, in such circum- 
stances, and in such a libertine age, a 
boy under seventeen is in a dangerous^ 
situation. God give him grace to make 
a right use of an uncommon good un- 
derstanding. He is a fine hopeful youth 
at present; has had a private education, 
not to his disadvantage in any respect ; 
and I hope to see him a sober and serious 
student at Oxford, please God we live. 
Some people would be apt to j^hink me 
impertinent, and perhaps would say. 



Sect. IV. 



RECENT. 



What is all this to me ? — but Mr. Rich- 
ardson, I know, is not such a man. 

I have seen Mr. Sheridan here lately ; 
he appeared to be in pretty good spirits ; 
but I think he cannot be tolerably happy, 
unless he quits the slavish management, 
which does not better either his health or 
fortune. The little wonder was quite a 
new scene to him ; he admires the ro- 
mantic situation greatly : but, alas ! it 
does not afford me pleasure as usual ; 
Villarusa is not what it was : all appears 
dull and gloomy in ray tearful eye, though 
I do labour to recover my spirits. 

I shall rejoice to hear you enjoy such 
a state of health as is sincerely wished 
and prayed for by, dear sir, your, &c. 



LETTER LXXIII. 

Mr. Richardson to Lady Echlin. 

August 12, 1757. 
Most heartily do I condole with your 
ladyship on your very great loss ; and 
should have presumed to do it before, 
had I not been myself so ill in the 
nervous way, that for some time I was 
unable to write ; and had I not at other 
times considered, that any thing I could 
offer by way of consolation for so heavy 
a deprivation, to so good a Christian 
and so pious a heart, would be needless ; 
and that time, the pacifier of every woe, 
could only, by God's grace, alleviate 
yours. Nor did I doubt, that your 
good sister, and your favoured bishop, 
would be ready to pour the balm of 
Christian comfort into the wounds of 
your mind. 

I congratulate you, madam, on the 
resignation and pious departure of the 
gentleman you so tenderly loved. What 
pleasure must this give, on reflection, to 
such a mind as yours ! How much 
ought this reflection to alleviate the 
pangs that will accompany it on the loss 
you have so recently sustained ! 

Your Villarusa will be again your Vil- 
larusa to you ; but time must have first 
mellowed your aflOiiction. A journey to 
England will perhaps be of use to you : 
to Oxford, so much in the way of your 
new duty ; to Lancashire, receiving from, 
and giving comfort to, beloved relations 
there ; to London, perhaps in company 
of those dear relations, and to a beloved 
daughter and her young family, and 



other friends. [May I have the honour 
to be one in the list?] Then, after all 
these duties paid, and inclinations gra- 
tified, will your Villarusa appear to you 
with new charms ; nor will a tender sigh 
and silent tear to the memory of the dear 
departed, in that little wonder, diminish, 
but rather exalt, the joys of your medi- 
tation. 

God Almighty sanctify to your lady- 
ship your present affliction, is a prayer 
put up by all mine, as well as by, ma- 
dam, your, &c. 



LETTER LXXIV. 

Lady Echlin to Mr. Richardson. 

Rook Hermitage, Nov. 10, 1757. 
Dear sir, 
Accept my grateful thanks for your last 
obliging favour. " Time," as you ob- 
serve, ' ' is the pacifier of every woe," with 
God's assistance ; and time may mellow 
my affliction. But very sure I am, 
deep wounding grief is incurable on 
this side the grave. " Villarusa will 
again be Villarusa to me," you say. 
No, sir, that is impossible ! This house, 
these admired improvements, this coun- 
try, never more can be agreeable to me. 
If God Almighty permits me to see my 
native country, it is probable I shall not 
return again to Ireland. And yet I am 
so attached to my hermitage I feel un- 
willing to quit that bewitching little 
cell. When my sorrowful days came, 
the little wonder was, and is, a won- 
derful recreation to me ; and thankful 
I am, that this innocent retired amuse- 
ment serves to unbend my mind. I wish 
Mr. Richardson could see me in that 
romantic situation, seated on the mid- 
rock, the briny flood flowing within a 
few yards of my feet. Don't be alarmed, 
good sir, you may venture to sit by 
me ; it is not Shakspeare's dangerous 
mid-rock. 

I am glad you call my freedom kind ; 
but cannot allow that it is in the least 
condescending to acquaint Mr. Richard- 
son with my affairs ; nor should he, who 
so justly merits esteem, doubt his " be- 
ing one" in the short " list" of my 
most valuable friends ; one on whom I 
could rely, and repose a fearless con- 
fidence. Although we are not personally 
acquainted, surely there is friendship 



654 



K L E G A N T E P 1 S T 1. E S. 



Book IV 



subsisting hatween us ; and if I do ever 
reacli Old England, I trust ray honoured 
friend " may live to see the day." 

I hope my young* man will not dis- 
appoint my expectation of his settling 
at the university ; but 1 dare not be 
oversure of any thing in this uncertain 
world. 

I must tell you, sir, our good bishop 
gives me hopes of seeing him in Great 
Britain ; and I hope you may see that 
agreeable day. This excellent prelate 
has been particularly kind to his unseen 
admirer, under affliction ; not been 
sparing " to pour the balm of Christian 
comfort : " nothing is wanting but a 
wished-for visit from Patmos. But why 
should I expect such a compliment? His 
lordship, in every letter to me, mentions 
Mr. Richardson with great regard. I told 
him you had been so much indisposed in 
the nervous way, that for some time you 
were not able to write. He answered, 
*' Not able to write ! alas ! that great ge- 
nius ! then I must not trouble the good 
man with a temptation to write to me." 

J beg my respects to Mrs. Richardson 
and to your daughters, with grateful 
thanks to you and them for that kind 
concern and pious remembrance, which 
will always be duly acknowledged by, 
dear sir, your. Sec. 



LETTER LXXV. 

Mr. Richardson to Lady Ethlin. 

Dec. 3, Vtbn. 

You charm me, madam, with your de- 
scription of your rock hermitage. Wliat 
a sweet retirement must it be, 5^s you 
have improved it ! *' The little won- 
der (you tell me) in your more thought- 
ful hours was, and still is, a wonderful 
recreation to you ; and that you are 
thankful (I am sure you are for every 
relief) that this innocent, retired amuse- 
ment serves to unbend your mind." 
And does your ladyship wish, that I 
*' could see you in that romantic situa- 
tion, seated on the mid-rock, the briny 
flood flowing within a few yards of your 
feet? ' Don't be alarmed, sir (add you 
most condescendingly), you may venture 
to sit by me — it is not Shakspeare's 
dangerous mid-rock.' " 

What would 1 give for a sketch of this 
sweet hermitage J and of the wonders 



round it, and in prospect from it? With 
what delight should 1 place it near the 
picture of the house at Haigh, which I 
was allowed upon my own terms (as this 
must be) to take a copy of ; your be- 
loved sister's and sir Roger's figures in it, 
meditating the beauties of the situation ! 
May I not hope, dear madam, to be so 
indulged ? is there not in your know- 
ledge some young artist, that on my ac- 
count could be so employed ? Let me 
have in constant view the sweet, the 
" bewitching little cell, which so attaches 
to it the heart of good lady Echlin, 
which she feels so unwilling to quit; 
which is, in her deeper meditation, a 
wonderful recreation to her, and serves 
to unbend her mind, and in which she 
condescends to wish I could see her." 

Your ladyship bids me hope for the 
pleasure of seeing you in England. I 
should have the more joy on such a 
wished-for occasion, as I think the change 
of scene must be of consolation and di- 
version to you ; and as you must ^ve and 
receive so much delight to and from such 
near and dear relations as you have 
here ; and the rather as you are of opi- 
nion that Villarusa, consolatory as it is 
at times to you, can never be all that it 
once was to you. 

If the land and sea views I am a pe- 
titioner for, with your sweet hermitage, 
cannot be conveniently granted, a sketch 
in Indian ink, or black lead, on vellum, 
would delight me, hanging before me in 
view of your dear sister's and sir Roger's 
Haigh. Still, my dear lady, either way, 
on my own terms. 

God bless your young gentleman, your 
ward I May he answer all your pious 
eares and wishes. Your, &c. 



LETTER LXXVL 

Lady Bradshaigh to Mr, Richardson, 

Dear sir, 
You ask, " How can I find time for so 
much reading," &c.? Those who are 
not obliged to attend to any particular 
business, have nothing to do but to 
look for time, and they are sure to find 
it. But there are those, who sit with 
their eyes shut, and let it pass unob- 
served through wilfulness or negli- 
gence. No wonder such do not find 
time. 



Sect. IV. 



RECENT. 



665 



you — you — you worse than ill-na- 
tured ! How could you rip up the old 
story of traversing the Park ! How could 
you delight to tear the tender skin off 
an old wound that never will he quite 
healed ! I was hurt more than you could 
he. My pain was in the mind, yours 
only hodily. Did not you forgive me ? 
However (behold the wax I am made 
of!) the latter end of this paragraph 
melts and disarms my intended anger : 
for the present only ; for I shall find far- 
ther matter for quarrel, I foresee. 

The first time my friend saw your 
picture he asked, " Wliat honest face 
have you got there?" And, without 
staying for an answer, " Do you know, 
I durst trust that man with my life, 
without farther knowledge of him." I 
answered, " I do know you might do so 
with safety ; and I put you down for a 
judge of physiognomy." 

As I sit at my writing-desk, I cannot 
look up without viewing your picture ; 
and I had some hopes the looking upon 
it, as I writ, might a little have restrain- 
ed, or at least kept me within bounds. 
I have tried the experiment, when I 
have been upon the edge of a ranting 
humour, and heard myself whisper, 
'•What! with that smiling face?" — 
and found I was encouraged rather than 
restrained ; so gave you a familiar nod, 
and ranted on, as I do now, without 
fear or wit. 

1 only meant to joke a little upon Dr. 
Young, not to be severe. If it has that 
appearance, pray let him not have it ; 
for he might think me very imperti- 
nent. He pretends to be serious upon 
this. 

Dec. 27* — I have, since I wrote to 
you last, stumbled into Dr. Middleton 
on the Miraculous Powers; and, in truth, 
I do not like him. Perhaps I do not 
understand him. But to me he appears 
a caviller at immaterial points. And I 
doubt he may do more harm by the con- 
troversy he has occasioned, than he can 
do good by endeavouring to prove many 
pretended miracles to be either fabulous 
or the effects of priestcraft. But, seri- 
ously, I must own he has lessened these 
ancients greatly in my opinion ; for, 
what can be said in favour of their 
countenancing so many impositions as 
it plainly appears they did ? It is but 
making a poor compliment to Christian- 
ity to say it wanted such gross abuses 



to strengthen and propagate it. And 
though, to the rational and well-judging, 
it shines the clearer for having strug- 
gled through and shaken off these clogs 
of absurdities ; yet its appearing in its 
native excellence is not owing to those, 
through whose hands it was transmitted 
to us. 

You see, sir, I write upon every sub- 
ject to you, without considering whether 
proper or not : but I know, if I am 
wrong, you will inform me. 

Dec. 28. — I should be greatly delight- 
ed to see the correspondence between 
you and the young lady you mention. 
Some time or other I hope to be favoured 
with it. 

I own I do not approve of great learn- 
ing in women. I believe it rarely turns 
out to their advantage. No farther 
would I have them to advance than to 
what would enable them to write and 
converse with ease and propriety, and 
make themselves useful in every stage of 
life. I hate to hear Latin out of a wo- 
man's mouth. There is something in it, 
to me, masculine. I could fancy such 
an one weary of the petticoat, and talk- 
ing over a bottle. You say, " the 
men are hastening apace into dictionary 
learning." The less occasion still for 
the ladies to proceed in theirs. I should 
be ashamed of having more learning 
than my husband. And could we, do 
you think, help shewing a little con- 
tempt, finding ourselves superior in 
what the husband ought to excel in? 
Very few women have strength of brain 
equal to such a trial ; and as few men 
would forego their lordly prerogative, 
and submit to a woman of better under- 
standing, either natural or acquired. A 
very uncomfortable life do I see between 
an ignorant husband and a learned wife. 
Not that I would have it thought un- 
necessary for a woman to read, to spell, 
or speak English ; which has been pretty 
much the case, hitherto. I often won- 
der we can converse at all ; much more, 
that we can write to be understood. 
Thanks to nature for what we have ! 
We have, there, an advantage over your 
sex. You are in the right to keep us in 
ignorance. You dare not let us try 
what we could do. In that you shew 
your judgment, which I acknowledge 
to be much stronger than ours, by na- 
ture ; and that is all you have to boast of, 
and a little courage, which is oftpner 



666 



ELEGANT E P 1 S T L E S. 



Book IV. 



shewn upon a principle of false honour, 
than from an innate true bravery. 

My employments and amusements at 
this time of the year are so much the 
same round, though not disagreeable to 
me, that they are scarce worth commit- 
ting to paper, except as you desire it. I 
rise about seven, sometimes sooner ; af- 
ter my private duties I read or vi^rite till 
nine, then breakfast ; work, and con- 
verse with my company till about twelve ; 
then, if the weather permit, walk a mile 
in the garden ; dress, and read till din- 
ner ; after which, sit and chat till four : 
from that to the hour of tea-drinking, 
each day, variety of employments. You 
know what the men say enters with the 
tea-table ; though I will venture to de- 
clare, if mine is not an exception, it is 
as near one as you can imagine. 

Here books take place, which I often 
read to the company ; and sometimes 
we all have our particular studies (sir 
Roger always has his), which we seldom 
forsake till the bell warns to supper ; af- 
ter which we have always something to 
do. We eat fruit, crack nuts, perhaps 
jokes ; now and then music takes place. 
This is our regular scheme, though it is 
often broken into, with company and 
variety of incidents, some pleasing, some 
otherwise ; domestic affairs, too, call for 
a share of one's time. I know not what 
the fine ladies mean, when they com- 
plain of having too much time ; for, I 
thank God, Barnaby Bright is not too 
long for me. How should I be despised 
in the parish of St. James's, if they were to 
know that, at this time, I glory in the hum- 
ble title of a cow-doctor ! But no matter; 
if I can do good, I can bear their contempt, 
and return it to them with interest. 

1 am afraid, sir, I have given you too 
much trouble about the poor Magdalen. 
She is only qualified to wait upon an 
unmarried lady, or one who has a house- 
keeper, for she understands nothing of 
house-keeping ; but, where needle-work, 
dressing, and getting up fine linen, are 
required, I believe she would give satis- 
faction. 

I wish to Heaven, with you, sir, that 
you could, as 1 do, make time, or that 
I could give you some of mine. I want 
only power to send you a present which 
I would allow you to call bountiful. It 
should be another box — a contrast to 
Pandora's. Time, health, and happi- 
ness, should it contain, and these only 



as leaders to a greater treasure : for, in 
the bottom, you should find a plain 
though distant prospect of eternal bliss. 
But, though I am poor in power, ac- 
cept it in sincerest wishes from, good 
Mr. Richardson, your, &c. 



LETTER LXXVn. 

Mr. Richardson to Lady Bradshaigh. 

Dear madam. 
You do not approve of great learning in 
women. Learning in women may be 
either rightly or wrongly placed, ac- 
cording to the uses made of it by them. 
And if the sex is to be brought up with 
a view to make the individuals of it in- 
ferior in knowledge to the husbands 
they may happen to have, not knowing 
who those husbands are, or what, or 
whether sensible or foolish, learned or 
illiterate, it would be best to keep them 
from writing and reading, and even 
from the knowledge of the common 
idioms of speech. Would it not be very 
pretty for parents on both sides to make 
it the first subject of their inquiries, 
whether the girl, as a recommendation, 
were a greater fool, or more ignorant, 
than the young fellow ; and if not, that 
they should reject her, for the booby's 
sake? — and would not your objection 
stand as strongly against a preference 
in mother-wit in the girl as against 
what is called learning ; since linguists 
(I will not call all linguists learned 
men) do very seldom make the figure 
in conversation that even girls, from 
sixteen to twenty, make. 

If a woman has genius, let it take its 
course, as well as in men ; provided she 
neglect not any thing that is more pe- 
culiarly her province. If she has good 
sense, she will not make the man she 
chooses, who wants her knowledge, un- 
easy, nor despise him for that want. 
Her good sense will teach her what is 
her duty ; nor will she want reminding 
of the tenor of her marriage vow to him. 
If she has not, she will find a thousand 
ways to plague him, though she knew 
not one word beyond her mother-tongue, 
nor how to write, read, or speak pro- 
perly in that. The English, madam, 
and particularly what we call the plain 
English, is a very copious and a very ex- 
pressive language. 



Sect. IV'. 



RECENT. 



667 



But, dear madam, does what you say 
in the first part of the paragraph under 
my eye, limiting the genius of women, 
quite cohere with the advantages which, 
in the last part, you tell me they have 
over us? — " Men do well," you say, 
" to keep women in ignorance :" but 
this is not generally intended to be the 
case, 1 believe. Girls, I think you for- 
merly said, were compounded of brittle 
materials. They are not, they cannot 
be trusted to be sent abroad to semi- 
naries of learning, as men are. It is 
necessary that they should be brought 
up to a knowledge of the domestic du- 
ties. A young man's learning-time is 
from ten to twenty-five, more or less. 
At fifteen or sixteen, a girl starts into 
woman ; and then she throws her pur- 
veying eyes about her : and what is the 
learning she is desirous to obtain ? — 
Dear lady, discourage not the sweet 
souls from acquiring any learning that 
may keep them employed, and out of 
mischief, and that may divert them from 
attending to the whisperings within 
them, and to the flatteries without 
them, till they have taken in a due 
quantity of ballast, that may hinder 
them, all their sails unfurled and stream- 
ers flying, from being overset at their 
first entrance upon the voyage of life. 

1 am charmed with your ladyship's 
obliging account of your daily employ- 
ments and amusements. Now do I 
know at what different parts of the 
day to obtrude myself. I was not very 
well this morning. My people neglect- 
ed me. I was at Haigh in half a se- 
cond, and did myself the honour of 
breakfasting there. But became the 
more miserable for it ; for O how I 
missed you, on my re-transportation! — 
yet I the sooner recovered myself when 
I looked up to you and to your dear sir 
Roger, in the picture. — Yet the pierc- 
ing cold, and the surrounding snow, 
and my hovered-over fireside, remind- 
ed me, that the piece before me was but 
a picture. In summer, if it please God 
to spare me till then, it will be more 
than a picture. I will then throw my- 
self into your morning walks ; and 
sometimes perhaps you shall find me 
perched upon one of your pieces of 
ruins, symbolically to make the ruin 
still more complete. In hopes of which, 
I am, &c. 



LETTER LXXVIII. 

From the same to the same. 

But what a sad thing, say you, my dear 
lady, that these sober men will not put 
on the appearance of rakes !— Silly crea- 
tures ! when they know what would do I 
— Can't they learn to curse and swear 
in jest? and be good, and true, and 
faithful, just when a lady wants them 
to be good, and true, and faithful! — 
But you would be content, if the good 
men would dress, only dress like rakes 
— But hold ! On looking back to your 
ladyship's letter, I find the words dress 
and address : " The good man need only 
to assume the dress and address of the 
rake, and you will wager ten to four 
that he will be preferred to him," Will 
you be pleased, madam, to give me par- 
ticulars of the taking dress of a rake ? 
Will you be pleased to d^cribe the ad- 
dress with which the ladies in general 
shall be taken ! — The rake is, must be, 
generally, in dress a coxcomb ; in ad- 
dress, a man of great assurance : think- 
ing highly of himself, meanly of the 
sex ; he must be past blushing, and 
laugh at those who are not. He must 
flatter, lie, laugh, sing, caper, be a 
monkey, and not a man. And can a 
good man put on these appearances? 
We have heard that the devil has trans- 
formed himself into an angel of light, 
to bring about his purposes ; but never 
that an angel of light borrowed a coat 
and waistcoat of the devil, for any pur- 
pose whatever. And must the good 
man thus debase himself, to stand well 
with the fair sex ? 

" To reform Lovelace for Clarissa's 
sake !" — Excellent ladies ! — Unbound- 
ed charity ! — Dear souls ! How I love 
your six forgiving charmers ! — But th«y 
acknowledge this, I hope, only among 
themselves ! — If there are any Lovelaces 
of their acquaintance, I hope they give 
not to them such an indirect invitation 
to do their worst, in order to give them- 
selves an opportunity to exercise one of 
the brightest graces of a Christian. 

Well, but for fear I should be called 
scurrilous again, let me see how your 
ladyship explains yourself. — " A man 
may deserve the name of a rake, with- 
out being quite an abandoned prqflu 
gate ; as a man may sometimes drink a 
LITTLE TOO MUCH without being a sot." 



668 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



And were I to attempt to draw a 
good man, are these, madam, the out- 
lines of his character? Must he be a 
moderate rake ? — Must he qualify him- 
self for the ladies' favour by taking any 
liberties that are criminal ? Only taking 
care that he stop at a few; " that he 
be not QUITE an abandoned profligate; 
that though he may now and then 
drink a little too much, yet that he 
stop short of the sot !" — O my dear 
lady Bradshaigh— and am 1 scurrilous 
for saying, that there is no such thing, 
at least that it is very difficult, so to 
draw a good man, that he may be 
thought agreeable to the ladies in gene- 
ral? 

Did I ever tell you, madam, of the 
contention I had with Mr. Cibber, about 
the character of a good man, which he 
undertook to draw, and to whom, at 
setting out, he gave a mistress, in order 
to shew the virtue of his hero in parting 
with her, when he had fixed upon a par- 
ticular lady, to whom he made honour- 
able addresses ? A male-virgin, said he 
— ha, ha, ha, hah I when I made my 
objections to the mistress, and she was 
another man's wife too, but ill used by 
her husband ; and he laughed me quite 
out of countenance ! — And it was but 
yesterday, in company, some of which 
he never was in before, that he was 
distinguishing upon a moderate rake 
(though not one word has he seen or 
heard of your ladyship's letter or no- 
tion), by urging, that men might be cri- 
minal without being censurable ! — a 
doctrine that he had no doubt about, 
and to which he declared that none but 
divines and prudes would refuse to sub- 
scribe to ! — Bless me, thought 1 ! — and 
is this knowing the world? — What an 

amiable man was Mr. B , in Pamela, 

in this light ! 

But I have this comfort, upon the 
whole, that I find the good man's cha- 
racter is not impracticable ; and I think 
Mr. Cibber, if I can have weight with 
him, shall undertake the arduous task. 
He is as gay and as lively at seventy- 
nine as he was at twenty-nine ; and he 
is a sober man, who has seen a great 
deal, and always dressed well, and was 
noted for his address, and for his suc- 
cess too, on two hundred and fifty oc- 
casions, — a little too many, I doubt, for 
a moderate rake : but then his long life 
must be considered. 1 wish we could 



fix upon the number of times a man 
might be allowed to be overcome with 
wine, without being thought a sot. 
Once a week ? Once a fortnight ? Once 
a month ? How shall we put it ? Youth 
will have its follies. Why— but I will 
not ask the question I was going to ask, 
lest I should provoke your ladyship be- 
yond your strength. 

Dear, dear madam, let me beg of you 
to make your own virtuous sentiments 
and behaviour in life, which render you 
equally beloved and revered by all who 
have the honour to know you, the stand- 
ard of virtue for all your sex. When 
you extend your charity too far, and al- 
low for what is, rather than insist upan 
what should be, in cases of duty and of 
delicacy, my love for the sex makes me 
apply to your ladyship's words — " you 
provoke me beyond my strength." 

Just this moment came in my wife. 
— (Thursday morning, eleven.) — *' O, 
Betsy," said I, " begone! Ask me not 
what I am writing ; I have been cutting 
your dear lady all to pieces." — " Dear 
good lady !" said she, " never will I 
forgive you, then." Then looking at 
you over the chimney, with an eye of 
love, and my eye following hers, *' You 
can be but in jest," said she ! " Pray 
make my best compliments to her lady- 
ship, and to her sir Roger." With 
which I conclude, &c. 



LETTER LXXIX. 

Mr. Richardson to Lady Bradshaigh. 

North-End, Dec. 26,1751. 
Ever obliging lady Bradshaigh ! And 
was it, could it be, five weeks, almost 
six, before I paid my duty to my dearest 
correspondent ? — How proud do you 
make me by your reproaches ! You tell 
me you are angry with me ! the first 
time I have been able to make you so. 
— Yet, sweet bee of Hybla! how you 
sting, when you tell me, that you sup- 
pose I would make no excuses for my 
long silence, because I would not allow 
of white fibs in myself! — O, my lady ! 
how could you, and in the same sen- 
tence in which you were gracious ? — 
but how can I cry out, though hurt, 
when I revolve the friendly, the conde- 
scending, the indulgent motive ? 

You have seen in the papers, I sup- 



nr ^ ■j?±^r 



Sect. IV. 



RECENT. 



mo 



pose, that our friend is married ; may 
he be happy ! most cordially I wish for 
it : not only because he is our friend, 
but because he is our fellow creature. 
*' Much depends upon the lady; and 
Common sense will not be sufficient to 
make him so. — She must have sense 
enough to make him see, that she 
thinks him her superior in sense," as 
you once told me. Proud mortal ! and 
vain ; — And cannot he be content with 
the greater pride, as a man of sense 
would think it, to call a richer jewel 
than he had before, his, while he is all 
his own ! — But, such is the nature of 
women, if she be not a vixen indeed, 
that if the man sets out right with her ; 
if he lets her early know that he is her 
lord, and that she is but his vassal ; and 
that he has a stronger sense of his pre- 
rogative than of her merit and beauty ; 
she will succumb : and, after a few 
struggles, a few tears, will make him a 
more humble, a more passive wife, for 
his insolent bravery, and high opinion 
of himself. I am sorry to say it ; but 1 
have too often observed, that fear, as 
well as love, is necessary on the lady's 
part, to make wedlock happy ; and it 
will generally do it, if the man sets out 
with asserting his power and her depen- 
dence. And now will your ladyship rise 
upon me ! I expect it. And yet you 
have yourself allowed the case to be 
thus, with regard to this husband and 
his wife. 

The struggle would be only at first : 
and if a man would be obstinate, a wo- 
man would be convinced, or seem to be 
so, and very possibly think the man more 
a man for his tyranny, and value herself 
when he condescended to praise or smile 
upon her. 

I have as good a wife as man need to 
wish for. I believe your ladyship thinks 
so. — Yet — shall I say, O madam! wo- 
men love not King Logs ! —The dear 
creature, without intending contradic- 
tion, is a mistress of it. She is so good 
as to think me, among men, a tolerably 
sensible one ; but that is only in gene- 
ral ; for if we come to particulars, she 
will always put me right, by the supe- 
riority of her own understanding. But 
I am even with her very often. And 
how, do you ask, madam? why, by giv- 
ing up my will to hers ; and then the 
honest soul is puzzled what (in a doubt- 
fttl <jase) to resolve upon. And, in mere 



pity to her puzzlings, I haVe let her 
know my wishes ; and then at once she 
resolves, by doing the very contrary to 
what she thinks them to be. And here 
again, 1 am now and then, but not of- 
ten, too hard for her. — And how ? — You 
guess, my lady. — Need I say, that it is 
by proposing the very contrary to what 
I wish ; — but so much for King Log 
and his frog. How apt are we to bring 
in our own feelings, by head and shoul- 
ders, as the saying is, when we are led 
to it by cases either similar or opposite 
to our own ! 

But one word more of the gentleman, 
if you please. He may already, if not 
confoundedly tired of beauty (sameness 
is a confounded thing to a lover of va- 
riety), be growing prudent : since, I am 
told, that he begins to think of retiring 
somewhere, in order to save expense. 

I was sure your ladyship would be 
pleased with the generosity of my hero, 
as shewn in the two letters I sent you. 
You blame me for not thinking of pub- 
lishing in my life-time. You deny me 
assistance : you depend upon the poor 
old woman's blinking light ; yet I wish 
I had had the flash of your torch to light 
me. If in boisterous weather a flam- 
beau will not stand it, what can a rush- 
light do ? 

Your ladyship asks me if I would pub- 
lish, if my writing ladies would give me 
each a letter. " Remember," say you, 
" that we have you in our power." Well, 
madam ! then you will allow me to stop 
till you do. 

Tell you sincerely, which do I think, 
upon the whole, men or women, have 
the greatest trials of patience, and which 
bears them the best? You mean, you 
say, from one sex to the other only ? — 
What a question is here ! Which ? why 
women, to be sure. Man is an anims^ 
that must bustle in the world, go abroad, 
converse, fight battles, encounter other 
dangers of seas, winds, and I know not 
what, in order to protect, provide for, 
maintain, in ease and plenty, women. 
Bravery, anger, fierceness, occasionally 
are made familiar to them. They buf- 
fet, and are buffeted by the world ; are 
impatient and uncontrollable. They talk 
of honour, and run their heads against 
stone walls, to make good their preten- 
sions to it ; and often quarrel with one 
another, and fight duels, upon any 
other silly thing th{^t happens to raise 



670 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV 



their choler ; with their shadows, if you 
please. 

While women are meek, passive, good 
creatures, who, used to stay at home, 
set their maids at work, and formerly 
themselves — get their houses in order, 
to receive, comfort, oblige, give joy to, 
their fierce, fighting, bustling, active 
protectors, providers, maintainors — di- 
vert him with pretty pug's tricks, tell 
him soft tales of love, and of who and 
who's together, and what has been done 
in his absence — bring to him little mas- 
ter, so like his own dear papa ; and lit- 
tle pretty miss, a soft, sweet, smiling 
soul, with her sampler in her hand, so 
like what her meek mamma was at her 
years ! And with these differences in 
education, nature, employments, your 
ladyship asks, whether the man or the 
woman bears more from each other ? 
has the more patience? Dearest lady! 
how can you be so severe upon your 
own sex, yet seem to persuade yourself 
that you are defending them ! 

What you say of a lover's pressing his 
mistress to a declaration of her love for 
him, is sweetly pretty, and very just ; 
but let a man press as he will, if the 
lady answers him rather by her obliging 
manners than in words, she will leave 
herself something to declare, and she 
will find herself rather more than less 
respected for it : such is the nature of 
man ! — A man hardly ever presumes to 
press a lady to make this declaration, 
but when he thinks himself sure of her. 
He urges her, therefore, to add to his 
own consequence ; and hopes to quit 
scores with her, when he returns love 
for love, and favour for favour ; and 
thus " draws the tender-hearted soul to 
professions which she is often upbraided 
for all her life after," says your lady- 
ship. But these must be the most un- 
generous of men. All I would suppose 
is, that pride and triumph is the mean- 
ing of the urgency for a declaration, 
which pride and triumph make a man 
think unnecessary : and perhaps to know 
how far he may go, and be within 
allowed compass. A woman, who is 
brought to own her love to the man, 
must act accordingly towards him ; must 
be more indulge nt to him ; must, in a 
word, abate of her own significance, 
and add to his. And have you never 
seen a man strut upon the occasion, 
and how tame and bashful a woman 



looks after she has submitted to make 
the acknowledgement? The behaviour 
of each to the other, upon it and after 
it, justifies the caution to the sex, which 
I would never have a woman forget — 
always to leave to herself the power of 
granting something : yet her denials 
may be so managed as to be more at- 
tractive than her compliances. Women, 
Lovelace says (and he pretends to know 
them), are fond of ardours ; but there 
is an end of them when a lover is se- 
cure. He can then look about him, and 
be occasionally, if not indiflferent, un- 
punctual, and delight in being missed, 
expected, and called to tender account 
for his careless absences : and he will 
be less and less solicitous about giving 
good reasons for them, as she is more 
and more desirous of his company. Poor 
fool ! he has brought her to own that 
she loves him ; and will she not bear 
with the man she loves ? She, herself, 
as I have observed, will think she must 
act consistently with her declaration ; 
and he will plead that declaration in his 
favour, let his neglects or slights be what 
they will. Yours, &c. 

LETTER LXXX. 

Lady Bradshaigh to Mr. Richardson. 
January 3, 1752. 

I HOPE I shall never be more angry with 
my valuable correspondent than 1 ap- 
peared to be in my last letter ; though 
you love to make me angry, and you 
kno^ how vindictive a heart I have : 
therefore do not provoke me too far. 
Remember, a woman is never behind- 
hand in revenge ; and how do you think 
I mean to complete it ; even by keeping 
my temper. If that does not vex you, I 
know nothing that will. 

You ask, " how could I sting, and 
be so gracious in the same sentence ?" 
Why, because I expected something in 
answer that would please me, and I was 
not disappointed. May I never want a 
sting to draw such honey from your pen. 

Can I, do I, " engage your delight 
with your attention?" May I ever do 
so ; and I will take upon me to say, I 
shall never owe you a grain on that score. 

Do you really think, sir, that " pre- 
rogative from your sex to ours, early 
exerted in the married state, will sink 
most wpmefl into mere humWe paisiv* 



Sect. IV. 



RECENT. 



671 



wives?" How is this, " if he sets out 
right?" — Right! right! do you call 
it ? Much depends upon the various tem- 
pers on both sides. Without being a 
vixen, indeed, a woman may behave 
with dignity and with duty, and, at the 
same time, despise the man who is mean 
enough to remind her of his prerogative, 
and that she is his vas — What is the 
ugly word ? — I do not understand it. — 
Why will you write Greek to the un- 
learned ? And ignorant I may remain ; 
for the man, whose happy wife I am, as 
he never has explained it, would not 
willingly do it, were I to ask him. In- 
solent bravery, however, is plain En- 
glish, and very properly applied. You 
have " too often observed (too often in- 
deed, if ever) that fear as well as love is 
necessary, on the lady's part, to make 
wedlock happy." I deny not that you 
may have observed, that a man, by set- 
ting out right or wrong, by insolent 
bravery, and a high opinion of himself, 
may make fear necessary : nevertheless, 
it is a necessity of his own creating, and 
not from the nature of woman. 

What would have become of me, had 
I married a man who would have endea- 
voured to lay me under that necessity ? 
Endeavoured I say ; for the bravest 
and the most insolent of your insolent 
sex could never have brought me to it. 
I am such a vixen, that if I loved my 
husband, I could not fear him. A go- 
vernor, a parent, a master, I could love, 
fear, and honour, at the same time ; but 
to my husband, myself, I must be all 
love, no mixture of fear ; certain hatred 
would attend it. 

How can it be said what would be the 
way with most women? Where there 
are variety of tempers, there ought to 
be, and you have the power to use, va- 
riety of methods. But prerogative is 
the word, and insolence the motive ; 
whilst we have no choice ; submission, 
submission for ever, or we are vixens, 
perverse opposers, rebels to our sove- 
reigns, to our tyrants — too often syno- 
nymous terms. And yet, I will so far 
allow your observation, that some of us 
do seem to submit with pleasure to these 
sovereigns : but then, in my way of 
thinking, it must be a submission of 
love, to be called happy in the least de- 
gree ; not a dispirited fear, like a 

What is the meaning of that Greek 
word ? I have a notion it is something 



like servitude : O, ay : *' Love, serve, ho- 
nour, and obey." No fear, though, is 
mentioned ; thank God for that ; since, 
if there had, I should certainly have 
broke my marriage vow, one way or the 
other. There is something of " chaste 
conversation coupled with fear," but it is 
no command. 

Surely, no woman of common sense 
could be convinced the sooner for a 
" man's obstinacy" in using her ill ; or 
think him " more a man" for being a 
tyrant. A fool, a brute, may be a ty- 
rant ; and if a woman is not of the 
same silly stamp, she must despise him, 
however he may have brought her to a 
seeming easiness. We have nothing 
else for it, when a man is resolved. But 
then you cannot call it making wedlock 
happy : hell, indeed, sir ; this world's 
hell, I call it. There are, who expect 
their wives to love, serve, honour, and 
obey, only because they have vowed so 
to do ; but what men are they ? And 
what woman could value such from her 
heart, or be happy with such a man ? — 
When love is reciprocal, sweet is the 
bondage, and easy the yoke ; where that 
is, nothing is wanting : for ever banish- 
ed be fear, the bane of happiness in 
every shape ; at least with one of my 
temper. We may be fond of power, and 
it is often our own fault that we have 
not enough of it : a woman, that can 
seem to despise it, may have it to satiety. 
And what does this argue ? You per- 
verse souls, what does it argue ? 

I do believe, sir, you have as good a 
wife as any man " need to wish for;" 
and yet — What would you say? Nay, 
you have said. I will tell, I am resolved. 

Mrs. R n, he says you are a mistress 

of contradiction. In close argument, 
you give him to understand that you 
think your judgment superior ; that 
when you have brought him to declare 
his wishes, you at once resolve to act 
directly opposite. Are these things so? 
Positively they are not. I cannot be- 
lieve it, indeed, sir. I am very sure you 
would not utter a falsehood, black or 
white ; nevertheless, I cannot believe it. 
There is some misconstruction ; some 
words, or tone of voice, wrong under- 
stood ; mistakes on one side or the 
other : but, in short, she appears to me 
grossly abused. And yet that cannot be, 
by the man in whom is no abuse. I 
know not how to behave between you ; 



m 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Hook IV. 



if I take her part, she will quarrel with 
me, I am sure; and if 1 take yours, so 
will you too. The third person in ma- 
trimonial disputes, always comes off the 
worst. So God hless you hoth ! and I 
advise you to go on in the same way, 
lest you should change for the worse. 

Have you but now found out the way 
to make me an advocate for my sex? 
You forget, sir, the same thing has hap- 
pened before. I believe we have both 
owned that we love a little contradic- 
tion, as a spur to each other. So 1 am 
•not only like " my wife," but like my 
wife's husband. In short, and seriously, 
we are all like one another, in some de- 
gree : — if faults we have, we had them 
from you. I know a gentleman, who, 
when he was speaking of any one who 
had the misfortune to be born of wicked 
parents, always said, *' I have no opinion 
of him ; he is made of bad stuff." And 
this puts me in mind of our original, 
the riby the rib! And there's a bone for 
you to pick ! Pardon the pun, and pert- 
ness. 

No, sir, I cannot hope that what I 
have said will amount to a proof of wo- 
men's superiority, in goodness, to men ; 
any more than I hope for an acknow- 
ledgment of it without a proof. Never- 
theless, as you have more power and do 
very often abuse that power, we, without 
doubt, have more to bear from you, than 
you from us. Without doubt, I say ; 
because you cannot make me believe 
otherwise. 

And have I, do you think, " been se- 
vere upon my own sex, yet seem to per- 
suade myself that I was defending 
them ?" 

What a blundering brain have I ! for 
ever producing dirt to be thrown in my 
own face ! Though, please to hold your 
hand a little, for I am not yet sensible of 
what you accuse me. If any being but 
man could speak, I would allow that be- 
ing to talk of women's consciences. 

I once had some small acquaintance 
with lord Orrery, at the time when he 
was in disgrace with his father, his doat- 
ing father, as you gently term him — for 
he had not so just an excuse as dotage, 
for his bfehaviour to his son. 

Yours, &c. 



LErrER LXXXI. 

Mr. Richardson to Lady Bradshaigh. 

North- 1- nd, Feb. 23, 1752. 

I KNEW that I should provoke my dear 
correspondent, by what I wrote of men's 
setting out right in the marriage war- 
fare ; of governing by fear ; of preroga- 
tive early exerted ; and such like strange 
assertions. But, in the first place, you 
will be pleased to recollect to whom all 
this jargon is owing. Is it not to lady 

B herself? Look back, madam, for 

the occasion, which was our friend 's 

nuptials : and what a passive, tame soul 
you supposed his wife must be, if she 
wished to be happy. On this, my in- 
dignation arose against tyrants ; and I 
gave it as my opinion, that such would 
be much more likely to be observed, than 
the kind, good-natured husband, who 
made it his study to oblige his wife : and 
angry, very angry, was I, against such of 
the sex as would, either way, give rea- 
son for the observation. Had I not been 
a lover of your wayward sex, I should 
not have been so warm against them as 
you take it 1 was. 

Your ladyship very happily expresses 
yourself, when you say, " a governor, a 
parent, a master, I could love, fear, and 
honour, at the same time : but to my 
husband, myself, I must be all love, no 
mixture of fear: certain hatred would 
attend it." A husband was formerly 
thought a governor ; you have heard or 
read that he was called master : he is 
dearer than a parent, and nearer too. 
Be pleased to tell me, madam, why fear 
should mingle with your love to an in- 
dulgent parent, and produce hatred to a 
husband? Will you be pleased to shew 
me in what the two sorts of fear, if two 
sorts there be, differ? As to'the words 
myself, my husband, myself, they have 
a pretty sound with them ; but they will 
be found very separable words. In short, 
that the solemn office, that has made 
them one flesh, has not been able, even 
in very material cases, to make them one 
spirit ; and, when they differ, if there be 
not a fear of offending, God help them ! 
God help the myself ! 

" While they behold their chaste con- 
versation, coupled with fear." That text 
had like to have overturned all your lady- 
ship's reasoning ; and how came you off? 
Prettily enough ; because you were re- 



S.ECT. IV. 



R ECEN T. 



^>7 



solved to come oflF, and could easily con- 
vince yourself. It is no command, say 
you. But, madam, it is almost as bad 
for your argument, for it is a supposed 
unquestionable duty : yet I plead not for 
fear. My maxim is love, all love ; and 
yet, when a T\'oman is used to it, she ex- 
pects it, and so considers it not either 
as a rarity or an obligation. The man 
is a quiet, good-natured creature, and 
loves his peace, and so is loving for his 
own sake. Strange humility that, which 
will make a woman think that she can 
repay the obligation by her acceptance 
of it ! One thing, however, madam, let 
me tell you, that, in ail our arguments 
of this nature, I will not allow you to 
look at home, and determine by your- 
self. You can know nothing of the 
world, nor of the argument, if you form 
your conclusions upon the conduct of a 
single pair. 

And when I have mentioned my wife 
^nd her myself, it is not that I would re- 
flect upon her, as either designing to be 
contradictory, or as being unusually so. 
No, madam, she falls into it naturally, 
a« I may say, and as if she could not help 
it. And as her myself always prefaces 
his requests as if he would take her com- 
pliances as favours, he often finds it is 
but asking for a denial ; and why ? Be- 
cause she would demonstrate that she 
has as great an aversion to the word fear 
as the best of her sex ; and hesitates 
not to oppose, as an argument of her 
fortitude and independence of will. But 
what will you, who are so vehement 
against the word and thing fear, say, if 
I should assert, that there cannot be love 
without fear? You say, you could fear 
a parent, yet honour and love that pa- 
rent : I would rather, methinks, be the 
father than the husband of the woman, 
who could not fear me with the same 
sort of fear, that she could shew to a fond 
and indulgent parent. And there, to 
return your ladyship's words, is a bone 
for you to pick ! 

I do not perfectly understand you, 
madam, in the following sentence ; "• We 
may be fond of power ; and it is often 
our own fault that we have not enougli 
of it. A woman that can seem to despise 
it, may have it to satiety. And what 
does this argue ? You perverse souls, 
what does it argue ?" 

Again, your ladyship is a little unin- 
telligible : — " If faults we have (as if 



you made a question of it, madam I), we 
have them from you. — And this puts me 
in mind of our original : the rib, the 
rib." I thought it was Eve that gave 
the man the apple. I have not my Bible 
at hand : but I think I remember some 
such words as these of an apostle : 
" Adam was not deceived ; but the wo- 
man, being deceived, was in the trans- 
gression."-^" You have more to bear 
from us," you say, " than we have from 
you." — To this I wrote largely in my 
last. 

You have not, madam, a blundering 
brain : and I hope I have not thrown 
dirt in my correspondent's face. 

Your ladyship dares me to stop in my 
new work ! You give me leave to stop. 
Your challenge, perhaps, comes in a cri- 
tical time ; for I am at a part, that it is 
four chances to one I shall not be able 
to get over. You cannot imagine how 
many difficult situations I have involved 
myself in. Entanglement, and extrica- 
tion, and re-entanglement, liave suc- 
ceeded each other, as the day the night ; 
and now the few friends, who have seen 
what I have written, doubt not but I 
am stuck fast. And, indeed, I think so 
myself. 

I have read through lord Orrery's His- 
tory of Swift. I greatly like it. I had 
the pleasure of telling my lord himself 
so, in Mr. Millar's shop, and of thank- 
ing him for the pleasure he had given 
me. He returned the compliment, in 
relation to Clarissa ; and, having heard 
of my new design, was inquisitive about 
it. Though my lord is really in his per- 
son and behaviour, as well as in his wri- 
tings, an amiable man, I join v/itli your 
ladyship most cordially in all you say of 
the author, of the dean, and of the dean's 
savage behaviour to his unhappy wife, 
and Vanessa ; as it is of a piece with all 
those of his writings, in which he endea- 
vours to debase the human and to raise 
above it the brutal nature. I cannot 
think so hardly as some do of lord Or- 
rery's observation ; that the fearful de- 
privation, which reduced him to a state 
beneath that of the merest animal, seem- 
ed to be a punishment that had terrible 
justice in it. 

Why will you so ungratefully depre- 
ciate a pen and a judgment, that every 
one, to whom I have read detached parts 
of your favours to me, admires? Take 
care, madam, how you make light of ta- 
2X 



674 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV, 



lents, of whicli while you think meanly, 
you are not likely to be duly thankful 
for. Your judgment of the works you 
have remarked upon are, by all who have 
heard me read them, thought admirable ; 
and shew a heart, as well as a head, for 
which you cannot be too grateful. 

I have not been able to read any more 
than the first volume of Amelia. Poor 
Fielding ! I could not help telling his 
sister, that I was equally surprised at and 
concerned for his continued lowness. 
Had your brother, said I, been born in a 
stable, or been a runner at a spunging- 
house, we should have thought him a 
genius, and wished he had had the ad- 
vantage of a liberal education, and of 
being admitted into good company ; but 
it is beyond my conception, that a man 
of family, and who had some learning, 
and who really is a writer, should descend 
so excessively low in all his pieces. Who 
can care for any of his people ? A person 
of honour asked me the other day, what 
he could mean by saying, in his Covent 
Garden Journal, that he had followed 
Homer and Virgil in his Amelia. I an- 
swered, that he was justified in saying 
so, because he must mean Cotton's Vir- 
gil Travestied ; where the women are 
drabs, and the men scoundrels. 

Yours, &c. 



LETTER LXXXIL 

Mr. Richardson to Lady Bradshaigh. 

April 22, 1752. 
A SENTIMENT, my dear and good lady 
Bradshaigh, may not be absolutely un- 
exceptionable, and yet be very happily 
expressed. My meaning and my words 
agreed, when I wrote, that you very 
happily expressed yourself on the subject 
of love and fear, as applicable to a parent 
and a husband. 

But you are at a loss how to make me 
understand you as to the two sorts of 
fear which you want to distinguish, the 
one to a parent, the other to a husband. 
Awe, the word awe, is happily thought 
of by your ladyship. " Are we not bred 
up with awe to a parent ? (you ask.) 
Certainly (say you) ; and it is often cre- 
ated by our being sensible we are liable 
to be corrected." So, madam, a wife 
(and who is perfect? who wants not 
some correction ?) having no apprehen- 



sion of being corrected, of being chidden, 
therefore, cannot fear her husband, as 
when a child she could a parent ! You 
have most charmingly strengthened my 
argument : I thank you, madam. Did 
I not say, that a mixture of fear with the 
love was necessary to make an obliging 
wife ? And do you not hint, that if the wife 
had the same motive for it as the child 
had, fear of rebuke, of chastisement, of 
correction (by which 1 mean not stripes, 
you may be sure —indulgent parents 
maintain not their authority by stripes), 
the husband might be entitled to the 
same kind of awe that the parent was ; 
and it would be no discredit to the 
grown-up woman, the wife, to be as 
much afraid of offending a kind, a good 
husband, as, when a child, she was of 
offending a kind, an indulgent parent ? 
I was not wrong, therefore, I think, when 
I asked your ladyship why fear should 
mingle with your love of an indulgent 
parent (for that was the parent I meant, 
and not the severe one), and produce 
hatred to a husband? You will answer 
me as above. Your ladyship knows your 
answer. The wife has no apprehension 
of being corrected ; if chidden, she can 
chide again. Nor, as your ladyship 
seems to have proved, was I much out of 
the way when I observed, from what 
your ladyship said of the temper of your 
then lately-married friend, though I said 
it with indignation against such tyrant 
husbands, that such would be much more 
likely to be observed, than the kind, 
good-natured man, who made it his 
study to oblige his wife. Upon the 
whole, if your ladyship will give me 
leave, I will assert, that there hardly can 
be love without fear — fear of offending. 
And I repeat, " that I would rather be 
the father than the husband of the wo- 
man who could not fear me with the 
same sort of fear, that she could shew to 
a fond and indulgent parent. Why, 
madam, I can, on the same motives, fear 
my wife ; but I am not sure, good crea- 
ture, good wife, as she really is, that I 
have shewn my prudence in letting her 
see my fear. 

But you say that the woman is under 
no obligation to her husband for his love, 
provided she loves. With all my heart, 
madam ? I will not make distinctions ; I 
will not say that there is a merit in the 
man's love to a single object, on a suppo- 
isition that the law of nature discourages 



Lr 



Sect. IV. 



RECENT. 



67r, 



not polygamy, and that the law of God 
nowhere in his word condemns it. No, 
I will not ; because the law of his country 
ought to determine him. Why, why 
would your ladyship throw out bones for 
so spiteful, so vengeful, a man to pick ? 
But may I not ask, that, if the man who 
loves, loves for his own sake, whether 
the woman who loves, loves not also the 
man chiefly for hers ? Yes, says your 
ladyship, methinks : and so the obliga- 
tion is equal ; so be it. 

Want of perspicuity is not by any 
means the fault of your ladyship's writ- 
ing : yet I really did not take your 
meaning in the passage relating to the 
power that women might have if they 
sought it. I meant not in that place to 
provoke you, dearly as I sometimes love 
to try to make you angry with me, which 
yet 1 never could do, though I have very, 
very often, deserved your anger. Thus 
you explain yourself : 

*' You said, we were dear lovers of 
power. I did not deny it ; and I thought 
it our own fault that we had not enough 
of it." And have not you;.' sex here in 
England enough of it? That fault is 
letting you see we are fond of it. Bless 
me, madam, should we not feel it, if we 
did not see it ? " For which reason, such 
is your pride, you will not allow us any, 
if you can help it," adds your ladyship. 
If we can help it ! that is power with a 
vengeance which a wife exerts, and a 
husband cannot help himself. 

" Again unintelligible (says your lady- 
ship : Fie upon you!). lYhy v/e have 
faults : I made no question of it. How 
should we be faultless, considering our 
original ? Was not woman made of man ? 
From whence, then, our faults ?" But, 
madam, be so good as to consider, that 
man, at the time woman was formed out 
of his rib, was in a state of innocence. 
He had not fallen. The devil had need 
of a helper : he soon found one in Eve. 
But, if I may be forgiven for a kind of 
pun, you seem to think, madam, that the 
faults of men lie in the flesh , the faults 
of women are deeper — they lie in the 
bone. I believe you have hit upon it. I 
love to provoke you, it is true ; but I 
also love to agree with your ladyship, in 
material articles. The difference between 
us, in this point, is, that I confirm by 
experience what you advance only from 
conjecture ; for, unless you look out of 
yourself, how should you know that wo- 



men's faults lie so deep that they must be 
unformed, and new made up again, to 
amend them ? 

The fault of the great author, whose 
letters to his friend you have been read- 
ing, is, thatTuUy is wholly concerned for 
the fame of Cicero ; and that for fame 
and for self-exaltation's sake. In some of 
his orations, what is called his vehe- 
mence (but really is too often insult 
and ill-manners) so transports him, 
that a modern pleader, and yet these are 
often intolerably abusive, Avould not be 
heard, if he were to take the like free- 
doms. This difference, however, ought 
to be mentioned, to the honour of the 
ancient ; he generally, I believe, being 
governed by the justice of his cause. The 
moderns too seldom regard that at all ; 
and care for nothing but their fees. But, 
after all, Cicero's constitutional faults 
seem to be vanity and cowardice. Great 
geniuses seldom have 5??<«// faults. 

You have seen, I presume. Dr. Middle- 
ton's Life of Cicero. It is a fine piec ; 
but the doctor, I humbly think, has 
played the panegyrist, in some places in 
it, rather than the historian. The pre- 
sent laureat's performance on the same 
subject, of which Dr. Middleton's is the 
foundation, is a spirited and pretty piece. 
He makes his observations on the cha- 
racter of Cicero, not by controverting 
any point with the doctor ; but, taking 
for granted, as if he had no other lights, 
ever thing that the doctor advances in 
his favour. 

You greatly oblige me, madam, when- 
evev you give me your observations upon 
what you read. Cicero was a prodigy. 
His works, his genius, will be admired 
to the end of time. But he was the 
greatest, the grossest lover, courier of 
adulation, and one of the greatest das- 
tards, that ever lived. Yet, in the for- 
mer quality, he only spoke out what 
many others mean. He was fond of 
glory ; he could not but be conscious ol 
his very great talents. I have often 
quarrels, arising in my mind, against the 
affectation of some ingenious moderns, 
who are always seeking to disclaim me- 
rits, which, were they in earnest, their 
modesty would not permit them to pub- 
lish to the world as they do in the trea- 
tises which they give the public. There 
may be a manly sensibility, surely, ex- 
pressed, which yet may shew, that though 
the author of a work, or the performer 
2X2 



07(> 



E L EGA NT E P 1 S T L E S. 



Book IV 



of a good action, is tolerably skilled in 
liis subject, or can take delight in his 
beneficence ; yet that he is not proud of 
understanding or doing what he ought 
to understand or do, if he pretends to 
write or to act. 1 am not a little em- 
barrassed in my new piece (so I was in 
my two former) with the affectation that 
custom almost compels one to be guilty 
of: — to make my characters disclaim 
the merits of the good they do, or the 
knowledge they pretend to ; and to be 
afraid of reporting the praises due, and 
given to them by others, who are bene- 
fited either by the act or the example, 
although the praises given are as much 
to the honour of the giver's sensibility, 
as of the receiver's. Doss any body be- 
lieve these disclaimers ? Does not every 
body think them affected, and often pha- 
risaical? and even their pretences to 
modesty, are what Lovelace calls, traps 
Imd for praise ! Yet custom exacts them ; 
and who is great enough to be above 
custom ? I think I would wish that my 
good man, and even my good girl, 
should be thought to be above regarding 
this custom. To receive praise with a 
grace, is a grace. But it must be so re- 
ceived, as that it should not be thought 
to puff up or exalt the person in his own 
opinion. The person praised must shew, 
that he is sensible he has done no m.ore 
than his duty ; that he gave not himself 
either his talents, or his ability to do 
good ; and should be the more humble, 
the more thankful for those talents, 
and for that ability. Arrogance, self- 
conceit, must be banished his heart. 
Even Lovelace can say, " If I have any 
thing valuable as to intellectuals, those 
are not my own ; and to be proud of 
what a man is answerable for the abuse 
of, and has no merit in the right use of, 
is to strut, like the jay, in a borrowed 
plumage." 

I really think my lord Orrery, in his 
Life of Swift, has intended to be lauda- 
bly impartial. I have no notion of that 
friendship, which makes a man think him- 
self obliged to gloss over the faults of a 
man, whom he wishes not to have great 
ones. It is not a strong proof of the 
sacred authority of the Scriptures, that 
the histories of David, Solomon, and its 
other heroes, are handed down to us 
with their mixture of vices and virtues ? 
Lord Orrery says very high and very 
great things of Swift. The bad ones we 



knew, in part, before. Had he attempt- 
ed to whiten them over, would it not 
have weakened the credibility of what he 
says in his favour ? I am told, that my 
lord is mistaken in some of his facts ; 
for instance, in that wherein he asserts, 
that Swift's learning was a late acquire- 
ment. I am very well warranted by the 
son of an eminent divine, a prelate, who 
was for three years what is called hi& 
chum, in the following account of that 
fact: — Dr. Swift made as great a progress 
in his learning, at the University of 
Dublin, in his youth, as any of his co- 
temporaries ; but was so very ill-natured 
and troublesome, that he was made 
Terrce Filius (sir Roger will explain what 
'that means, if your ladyship is unac- 
quainted with the University term), on 
purpose to have a pretence to expel him. 
He raked up all the scandal against the 
heads of that University that a severe in- 
quirer, and a still severer temper, could 
get together into his harangue. He was 
expelled in consequence of his abuse, 
and, having his decessit, afterwards got 
admitted, at Oxford^ to his degrees. 

I caimot find that my lord was very 
intimate v/ith him. As from a man of 
quality, and the son of a nobleman who 
had been obnoxious to ministers, no 
doubt but the dean might countenance 
those professions of friendship, which the 
young lord might be forward to make to 
a man, who was looked upon as the ge- 
nius of Ireland, and the fashion. But 
he could be only acquainted with him in 
the decline of the dean's genius. 

My lord, I think, has partly drawn 
censure upon himself, by a little piece of 
affectation. My friends will, he says, by 
way of preface to some of the things that 
the friends of Swift think the severest. I 
was a little disgusted, as I read it, at these 
ill-placed assumptions of friendship in 
words. I thought these affectations be- 
low lord Orrery, as it seemed, by them, 
as if he was proud of being thought of 
as a friend, by the man, who, whatever 
his head was, had not, I am afraid, near 
so good a heart as his own. 

Mr. Temple, nephew to sir William 
Temple, and brother to lord Palmerston, 
who lately died at Bath, declared, to a 
friend of mine, that sir William hired 
Swift, at his first entrance into the world, 
to read to him, and sometimes to be his 
amanuensis, at the rate of 20/. a year 
and his board, which was then high pre- 



!Sect. IV. 



RECENT. 



r>77 



ferment to him ; but that sir William 
never favoured him with his conversa- 
tion, because of his ill qualities, nor al- 
lowed him to sit down at table with him. 
Swift, your ladyship v/ill easily see by 
his writing's, had bitterness, satire, mo- 
roseness, that must make him insuffer- 
able, both to equals and inferiors, and 
unsafe for his superiors to countenance. 
Sir William Temple was a wise and dis- 
cerning man. He could easily see 
through a young fellow taken into a 
low office, and inclined to forget him- 
self. Probably, too, the dean Vv^as al- 
ways unpolite, and never could be a 
man of breeding. Sir William Temple 
was one of the politest men of his 
time. 

Whoever the lady be, who is so severe 
upon lord Orrery, I cannot but think 
that she is too severe. The story of 
Swift's marriage, and behaviour to a 
worthy, very worthy wife, I have been 
told long before lord Orrery's history of 
him came out. It was not, as the angry 
lady charges, a chimaera, but a certain 
truth. And this I was informed of by a 
lady of goodness, and no enemy but to 
what v/as bad in Swift. Surely this lady, 
who calls my lord to account for his 
unchristian -like usage of a dead friend, 
should have shewn a little more of the 
Christian in her invectives. Near twenty 
years ago, I heard from a gentleman, 
now living, with whom Vanessa lived, or 
lodged, in England, an account of the 
dean's behaviour to the unhappy woman, 
much less to his reputation than the ac- 
count my lord gives of that affair. Ac- 
cording to this gentleman's account, she 
was not the creature that she became 
when she was in Ireland, whither she 
followed him, and, in hopes to make 
herself an interest with his vanity, threw 
herself into glare and expense ; and, at 
last, by disappointment, into a habit of 
drinking, till grief and the effects of that 
vice destroyed her. You may gather 
from that really pretty piece of his, Ca- 
denus and Vanessa, how much he flatter- 
ed her, and that he took great pains to 
gloss over that affair. I remember once 
to have seen a little collection of letters 
and poetical scraps of Swift's, which pass- 
ed between him and Mrs. Van Homrigh, 
this same Vanessa, which the bookseller 
then told me were sent him to be pub- 
lished, from the originals, by this lady, 
in resentment of his perfidy. 



I have not had an opportunity to 
know what the two doctors you mention 
say of lord Orrery's Life of Swift. 

Adieu, dear madam, yours, See. 



LETTER LXXXIII. 

Mr. Richardson to Lady Bradshaigh. 

June 24, 175'?. 
Your ladyship is sure that you love, and 
as sure that you do not fear. Bless me, 
madam, did I not except, from my gene- 
ral observation, a certain baronet and 
his lady ? 

" A thoughtless irresolute child;" as 
if thoughtlessness and irresolution were 
not to be found in persons grown up ! 

The wife you describe, the good, the 
tender wife, who will never designedly 
offend a good, a tender husband, is not 
the wife I, any more than your ladyship, 
thought of: the generality of the sex I 
had in my view. And yet I think the 
fear I meant very compatible with the 
character of a good, a tender wife ; nay, 
she hardly can be either good or tender 
without it. 

" Want correction equally, or in com- 
parison with a child." That, madam, 
was not what I supposed, though I have 
known humoured wives more perverse 
than babies. Nor meant I that stripes 
should be thought of: and yet in a cause 
that I once heard argued in the house of 
lords, between sir Cleeve Moore and his 
lady, v/ho, in resentment of his cruelty, 
had run away from him, and whom he 
had forced back, with farther instances of 
cruelty, I heard a very edifying debate : 
a cause which was managed by the pre- 
sent lord chancellor, then attorney-ge- 
neral, against the late lord chancellor 
Talbot, then solicitor-general, in which 
the former declaimed very powerfully 
against sir Cleeve for his ill usage of his 
wife. The latter, allowing part of the 
charge, justified sir Cleeve by the law of 
England, which allov/s a man to give his 
wife moderate correction. The house was 
crowded with ladies, who, some of them, 
shrugged their shoulders, as if they felt 
t\\e, correction ; and all of them, who 
could look from behind their fans, leered 
consciously, I thought, at one another. 
A pretty doctrine ! thought I. Take it 
among you, ladies ; and make your best 
courtesies when you come liome to your 
emjjerors. 



m 



ELEGANT E P I S T [. E S. 



Book IV. 



Well, but your ladyship turns me over 
to St. John, who, in his first epistle says : 
" There i« no fear in love ; but perfect 
love casteth out fear, because fear hath 
torment : He that feareth, is not made 
perfect in love." 

Charming- ! And hov/ your ladyshjtp 
exults upon this ! " What will you say 
to this, I wonder?' 

Why, madam, in the first place, I say, 
that this love and this fear, as you will 
see in the context, are not meant to be 
the love or fear of an earthly creature, a 
husband, or tliat of a wife— but of God. 

But when another apostle comes, from 
the same Divine Spirit, to speak of the 
duty of wives to husbands, he delivers 
himself witli the authority of a precept : 
— " Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection 
to your own husbands ; that if any obey 
not the word, they may also, without 
the word, be won by the conversation 
of the wives ; while they behold your 
conversation coupled with fear." This, 
madam, is directly to wives, and (^if hus- 
bands. What now will your ladyship 
say to these thing's? But 1 am meek ; 
I exult not ; no broad smile do I put on : 
no triumph ! 

A meek and quiet spirit is enjoined as 
the principal ornament of a wife ; " for, 
after this manner (says the apostle), in 
the old time, the holy women also, who 
trusted in God, adorned themselves, be- 
ing in subjection to their own husbands, 
even as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling 
him lord ; whose daughters ye are, as 
long as you do well, and are not afraid 
with any amazement." There, madam, 
is the fear, that a w^ife should mingle 
with her love, described. It should be a 
sweet, familiar fear, looking up to him 
for encouragement and reward, from his 
smiles ; and not such a one as should awe, 

confound, or amaze her. ^o much 

for this subject of love and fear. 

*' No, isir (says your ladyship), never, 
never, will I allow, that a woman is un- 
der obligations to her husband, for re- 
turning her love ; no, not for his entire 
love !' — 1 cannot help it, madam: you 
see what a state of vassalage both the 
Scripture and the law of the land sup- 
pose a wife to be in ; and what stately 
creatures men are ! But you know that 
1 enforce not this vassalage, this stateli- 
ness. This argument was introduced 
with my declared indignation against 
the tyranny of a husband, who, of your 



own knowledge of his temper, you sup- 
posed would be a tyrant, and expect his 
sweetly pretty wife to be will-less. A sad 
thing, whatever it was of old time (in 
Sarah's days), when the wives were 
thought of little account, and the old 
patriarclis lorded it over half a score 
good, meek, obedient creatures, to de- 
prive a woman, in these days, of her will I 
Whence I had the boldness to advance, 
that it was, however, very likely, that the 
man would have the more obliging wife 
for it ; and I thought your ladyship, by 
giving the instance, of the same opinion. 
Said you not, " that humility only could 
make her happy ?" 

Polygamy is a doctrine that I am very 
far from countenancing ; but yet, in an 
argumentative way, I do say, that the 
law of nature, and the first command 
(increase and multiply), more than allow 
of it ; and the law of Gocl nowhere for- 
bids it. Throughout the Old Testament, 
we find it constantly practised. Enough, 
however, of this subject ; though a great 
deal more might be said ; more than I 
wish there could; as I think highly of the 
laws and customs of my country. Have 
you, madam, who are an admirer of Mil- 
ton, read his Treatise on Divorces? You 
reject his authority. As a poet, do if 
you please : poets are allowed to be li- 
centious. But reason ought to weigh, 
whether from man or woman. Do you 
not think so, madam? 

Bone of our bone, and flesh of our 
flesh — Why, truly, so women are — But, 
as the best things, corrupted, became the 
worst, your ladyship would have a diffi- 
culty, if put to it, to prove, that the off- 
spring cannot be worse, when bad, than 
the parent. 

I have overcome, it is true, some diffi- 
culties in ray new work ; but what shall 

I do, they multiply upon me ! 

Adieu, for the present. 



LETTER LXXXIV. 

Lad^ Bradshaigh to Mr. Richardson. 

July 23, 1735. 
You are so kind, and so pressing, to 
give yourself trouble on our account, 
that 1 know not what to say to you. Sir 
Roger cries. That your being a man of 
business, and diligent in that business, is 
a reason Avhv we should not add to that 



8ect. IV. 



RECENT. 



670 



weight you already bear. I answer, 
Consider his words, and consider his sin- 
cerity. Aye, but then consider what he 
will endure to serve liis friends. Well, 
and is not that the business of his life, 
preferably to all others ? Very true. And 
if I know him at all, the pleasure he takes 
in that servitude will greatly overbalance 
the trouble ; so let us only think of giv- 
ing him a pleasure, and let that solve to 
ourselves, like all selfish people, what 
perhaps would more than appear as really 
giving trouble to a disinterested stander- 
by. — And so, sir, you are adopted our 
friendly, loving, trusty banker. 

I have a notion that you are acquainted 
with honest people of every profession ; 
therefore you must not be surprised if 
I apply to you upon all occasions. And 

this puts me hi mind of Mr. C , who, 

honest and humane as he is, may, never- 
theless, be the better for your acquaint- 
ance. You once told me he maintained 
a very odd argument ; and I am inform- 
ed, his principles are so in the religious 
sense : — but if he is not one of the ob- 
stinate, and will hear reason, his corre- 
spondence with you may open his eyes, 
and cause a new light to shine before 
them. 

Bless me, sir, how you scold ! I have 
a great mind not to bear it. I desired you 
would not be very angry ; and I thought 
you would not, when I told you the true 
reason of my reserve. My letter, like 
some former ones, was left at Parson's- 
Green, where you answered it, or you 
would have been more gentle in your 
condemnation. Pray look it over, be- 
fore you write again, and tell me if I did 
not say that " Miss Talbot seems very 
agreeable, and deserving, and, I dare say, 
is as good as you and all her friends think 
her; and, that her looks answered her 
character, is too well known to need 
farther explanation." This you call cool 
praise. I do not think it so, from a 
stranger ; for, you know, I cannot com- 
mence acquaintance all at once. You 
prepared miss Talbot to expect that 
shyness, that unconquerable shyness, 
which appears so much to my disad- 
vantage in a first visit. But you also 
prepared her — Ah, sir, no rising in the 
second visit ! However, I thank you, since 
I must have appeared worse, had she not 
been prepared, and which I am sensible 
of, by her expressions in my favour, of 
which I am vain. The diffidence she 



found out, pleases me ; and I hope that 
will be an excuse for all my disagreeable 
and ill-timed reserves. Thus far I am 
v/illing to take blame to myself. The 
married lady ought to have made more 
advances. But the married lady, upon 
some occasions, is an arrant sheep's-face. 
I can only promise to behave better for 
the future, and shall very much wish fov 
an opportunity to make myself more de- 
serving the good opinion of miss Talbot, 
who, I do assure you, stands high in 
mine. 

I have but lately finished Leland's ex- 
cellent work, and your kind present. I 
greatly admire the plain, easy style in 
which he writes. His cool, mild, and 
impartial arguments, tome, at least, who 
was prepared to receive them favourably, 
seem strong and satisfactory : and my 
lord of Bolingbroke, with all his vast 
capacity, but vaster assurance, he often 
makes appear even an idiot ; and that 
without any glare of wit or brow-beating 
language, like his lordship's, but only by 
explaining and undressing his ornament- 
ed, ill-designed doctrine. 

I had, last post, a letter from my dear 

sister , with three enclosed from 

lady S g to her ; in whose praises, 

perhaps, she might think me too cool : 
indeed, I said but iittie in the compli- 
menting strain. She seems bent upon 
making me love her ; and, if she is sin- 
cere in her professions of friendship, I do 
love her for that. But, from my own 
Icnowledge of her, from one hour's know- 
ledge, what judgment could I form ? 
Perhaps, if any, it might be to the 
disadvantage of the lady, and very un- 
justly ; first appearances are often false. 
I have a reason, however, for hoping so, 
which may make me appear cool, when 
I am only cautious. This is not a far- 
ther excuse for my behaviour to the lady 
before-mentioned, towards whom my 
heart is strongly bent, and whose cha- 
racter, had I never seen her, would have 
demanded my love and esteem. I am 
sure she is deserving ; I hope the other 
is so too. 

Sir Roger and I are quite alone, and 
the weather so extremely bad that I have 
not had an opportunity of even walking 
in the garden these three weeks, which 
make this place not quite so pleasant as 
usual. But here I am happy, neverthe- 
less ; am pretty well in health, though 
cannot say it is quite established : but I 



C80 



E L E G A N T E P I S T L E S. 



IJOOK W, 



liave 110 ^reat cause for complamt, God 
be praised. I want nothing but a few 
of my particular friends ; in the first 
rank of whom stands a family at Par- 
son's Green, whose company would add 
greatly to the satisfaction of their obliged, 
&c. 



FROM THE 
LETFERS Of EDWARD GIBBON, ESQ. 



LETTER LXXXV. 

Mi\ Gibbon to his Father, 



1760. 



Dear sir. 
An address in writing, from a person 
who has the pleasure of being with you 
every day, may appear singular. How- 
ever, I have preferred this method, as 
upon paper I can speak v/ithout a blush, 
and be heard without interruption. If 
my letter displeases you, impute it, dear 
sir, only to yourself. You have treated 
me, not like a son, but like a friend. 
Can you be surprised that I should com- 
municate to a friend all my thoughts, 
and all my desires ? Unless the friend 
approve them, let the father never know 
them ; or, at least, let him know, at the 
same time, that, however reasonable, 
however eligible, my scheme may appear 
to me, I would rather forget it for ever, 
than cause him the slightest uneasiness. 
When I first returned to England, at- 
tentive to my future interest, you were 
so good as to give me hopes of a seat 
in parliament. This seat, it was sup- 
posed, would be an expense of fifteen 
hundred pounds. This design flattered 
my vanity, as it might enable me to 
shine in so august an assembly. It flat- 
tered a nobler passion ; I promised my- 
self that, by the means of this seat, i 
might be one day the instrument of 
some good to my country. But 1 soon 
perceived how little a mere virtuous hi- 
clination, unassisted by talents, could 
contribute towards that great end ; and 
a very short examination discovered to 
me, that those talents had not fallen to 
my lot. Do not, dear sir, impute this de- 
claration to a false modesty, the meanest 
species of pride. Whatever else 1 may 



be ignorant of, I think I kno?v myselfy 
and shall always endeavour to mention 
my good qualities without vanity, and my 
defects without repugnance. I shall say 
nothing of the most intimate acquaint- 
ance with his country and language, so 
absolutely necessary to every senator. 
Since they may be acquired, to allege 
my deficiency in them, would seem only 
the plea of laziness. But I shall say 
with great truth, that I never possessed 
that gift of speech, the first requisite of 
an orator, which use and labour may 
improve, but which nature alone can 
bestow. That my temper, quiet, retired, 
somewhat reserved, could neither ac- 
quire popularity, bear up against oppo-^ 
sition, nor mix with ease in the crowds 
of public life. That even my genius (if 
you will allow me any) is better quali- 
fied for the deliberate compositions of 
the closet, than for the extemporary dis- 
courses of the parliament. An unexpect- 
ed objection would disconcert me ; and as- 
I am incapable of explaining to others, 
what I do not thoroughly understand 
myself, I should be meditating while I 
ought to be answering. I even want ne- 
cessary prejudices of party and of na- 
tion. In popular assemblies, it is oken 
necessary to inspire them ; and never 
orator inspired well a passion, which he 
did not feel himself. Suppose me even 
mistaken in my own character ; to set 
out with the repugnance such an opinion 
must produce, offers but an indifferent 
prospect. But I hear you say, it is not 
necessary that every man should enter 
into parliament with such exalted hopes. 
It is to acquire a title the most glorious of 
any in a free country, and to employ the 
weight and consideration it gives in the 
service of one's friends. Such motives, 
though not glorious, yet are not disho- 
nourable ; and if we had a borough in 
our command, if you could bring me in 
without any great expense, or if our for- 
tune enabled us to despise that expense, 
then, indeed, 1 should think them of the 
greatest strength. But with our private 
fortune, is it worth while to purchase, at 
so high a rate, a title, honourable in it- 
self, but which I must share with every 
fellow that can lay out fifteen hundred 
pounds ? Besides, dear sir, a merchan- 
dise is of little value to the owner when 
he is resolved not to sell it. 

I should affront your penetration, did 
I not suppose you now sec the drift of 



Sect. IV. 



RECENT. 



b'81 



this letter. It is to appropriate, to an- 
other use, the sum with which you des- 
tined to bring me into parliament ; to 
employ it, not in making me great, but 
in rendering me happy. I have often 
heard you say yourself, that the allow- 
ance you had been so indulgent as to 
grant me, though very liberal in regard 
to your estate, was yet but small, when 
compared with the almost necessary ex- 
travagances of the age. I have, indeed, 
found it so, notwithstanding a good deal 
of ceconomy, and an exemption from 
many of the common expenses of youth. 
This, dear sir, would be away of supply- 
ing these deficiencies, without any addi- 
tional expense to you. — But I forbear. — 
If you think my proposals reasonable, 
you want no entreaties to engage you to 
comply with them ; if otherwise, all will 
be without effect. 

All that I am afraid of, dear sir, is, 
that I should seem not so much asking a 
favour, as this really is, as exacting a 
debt. After all I can say, you will still 
remain the best judge of my good, and 
your own circumstances. Perhaps, like 
most landed gentlemen, an addition to 
my annuity would suit you better, than 
a sum of money given at once ; perhaps 
the sum itself may be too considerable. 
Whatever you shall think proper to be- 
stow upon me, or in whatever manner, 
will be received with equal gratitude. 

I intended to stop here ; but, as I ab- 
hor the least appearance of art, I think 
it will be better to lay open my whole 
scheme at once. The unhappy war, 
which now desolates Europe, will oblige 
me to defer seeing France till a peace. 
But that reason can have no influence 
upon Italy, a country which every scho- 
lar must long to see: should you grant 
my request, and not disapprove of my 
manner of employing your bounty, I 
would leave England this autumn, and 
pass the winter at J^ausanne, withM. de 
Voltaire and my old friends. The ar- 
mies no longer obstruct my passage, and 
it must be indififerent to you whether I 
am at Lausanne or at London during the 
winter, since I shall not be at Beriton. 
In the spring I would cross the Alps, 
and, after some stay in Italy, as the war 
must then be terminated, return home 
through France, to live happily with 
your and my dear mother. 1 am now 
two-and-twenty ; a tour must take up a 
considerable time ; and though I believe 



you have no thoughts of settling |me 
soon (and I am sure I have not), yet 
so many things may intervene, that the 
man, who does not travel early, runs a 
great risk of not travelling at all. But 
this part of my scheme, as well as the 
whole, I submit entirely to you. 

Permit me, dear sir, to add, that I 
do not know whether the complete com- 
pliance with my wishes could increase 
my love and gratitude ; but that I ans 
very sure no refusal could diminish 
those sentiments with which 1 shall al- 
ways remain, dear sir, your, &c. 



LETTER LXXXVI. 

Ediuard Gibbon, Esq. to J. Holroyd, Esq. 

Beriton, April 29, 1767. 
Dear Holroyd, 
I HAPPENED to-night to stumble upoo 
a very odd piece of intelligence in the 
St. James's Chronicle ; it related to the 
marriage of a certain Monsieur Olroy, 
formerly captain of hussars. I do not 
know how it came into my head that this 
captain of hussars was not unknown to 
me, and that he might possibly be an 
acquaintance of yours. If 1 am not 
mistaken in my conjecture, pray give 
my compliments to him, and tell him 
from me, that I am at least as well 
pleased that he is married as if I were 
so myself. Assure him, however, that 
though as a philosopher I may prefer 
celibacy, yet, as a politician, I think it 
highly proper that the species should be 
propagated by the usual method ; assure 
him even that I am convinced, that if 
celibacy is exposed to fewer miseries, 
marriage can alone promise real happi- 
ness, since domestic enjoyments are the 
source of every other good. May such 
happiness, which is bestowed on few, be 
given to him ; the transient blessings of 
beauty, and the more durable ones of 
fortune, good sense, and an amiable dis- 
position. 

I can easily conceive, and as easily 
excuse you, if you have thought mighty 
little this winter of your poor rusticated 
friend. I have been confined ever since 
Christmas, and confined by a succession 
of very melancholy occupations. I had 
scarcely arrived at Beriton, where I 
l)roposed staying only about a fortnight, 
when a brother of Mrs. Gibbon's died 



682 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



unexpectedly, though after a very long 
and painful illness. We were scarcely 
recovered from the confusion, which such 
an event must produce in a family, when 
my father was taken dangerously ill, and 
with some intervals has continued so 
ever since. I can assure you, my dear 
Holroyd; that the same event appears in 
a very different light when the danger is 
serious and immediate ; or when, in the 
gaiety of a tavern dinner, we aifect an 
insensibility, that would do us no great 
honour were it real. My father is now 
much better ; but I have since been as- 
sailed by a severe stroke — the loss of a 
friend. You remember, perhaps, an of- 
ficer of our militia, whom I sometimes 
used to compare to yourself. Indeed, 
the comparison would have done honour 
to any one. His feelings were tender 
and noble, and he was always guided by 
them : his principles were just and gene- 
rous, and he acted up to them. I shall 
say no more, and you will excuse my 
having said so much, of a man with 
whom you were unacquainted ; but my 
mind is just now so very full of him, 
that I cannot easily talk, or even think, 
of any thing else. If I know you right, 
you will not he offended at my weakness. 
What rather adds to my uneasiness, is 
the necessity I am under of joining our 
militia the day after to-morrow. Though 
the lively hurry of such a scene might 
contribute to divert my ideas, yet every 
circumstance of it, and the place itself 
(which was that of his residence), will 
give me many a painful moment. I know 
nothing would better raise my spirits 
than a visit from you : the request may 
( appear unseasonable, but I think I have 
heard you speak of «?z uncle you had near 
Southampton. At all events, I hope you 
will snatch a moment to write to me, 
and give me some account of your pre- 
sent situation and future designs. As 
you are now fettered, I should expect 
you will not be such a hie et ubique, as 
you have been since your arrival in Eng- 
land. I stay at Southampton from the 
first to the twenty-eighth of May, and 
then propose making a short visit to 
town : if you are any where in the neigh- 
bourhood of it you may depend upon 
seeing me. I shall then concert mea- 
sures for seeing a little more of you next 
winter than I have lately done, as I 
hope to take a pretty long spell in town. 
I suppose Guise has often fallen in your 



way : he has never once written to me^ 
nor I to him : in the country we want 
materials, and in London we want time. 
I ought to recollect, that you even want 
time to read my unmeaning scrawl. 
Believe, however, my dear Holroyd, that 
it is the sincere expression of a heart 
entirely yours. 



LETTER LXXXVII. 

Edivard Gibbon, Esq. to J. Holroyd, Esq, 

October 6, 1771. 

Dear Holroyd, 
I SIT down to answer your epistle, after 
taking a very pleasant ride. — A ride ! 
and upon what? — Upon a horse. — You 
lie ! — I don't. — I have got a droll little 
poney, and intend to renew the long for- 
gotten practice of equitation, as it was 
known in the world before the second 
of June of the year of our Lord one 
thousand seven hundred and sixty-three. 
As I used to reason against riding, so I 
can now argue for it; and indeed the 
principal use I know in human reason 
is, when called upon, to furnish argu- 
ments for what we have an inclination 
to do. 

What do you mean by presuming to 
affirm, that 1 am of no use here ? Farmer 
Gibbon of no use ? Last week 1 sold 
all my hops, and I believe well, at nine 
guineas a hundred, to a very responsible 
man. Some people think I might liave 
got more at Weyhill fair, but that would 
have been an additional expense, and a 
great uncertainty. Our quantity has dis- 
appointed us very much ; but I think, 
that besides hops for the family, there 
will not be less than 500/.; — no con- 
temptible sum off thirteen small acres, 
and two of them planted last year only. 
This week I let a little farm in Peters- 
field by auction, and propose raising it 
from 35/. to 35/. per annum : — and farmer 
Gibbon of no use ! 

To be serious : I have but one reason 
for resisting your invitation and my own 
wishes ; that is, Mrs. Gibbon I left nearly 
alone all last winter, and shall do the 
same this. She submits very cheerfully 
to that state of solitude ; but, on sound- 
ing her, I am convinced that she would 
think it unkind were I to leave her at 
present. I know you so well, that I am 
sure you will acquiesce in this reason ; 



Sect. IV. 



RECENT 



683 



and let me make my next visit to Shef * 
field Place from town, which I think 
may be a little before Christmas. I 
should like to hear something of the pre- 
cise time, duration, and extent of your 
intended tour into Bucks. Adieu. 



LETfER LXXXVIII. 

Edward Gibbon, Esq, to J. Holroyd. Esq. 
at Edinburgh. 

Bentinck Street, Aug. 7, 1773. 

Dear Holroyd, 
I BEG ten thousand pardons for not be- 
ing dead, as I certainly ought to be. 
But such is my abject nature, that I had 
rather live in Bentinck Street, attainted 
and convicted of the sin of laziness, than 
enjoy your applause either at Old Nick's 
or even in the Elysian Fields. After all, 
could you expect that I should honour 
with my correspondence a wild barba- 
rian of the bogs of Erin ? Had the na- 
tives intercepted my letter, the terrors 
occasioned by such unknown magic cha- 
racters might have been fatal to you. 
But now you have escaped the fury of 
their hospitality, and are arrived among 
a cee-vi-leezed nation, I may venture to 
renew my intercourse. 

You tell me of a long list of dukes, 
lords, and chieftains of renown, to whom 
you are introduced ; were I with you, I 
should prefer one David to them all. 
When you are at Edinburgh, I hope you 
will not fail to visit the stye of that fat- 
test of Epicurus's hogs, and inform your- 
self whether there remains no hope of its 
recovering the use of its right paw. 
There is another animal o^ great, though 
not perhaps of equal, and certainly not 
of similar merit, one Robertson : has he 
almost created the new world ? Many 
other men you have undoubtedly seen, 
in the country where you are at present, 
who must have commanded your esteem : 
but when you return, if your are not very 
honest, you will possess great advantages 
over me In any dispute concerning Cale- 
donian merit. 

Boodle's and Atwood's are now no 
more. The last stragglers, and Godfrey 
Clarke in the rear of all, are moved away 
to their several castles ; and I now enjoy, 
in the midst of London, a delicious soli- 
tude. My library, Kensington Gardens, 
and a few parties with new acquaintance 



who aie chained to London (among 
whom I reckon Goldsmith and sir Joshua 
Reynolds), fill up my time, and the mon- 
ster Ennui preserves a very respectful 
distance. By the bye, your friends Batt, 
sir John Russel, and Lascelles, dined 
with me one day before they set off ; for 
I sometimes give the prettiest little din- 
ner in the world. But all this compo- 
sure draws near its conclusion. About 
the sixteenth of this month Mr. Eliot 
carries me away, and after picking up 
Mrs. Gibbon at Bath, sets me down at 
Port Eliot; there 1 shall remain six 
weeks, or, in other words, to the end of 
September. My future motions, whether 
to London, Derbyshire, or a longer stay 
in Cornwall (pray is not " motion to 
stay" rather in the Hibernian style?), 
will depend on the life of Port Eliot, the 
time of the meeting of parliament, and 
perhaps the impatience of Mr. ******, 
lord of Lenborough. One of my plea- 
sures to town I forgot to mention, the 
unexpected visit of Deyverdun, who ac- 
companies his young lord (very young 
indeed !) on a two month's tour to Eng- 
land. He took the opportunity of the 
earl's going down to the duke of 
*******, to spend a fortnight (nor 
do I recollect a more pleasant one) in 
Bentinck Street. They are now gone to- 
gether into Yorkshire, and I think it 
doubtful whether I shall see him again 
before his return to Leipsic. It is a me- 
lancholy refle€tion, that while one is 
plagued with acquaintance at the corner 
of every street, real friends should be 
separated from each other by unsur- 
mountable bars, and obliged to catch at 
a few transient moments of interview. 
I desire that you and my lady (whom I 
most respectfully greet) would take your 
share of that very new and acute obser- 
vation, not so large a share indeed as 
my Swiss friend, since nature and for- 
tune give us more frequent opportunities 
of being together. You cannot expect 
news from a desert, and such is London 
at present. The papers give you the full 
harvest of public intelligence ; and I 
imagine, that the eloquent nymphs of 
Twickenham communicate all the trans- 
actions of the polite, the amorous, and 
the marrying world. The great panto- 
mime of Portsmouth was universally ad- 
mired ; and I am angry at my own lazi- 
ness in neglecting an excellent oppor- 
tunity of seeing it. Foote has given us 



f)84 



ELEGANT E P I S T J. E S. 



Book IV. 



the Bankrupt, a serious and sentimental 
piece, with very"severe strictures on the 
license of scandal in attacking private 
characters. Adieu. Forgive and epis- 
tolize me. I shall not believe you sin- 
cere in the former, unless you make Ben- 
tinck Street your inn. I fear I shall he 
gone ; but Mrs. Ford and the parrot will 
be proud to receive you and my lady 
after your long peregrination, from 
which I expect great improvements. 
Has she got the brogue upon the tip of 
her tongue ? 



LETTER LXXXIX. 

Edward Gibbon, Esq. to J. Holroydy Esq. 

Paris, August 13, 1777. 

Well, and who is the culprit now? — 
Thus far had 1 written in the pride of 
my heart, and fully determined to inflict 
an epistle upon you, even before I re- 
ceived any answer to my former ; I was 
very near a bull. But this forward half- 
line lays ten days barren and inactive, 
till its generative powers were excited 
by the missive which I received yester- 
day. What a wretched piece of work do 
we seem to be making of it in America ? 
The greatest force, which any European 
power ever ventured to transport into 
that continent, is not strong enough 
even to attack the enemy ; the naval 
strength of Great Britain is not sufficient 
to prevent the Americans (they have al- 
most lost the appellation of rebels) from 
receiving every assistance that they want- 
ed ; and in the mean time you are ob- 
liged to call out the militia to defend your 
own coasts against their privateers. You 
possibly may expect from me some ac- 
count of the designs and policy of the 
French court ; but I choose to decline 
that task for two reasons : 1st, Because 
you may find them laid open in every 
newspaper ; and 2dly, Because I live too 
much with their courtiers and ministers 
to know any thing about them. I shall 
only say, that I am not under any vax- 
mediate apprehensions of a Avar with 
France. It is much more pleasant, as 
well as profitable, to view in safety the 
raging of the tempest, occasionally to 
pick up some pieces of the wreck, and 
to improve their trade, their agriculture, 
and their finances, while the two coun- 
es are Itnto col Urn duello Far from 



taking any step to put a speedy end to 
this astonishing dispute, I should not be 
surprised if next summer they were to 
lend their cordial assistance to England, 
as to the weaker party. As to my per- 
sonal engagement with the D. of R., I 
recollect a few slight skirmishes, but 
nothing that deserves the name of a ge- 
neral engagement. The extravagance 
of some disputants, both French and 
English, who have espoused the cause of 
America, sometimes inspires me with an 
extraordinary vigour. Upon the whole, 
I find it much easier to defend the jus- 
tice than the policy of our measures ; 
but there are certain cases, where what- 
ever is repugnant to sound policy ceases 
to be just. 

The more I see of Paris, the more 1 
like it. The regular course of the so- 
ciety in which I live is easy, polite, and 
entertaining ; and almost every day is 
marked by the acquisition of some new 
acquaintance, who is worth cultivating, 
or who at least is worth remembering. 
To the great admiration of the French, 
I regularly dine and regularly sup, drink 
a dish of strong cofi'ee after each meal, 
and find my stomach a citizen of the 
world. The spectacles (particularly the 
Italian, and above all the French Come- 
dies), which are open the whole summer, 
afford me an agreeable relaxation from 
company ; and to shew you that I fre- 
quent them from taste, and not from 
idleness, I have not yet seen the Colisee, 
the Vauxhall, the Boulvards, or any of 
those places of entertainment which con- 
stitute Paris to m.ost of our countrymen. 
Occasional trips to dine or sup in some 
of the thousand country houses which 
are scattered round the environs of Paris, 
serve to vary the scene. In the mean 
while the summer insensibly glides away, 
and the fatal month of October approaches, 
when I must change the house of ma- 
dame Necker for the House of Commons. 
I regret that I could not choose the win- 
ter, instead of the summer, for this ex- 
cursion : I should have found many va- 
luable persons, and should have preserved 
others whom I have lost as I began to 
know them. The duke de Choiseul, who 
deserves attention both for himself and 
for keeping the best house in Paris, 
passes seven months of the year in Tou- 
raine ; and though I have been tempted, 
I consider with horror a journey of sixty 
leagues into the country. The princess 



Sect. IV. 



RECENT. 



685 



of Beauveau, who is a most superior wo- 
man, had been absent about six weeks, 
and does not return tiil the 24th of this 
month. A large body of recruits will be 
assembled by the Fontainbleau journey ; 
but, in order to have a thorough know- 
ledge of this splendid country, I ought to 
stay till the month of January ; and if I 
could be sure, that opposition would be 
as tranquil as they were last year — I 
think your life has been as animated, or, 
at least, as tumultuous ; and I envy you 
lady Payne, &c., much more than either 
the primate or the chief justice. Let 
not the generous breast of my lady be 
torn by the black serpents of envy. She 
still possesses the first place in the senti- 
ments of her slave : but the adventure of 
the fan was a mere accident, owing to 
lord Carmarthen. Adieu. I think you 
may be satisfied. I say nothing of my 
terrestrial affairs. 



LETTER XC. 

Frojii the same to the same. 

February 6th, 17':9. 

You are quiet and peaceable, and do not 
bark, as usual, at my silence. To reward 
you, I would send you some news, but 
we are asleep : no foreign intelligence, 
except the capture of a frigate ; no cer- 
tain accounts from the West Indies, and 
a dissolution of parliament, which seems 
to have taken place since Christmas. In 
the papers you will see negociations, 
changes of departments, &c., and I have 
some reason to believe that those reports 
are not entirely without foundation. 
Portsmouth is no longer an object of 
speculation ; the whole stream of all 
men, and all parties, run one way. Sir 
Hugh is disgraced, ruined, &c. &c. ; 
and as an old wound has broken out 
again, they say he must have his leg cut 
off as soon as he has time. In a night 
or two we shall be in a blaze of illumi- 
nation, from the zeal of naval heroes, 
land patriots, and tallow chandlers ; the 
last are not the least sincere. I want to 
hear some details of your military and 
familiar proceedings. By your silence I 
suppose you admire Davis, and dislike 
my pamphlet; yet such is the public 
folly, that we have a second edition in 
the press : the fashionable style of the 
clergy is to say they have not read it. 



If Maria does not take care, I shall 
write a much sharper invective against 
her, for not answering my diabolical 
book. My lady carried it down, with a 
solemn promise that I should receive an 
unassisted French letter. Yet I embrace 
the little animal, as well as my lady, and 
the spes altera Romce. Adieu. 

There is a buz about a peace, and 
Spanish mediation. 



LETTER XCI. 

Edtvard Gibbon, Esq. to the Right Hon. 
Lord Sheffield. 

[^ausaone, September 30tb, 1783. 

I ARRIVED safe in harbour last Saturday, 
the 27th instant, about ten o'clock in 
the morning ; but as the post only goes 
out twice a week it was not in my power 
to write before this day. Except one 
day, between Langres and Besan9on, 
which was laborious enough, I finished 
my easy and gentle airing without any 
fatigue, either of mind or body. 1 found 
Deyverdun well and happy, but much 
more happy at the sight of a friend, and 
the accomplishment of a scheme, which 
he had so long and impatiently desired. 
His garden, terrace, and park, have even 
exceeded the most sanguine of my ex- 
pectations and remembrances ; and you 
yourself cannot have forgotten the 
charming prospect of the lake, the 
mountains, and the declivity of the Pays 
de Vaud. But as human life is perpe- 
tually chequered with good and evil, I 
have found some disappointments on my 
arrival. The easy nature of Deyverdun, 
his indolence, and his impatience, had 
prompted him to reckon too positively 
that his house would be vacant at Mi- 
chaelmas ; some unforeseen difficulties 
have arisen, or have been discovered 
when it was already too late, and the 
consummation of our hopes is (I am 
much afraid) postponed to next spring. 
At first I was knocked down by the un- 
expected thunderbolt ; but I have gra- 
dually been reconciled to my fate, and 
have granted a free and gracious pardon 
to my friend. As his own apartment, 
which afforded me a temporary shelter, 
is much too narrow for a settled residence, 
we hired, for the winter, a convenient 
ready-furnished apartment, in the near- 
est part of the Rue de Bourg, whose back 



680 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



door leads in three steps to the terrace 
and garden, as often as a tolerable day 
shall tempt us to enjoy their beauties ; 
and this arrangement has even its ad- 
vantage, of giving us time to deliberate 
and provide, before we enter on a larger 
and more regular establishment. But 
this is not the sum of my misfortunes : 
hear, and pity ! The day after my arrival 
(Sunday) we had just finished a temperate 
dinner, and intended a round of visits on 
foot, chapeau sous le bras, when, most 
unfortunately, Deyverdun proposed to 
shew me something in the court : we 
boldly and successfully ascended a flight 
of stone steps, but in the descent I missed 
my footing, and strained, or sprained, 
my ancle in a painful manner. My old 
latent enemy (I do not mean the devil), 
who is always on the watch, has made 
an ungenerous use of his advantage, and 
I much fear that my arrival at Lausanne 
will be marked with a fit of the gout, 
though it is quite unnecessary, that the 
intelligence or suspicion should find its 
way to Bath. Yesterday afternoon I lay, 
or at least sat, in state, to receive visits, 
and at the same moment my room was 
filled with four different nations. The 
loudest of these nations was the single 
voice of the abbe Raynal, who, like your 
friend, has chosen this place for the asy- 
lum of freedom and history. His con- 
versation, which might be very agree- 
able, is intolerably loud, peremptory, and 
insolent ; and you would imagine, that 
he alone was the monarch and legislator 
of the world. Adieu. I embrace my lady, 
and the infants. With regard to the im- 
portant transactions, for which you are 
constituted plenipotentiary, I expect, 
with some impatience, but with perfect 
confidence, the result of your labours. 
You may remember what I mentioned 
of my conversation with * * * -)t * 
about the place of minister at Bern : I 
have talked it over with Deyverdun, who 
does not dislike the idea, provided this 
place was allowed to be my villa during 
at least two-thirds of the year ; but for 
my part I am sure, that ***** 
are worth more than ministerial friend- 
ship and gratitude ; so I am inclined to 
think, that they are preferable to an of- 
fice, which would be procured with diffi- 
culty, enjoyed with constraint and ex- 
peRse, and lost, perhaps, next April, in 
the annual revalutions of our domestic 
gavemment. Again adieu. 



LETTER XCII. 

Edward Gibbon, Esq. to the Right Hon. 
Lady Sheffield. 

Lausanne, October 28, 1783. 
The progress of my gout is in general so 
regular, and there is so much uniformity 
in the History of its Decline and Fall, 
that I have hitherto indulged my lazi- 
ness, without much shame or remorse, 
without supposing that you would be 
very anxious for my safety, which has 
been sufficiently provided for by the tri- 
ple care of my friend Deyverdun, my 
humbler friend Caplin, and a very con- 
versable physician (not the famous Tis- 
sot), whose ordinary fee is ten batz, 
about fifteen pence English. After the 
usual increase and decrease of the mem- 
ber (for it has been confined to the in- 
jured part), the gout has retired in good 
order ; and the remains of weakness, 
which obliged me to move on the rug- 
ged pavement of Lausanne with a stick, 
or rather small crutch, are to be ascribed 
to the sprain, which might have been a 
much more serious business. As I have 
now spent a month at Lausanne, you 
will inquire, with much curiosity, more 
kindness, and some mixture of spite 
and malignity, how far the place has 
answered my expectations, and whether 
I do not repent of a resolution, which 
has appeared so rash and ridiculous to 
my ambitious friends ? To this question, 
however natural and reasonable, I shall 
not return an immediate answer, for two 
reasons : I . / have not yet made a fair 
trial. The disappointment and delay, 
with regard to Deyverdun's house, will 
confine us this winter to lodgings, ra- 
ther convenient than spacious or plea- 
sant. 1 am only beginning to recover 
my strength and liberty, and to look 
about on persons and things : the great- 
est part of those persons are in the 
country, taken up with their vintage ; 
my books are not yet arrived ; and, in 
short, I cannot look upon myself as set- 
tled in that comfortable way, which you 
and I understand and relish. Yet the 
weather has been heavenly, and till this 
time, the end of October, we enjoy the 
brightness of the sun, and somewhat 
gently complain of its immoderate heat. 
2. If I should be too sanguine in explain- 
ing my satisfaction in what I have done, 
you would ascribe that satisfaction to tlie 



Sect. IV. 



REC ENT. 



687 



novelty of the scene, and the inconstancy 
of man ; and I deem it far more safe and 
prudent to postpone any positive decla- 
ration, till I am placed by experience 
beyond the danger of repentance and 
recantation. Yet of one thing I am sure, 
that 1 possess in this country, as well as 
in England, the best cordial of life, a 
sincere, tender, and sensible friend, 
adorned with the most valuable and plea- 
sant qualities both of the heart and head. 
. The inferior enjoyments of leisure and 
society are likewise in my power ; and 
in the short excursions, which I have 
hitherto made, I have commenced or re- 
newed my acquaintance with a certain 
number of persons, more especially wo- 
men (who, at least in France and this 
country, are undoubtedly superior to 
our prouder sex), of rational minds and 
elegant manners. I breakfast alone, and 
have declared that I receive no visits in 
a morning, which you will easily suppose 
is devoted to study. I find it impossible, 
without inconvenience, to defer my din- 
ner beyond two o'clock. We have got a 
very good woman cook. Deyverdun, who 
is somewhat of an epicurean philosopher, 
understands the management of a table, 
and we frequently invite a guest or two, 
to share our luxurious, but not extrava- 
gant repasts. The afternoons are (and 
will be much more so hereafter) devoted 
to society, and I shall find it necessary 
to play at cards much oftener than in 
London : but I do not dislike that way 
of passing a couple of hours, and I shall 
not be ruined at shilling whist. As yet 
I have not supped, but in the course of 
the winter I must sometimes sacrifice an 
evening abroad, and in exchange I hope 
sometimes to steal a day at home, with- 
out going into company 



^ ^ ^ 
* * * ^ * * * 

* I have all this time been talking to 
lord Sheffield ; I hope that he has dis- 
patched my affairs, and it would give me 
pleasure to hear that I am no longer 
member for Lymington, nor lord of 
Lenhorough. Adieu. I feel every day 
that the distance serves only to make me 
think with more tenderness of the per- 
sons whom I love. 



LETTER XCin. 

Edward Gibbon, Esq. to the Right Hon. 
Lord Sheffield, 

Lausanne, November 14th, 1783. 
Last Tuesday, November eleventh, after 
plaguing and vexing yourself all the 
morning, about some business of your 
fertile creation, you went to the House 
of Commons, and passed the afternoon, 
the evening, and perhaps the night, 
without sleep or food, stifled in a close 
room, heated by the respiration of six 
hundred politicians, inflamed by party 
passion, and tired of the repetition of 
dull nonsense, which, in that illustrious 
assembly, so far outweighs the proportion 
of reason and eloquence. On the same 
day, after a studious morning, a friendly 
dinner, and a cheerful assembly of both 
sexes, I retired to rest at eleven o'clock, 
satisfied with the past day, and certain 
that the na?:t would afford me the return 
of the same quiet and rational enjoy- 
ments. Which has the better bargain ? 
Seriously, I am every hour more grate- 
ful to my own judgment and resolution, 
and only regret that I so long delayed the 
execution of a favourite plan, which I 
am convinced is the best adapted to my 
character and inclinations. Your con- 
jecture of the revolutions of my face, 
when I heard that the house was for this 
winter inaccessible, is probable, but false. 
I bore my disappointment with the tem- 
per of a sage, and only use it to render 
the prospect of next year still more 
pleasing to my imagination. You are 
likewise mistaken, in imputing my fall to 
the awkwardness of my limbs. The same 
accident might have happened to Slings- 
by himself, or to any hero of the age, 
the most distinguished for his bodily ac- 
tivity. I have now resumed my entire 
strength, and walk with caution, yet with 
speed and safety, through the streets of 
this mountainous city. After a month of 
the finest autumn I ever saw, the bise 
made me feel my old acquaintance ; the 
weather is now milder, and this present 
day is dark and rainy, not much better 
than what you probably enjoy in Eng- 
land. The town is comparatively empty, 
but the noblesse are returning every day 
from their chateaux, and I already per- 
ceive, that I shall have more reason to 
complain of dissipation than of dulness. 
As I told lady S., I am afraid of being" 



088 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



too rash and hasty in expressmg my sa- 
tisfaction ; hut I must again repeat, that 
appearances are extremely favourable. I 
am sensible, that general praise conveys 
no distinct ideas, but it is very difficult 
to enter into particulars where the indi- 
viduals are unknown, or indifferent to 
our correspondent. You have forgotten 
the old generation, and in twenty years 
a new one is grown up. Death has swept 
many from the world, and chance or 
choice has brought many to this place. 
If you inquire after your acquaintance 
Catherine, you must be told, that she is 
solitary, ugly, blind, and universally for- 
gotten. Your later flame, and our com- 
mon goddess, the Eliza, passed a month 
at the inn. She came to consult Tis- 
sot, and was acquainted with Cerjat. 
And now to business. * * * 



With regard to meaner cases, these are 
two, which you can and will undertake. 
1 . As I have not renounced my country, 
I should be glad to hear of your parlia- 
mentary squabbles, which may be done 
with small trouble and expense. After 
an interesting debate, my lady in due 
time may cut the speeches from Wood- 
fall ; you will write or dictate any cu- 
rious anecdote ; and the whole, inclosed 
in a letter, may be dispatched to Lau- 
sanne. 2. A set of Wedgewood china, 
which we talked of in London, and 
which would be most acceptable here. 
As you have a sort of a taste, I leave to 
your own choice the colour and the pat- 
tern ; but as I have the inclination and 
means to live very handsomely here, I 
desire that the size and number of things 
may be adequate to a plentiful table. If 
you see lord North, assure him of my 
gratitude : had he been a more success- 
ful friend, I should now be drudging at 
the Board of Customs, or vexed with 

business in the amiable society of . 

To lord Loughborough present an aflFec- 
tionate sentiment : I am satisfied of his 
intention to serve me, if I had not been 
in such a fidget. I am sure you will not 
fail, while you are in town, to visit and 
comfort poor aunt Kitty. I wrote to 
her on my first arrival, and she may be 
assured that I will not neglect her. To 
my lady I say nothing ; we have now 
our private correspondence, into which 
the eye of a husband should not be per- 
mitted to intrude. I am really satisfied 



with the success of the pamphlet ; not 
only because 1 have a sneaking kindness 
for the author, but as it shews me, that 
plain sense, full information, and warm 
spirit, are still acceptable in the world. 
You talk of Lausanne as a place of re- 
tirement, yet, from the situation and 
freedom of the Pays de Vaud, all na- 
tions, and all extraordinary characters, 
are astonished to meet each other. The 
abb^ Raynal, the grand Gibbon, and 
Mercier, author of the Tableau de Paris, 
have been in the same room. The other 
day the prince and princess de Ligne, 
the duke and duchess d'Ursel, &c., came 
from Brussels on purpose (literally true) 
to act a comedy at * * * * 
in the country. He was dying, and 
could not appear ; but we had comedy, 
ball, and supper. The event seems to 
have revived him ; for that great man 
is fallen from his ancient glory, and his 
nearest relations refuse to see him. I 
told you of poor Catherine's deplorable 
state ; but madame de Mesery, at the age 
of sixty-nine, is still handsome. Adieu. 

LETTER XCIV. 

Edioard Gibbon, Esq. to the Right Hon. 
Lord Sheffield. 

Lausanne, December 2()lli, J 783. 
I HAVE received both your epistles ; and 
as any excuse will serve a man, who is at 
the same time very busy and very idle, 
I patiently expected the second before I 
entertained any thoughts of answering 
the first. * * ^ * * 

•X- -X- ¥: -X- ■}{■ * * 

I therefore conclude, that on every prin- 
ciple of common sense, before this mo- 
ment your active zeal has already expel- 
led me from the house, to which, with- 
out regret, I bid an everlasting farewell. 
The agreeable hour of five o'clock in the 
morning, at which you commonly retire, 
does not tend to revive my attachment ; 
but if you add the soft hours of your 
morning committee, in the discussion of 
taxes, customs, frauds, smugglers. Sec, 
I think I should beg to be released, and 
quietly sent to the galleys as a place of 
leisure and freedom. Yet I do not depart 
from my general principles of toleration . 
Some animals are made to live in the 
water, others on the earth, many in the 
air, and some, as it is now believed, even 
in fire. Your present hurry of parlia- 



Sect. IV. 



REC ENT. 



ment I perfectly understand ; when op- 
position make the attack, 



Momenta ciia 



Horce 

rs venii, aut victoria Iceta. 



But when the minister brings forward 
any strong and decisive measure, he at 
length prevails ; but his progress is re- 
tarded at every step, and in every stage 
of the bill, by a pertinacious, though 
unsuccessful minority. I am not sorry 
to hear of the splendour of Fox ; I am 
proud, in a foreign country, of his fame 
and abilities, and our little animosities 
are extinguished by my retreat from the 
English stage. With regard to the sub- 
stance of the business, I scarcely know 
what to think : the vices of the company, 
both in their persons and constitution, 
were manifold and manifest : the danger 
was imminent, and such an empire, with 
thirty millions of subjects, was not to be 
lost for trifles. Yet, on the other hand, 
the faith of charters, the rights of pro- 
perty ! I hesitate and tremble. Such an 
innovation would at least require, that 
the remedy should be as certain as the 
evil ; and the proprietors may perhaps 
insinuate, that t/iei/ were as competent 
guardians of their own affairs, as either 
* -X- -)t ^ or * * ^- »^ 

Their acting without a salary seems 
childish, and their not being removable 
by the crown is a strange and danger- 
ous precedent. But enough of politics, 
w^hich I now begin to view through a 
thin, cold, distant cloud, yet not with- 
out a reasonable degree of curiosity and 
patriotism. From the papers (especial- 
ly when you add an occasional slice of 
the Chronicle) I shall be amply inform- 
ed of facts and debates. From you I 
expect the causes, rather than the events, 
the true springs of action, and those in- 
teresting anecdotes which seldom ascend 
the garret of a Fleet Street editor. You 
say that many friends (alias acquaintance) 
have expressed curiosity and concern ; 1 
should not wish to be immediately for- 
gotten. That others (you once mention- 
ed Gerard Hamilton) condemn govern- 
ment for suffering the departure of a 
man, who might have done them some 
credit and some service, perhaps as much 
s -^ * * * * himself. To you, 
in the confidence of friendship, and 
without either pride or resentment, I will 
fairly own that I am somewhat of Ge- 
rard's opinion : and if I did not compare 



it with the rest of his character, I should 
be astonished that * * -x^ -x- * 
suffered me to depart, without even a ci- 
vil answer to my letter. Were I capable 
of hating a man, whom it is not easy to 
hate, I should find myself amply revenged 
hj * * * '^. But the happy souls 
in paradise are susceptible only of love 
and pity ; and though Lausanne is not 
a paradise, more especially in winter, 
I do assure you, in sober prose, that it 
has hitherto fulfilled, and even surpassed, 
my warmest expectations. Yet I often 
cast a look toward Sheffield Place, where 
you now repose, if you can repose, during 
the Christmas recess. Embrace my lady, 
the young baroness, and the gentle Lou- 
isa, and insinuate to your silent consort, 
that separate letters require separate an- 
swers. Elad I an air balloon, the great 
topic of modern conversation, I would 
call upon you till the meeting of parlia- 
ment. Vale. 



LETTER. XCV. 

Edivard Gibbon ^ Esq. to Mrs. Porten. 

Lausanne, December 27th, 1783. 
Dear madam, 
The unfortunate are loud and loqua- 
cious in their complaints, but real hap- 
piness is content with its own silent en- 
joyment ; and if that happiness is of a 
quiet, uniform kind, we suffer days and 
weeks to elapse without communicating 
our sensations to a distant friend. By 
you, therefore, whose temper and un- 
derstanding have extracted from human 
life on every occasion the best and most 
comfortable ingredients, my silence will 
always be interpreted as an evidence of 
content, and you would only be alarmed 
(the danger is not at hand) by the too 
frequent repetition of my letters. Per- 
haps I should have continued to slum* 
ber, I don't know how long, had I not 
been awakened by the anxiety whicli you 
express in your last letter. * * '^' 
•St * ^ * ^ -x-^ 

From this base subject I ascend to one 
which more seriously and strongly en- 
gages your thoughts, the consideration 
of my health and happiness. And you 
will give me credit when I assure you 
with sincerity, that I have not repented 
a single moment of the step which I have 
taken, and that I only regret the not 
2Y 



690 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



having e!secuted the same design two, or 
five, or even ten years ago. By this time, 
I might have returned independent and 
rich to my native country ; I should have 
escaped many disagreeable events that 
have happened in the mean while, and I 
should have avoided the parliamentary 
life, which experience has proved to be 
neither suitable to my temper, nor con- 
ducive to my fortune. In speaking of 
the happiness which I enjoy, you will 
agree with me, in giving the preference 
to a sincere and sensible friend: and 
though you cannot discern the full extent 
of his merit, you will easily believe that 
Deyverdun is the man. Perhaps two 
persons, so perfectly fitted to live toge- 
ther, were never formed by nature and 
education. We have both read and seen 
a great variety of objects ; the lights and 
shades of our different characters are 
happily blended, and a friendship of 
thirty years has taught us to enjoy our 
mutual advantages, and to support our 
unavoidable imperfections. In love and 
marriage, some harsh sounds will some- 
times interrupt the harmony, and in the 
course of time, like our neighbours, we 
must expect some disagreeable moments ; 
but confidence and freedom are the two 
pillars of our union, and I am much 
mistaken if the building be not solid and 
comfortable. One disappointment I have 
indeed experienced, and patiently sup- 
ported. The family who were settled in 
Deyverdun's house started some unex- 
pected difficulties, and will not leave it 
till the spring ; so that you must not 
yet expect any poetical, or even histori- 
cal, description of the beauties of my 
habitation. During the dull months of 
winter we are satisfied with a very com- 
fortable apartment in the middle of the 
town, and even derive some advantage 
from this delay : as it gives us time to 
arrange some plans of alteration and fur- 
niture, which will embellish our future 
and more elegant dwelling. In this sea- 
son I rise (not at four in the morning) 
but a little before eight ; at nine, I am 
called from my study to breakfast, which 
I always perform alone, in the English 
style ; and, with the aid of Caplin, I 
perceive no difference between Lausanne 
and Bentinck Street. Our mornings are 
usually passed in separate studies ; we 
never approach each other's door without 
a previous message, or thrice knocking, 
and my apartment is already sacred and 



formidable to strangers. I dress at half 
past one, and at two (an early hour, to 
which I am not perfectly reconciled) we 
sit down to dinner. We have hired a 
female cook, well skilled in her profes- 
sion, and accustomed to the taste of every 
nation ; as for instance, we had excellent 
mince-pies yesterday. After dinner, and 
the departure of our company, one, two, 
or three friends, we read together some 
amusing book, or play at chess, or retire 
to our rooms, or make visits, or go to 
the coffee-house. Between six and seven 
the assemblies begin, and I am oppressed 
only with their number and variety. 
Whist, at shillings or half crowns, is the 
game I generally play, and I play three 
rubbers with pleasure. Between nine 
and ten we withdraw to our bread and 
cheese, and friendly converse, which 
sends us to bed at eleven ; but these so- 
ber hours are too often interrupted by 
private or numerous suppers, which I 
have not the courage to resist, though I 
practise a laudable abstinence at the best 
furnished tables. Such is the skeleton 
of my life ; it is impossible to communi- 
cate a perfect idea of the vital and sub- 
stantial parts, the characters of the men 
and women with whom I have very easily 
connected myself in looser and closer 
bonds, according to their inclination and 
my own. If I do not deceive myself, and 
if Deyverdun does not flatter me, I am 
already a general favourite ; and as our 
likings and dislikes are commonly mutual, 
I am equally satisfied with the freedom 
and elegance of manners, and (after pro- 
per allowances and exceptions) with the 
worthy and amiable qualities of many in- 
dividuals. The autumn has been beauti- 
ful, and the winter hitherto mild, but in 
January we must expect some severe 
frost. Instead of rolling in a coach, I 
walk the streets, wrapped up in a fur 
cloak ; but this exercise is wholesome, 
and except an accidental fit of the gout 
of a few days, I never enjoyed better 
health. I am no longer in Pavillard's 
house, where I was almost starved with 
cold and hunger, and you may be assured 
I now enjoy every benefit of comfort, 
plenty, aad even decent luxury. You 
wish me happy ; acknowledge that such 
a life is more conducive to happiness, 
than five nights in the week passed in the 
House of Commons, or five mornings 
spent at the custom-house. Send me, in 
return, a fair account of your own situa- 



Sbct. IV. 



RECENT. 



001 



tion in mind and body. I am satisfied your 
own good sense would have reconciled 
you to inevitable separation ; but there 
never was a more suitable diversion than 
your visit to Sheffield Place. Among the 
innumerable proofs of friendship which 
I have received from that family, there 
are none which affect me more sensibly 
than their kind civilities to you, though 
I am persuaded that they are at least as 
much on your account as on mine. At 
length madame de * * * * * is 
delivered by her tyrant's death ; her 
daughter, a valuable woman of this place, 
has made some inquiries, and though her 
own circumstances are narrow, she will 
not suffer her father's widow to be left 
totally destitute. I am glad you derived 
so much melancholy pleasure from the 
letters, yet had I known it, 1 should have 
withheld * * * *. 



LETTER XCVI. 

Edward Gibbon, Esq. to the Right Hon. 
Lord Sheffield. 

Lausanne, August, 1789 
After receiving and dispatching the 
power of attorney, last Wednesday, 1 
opened, with some palpitation, the unex- 
pected missive which arrived this morn- 
ing. The perusal of the contents spoiled 
my breakfast. They are disagreeable in 
themselves, alarming in their conse- 
quences, and peculiarly unpleasant at 
the present moment, when I hoped to 
have formed and completed the arrange- 
ments of my future life. I do not per- 
fectly understand what are these deeds 
which are so inflexibly required ; the 
wiUs and marriage settlements I have suf- 
ficiently answered. But your arguments 
do not convince ****, and I have very 
little hope from the Lenborough search. 
Wliat will be the event ? If his objec- 
tions are only the result of legal scrupu- 
losity, surely they might be removed, 
and every chink might be filled, by a 
general bond of indemnity, in which I 
boldly ask you to join, as it will be a 
substantial important act of friendship, 
without any possible risk to yourself or 
your successors. Should he still remain 
obdurate, I must believe what I already 
suspect, that **** repents of his pur- 
chase, and wishes to elude the conclu- 
sion. Our case would then be hopeless, 



ibi omnis effusus labor, and the estate 
would be returned on our hands with|the 
taint of a bad title. The refusal of mort- 
gage does not please me ; but surely our 
offer shews some confidence in the good- 
ness of my title. If he will not take 
eight thousand pounds at four per cent. 
we must look out elsewhere ; new doubts 
and delays will arise, and I am persuaded 
that you will not place an implicit con- 
fidence in any attorney. I know not as 
yet your opinion about my Lausanne 
purchase. If you are against it, the pre- 
sent position of affairs gives you great 
advantage, &c. &c. The Severys are all 
well : an uncommon circumstance for 
the four persons of the family at once. 
They are now at Mex, a country-house 
six miles from hence, which I visit to- 
morrow for two or three days. They of- 
ten come to town, and we shall contrive 
to pass a part of the autumn together at 
Roile. I want to change the scene ; and 
beautiful as the garden and prospect 
must appear to every eye, I feel that the 
state of my own mind casts a gloom 
over them ; every spot, every walk, every 
bench, recals the memory of those hours, 
of those conversations, which will return 
no more. But I tear myself from the 
subject. I could not help writing to- 
day, though I do not find I have said any 
thing very material. As you must be 
conscious that you have agitated me, you 
will not postpone any agreeable, or even 
decisive intelligence. I almost hesitate, 
whether I shall run over to England, to 
consult with you on the spot, and to fly 
from poor Deyverdun's shade, which 
meets me at every turn. I did not ex- 
pect to have felt his loss so sharply. 
But six hundred miles ! Why are we so 
far off ? 

Once more, What is the difficulty of 
the title ? Will men of sense, in a sensi- 
ble country, never get rid of the tyranny 
of lawyers, more oppressive and ridicu- 
ous than even the old yoke of the cler- 
gy ? Is not a term of seventy or eighty^ 
years, nearly twenty in my own person, 
sufficient to prove our legal possession ? 
Will not the records of fines and recove- 
ries a'ctest that I am free from any bar 
entails and settlements.^ Consult some 
sage of the law, whether tlieir present de- 
mand be necessary and legal. If your 
ground be firm, force them to execute 
the agreement, or forfeit the deposit. But 
if, as I much fear, they liave a right 



Gtl2 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



and a wish, to elude the consummation, 
would it not be better to release them at 
once, than to be hung" up for five years, 
as in the case of Lovegrove, which cost 
me in the end four or five thousand 
pounds ? You are bold, you are wise ; 
consult, resolve, act. In my penulti- 
mate letter I dropped a strange hint, that 
a migration homeward was not impossi- 
ble. I know not what to say ; my mind 
is all afloat ? yet you will not reproach 
me vdth caprice or inconstancy. How 
many years did you damn my scheme of 
retiring- to Lausanne ! I executed that 
plan ; I found as much happiness as is 
compatible with human nature, and 
during four years (1783 — 1787) I never 
breathed a sigh of repentance. On my 
return from England, the scene was 
changed : 1 found only a faint semblance 
of Deyverdun, and that semblance was 
each day fading* from my sight. I have 
passed an anxious year, hot my anxiety 
is now at an end, and the prospect before 
me is a meiancholy solitude. I am still 
deeply rooted in this cou;itry : the pos- 
session of this paradise ; the iTiendship 
of the Severys, a mode of society suited 
to my, taste, and the enormous trouble 
and expeme of a migration. Yet in Eng- 
land (when the present clouds are dis- 
pelled) I could form a very comfortable 
establishment in London, or rather at 
Bath ; and I have a very nobie country- 
seat at about ten miles from East Grin- 
stead in Sussex. That spot is dearer to 
me than the rest of the three kingdoms ; 
and I have sometimes wondered how two 
men, so opposite in their tempers and 
pursuits, should have imbibed so long 
and lively a propensity for each other. 
Sir Stainier Porten is just dead. He has 
left his widow with a moderate pension, 
and two children, my nearest relations : 
the eldest, Charlotte, is about Louisa's 
age, and also a most amiable and sensible 
young creature. I have conceived a ro- 
mantic idea of educating and adopting 
her ; as we descend into the vale of years 
our infirmities require some domestic fe- 
male society ; Charlotte would be the 
comfort of my age, and I could reward 
her care and tenderness with a decent 
fortune. A thousand difficulties oppose 
the execution of the plan, which I have 
never opened but to you ; yet it would 
be less impracticable in England than in 
Switzerland. Adieu. I am wounded ; 
pour some oil into my wounds ; yet I 



am less unhappy since I have thrown my 
mind upon paper. 

Are you not amazed at the French 
revolution ? They have the power, will 
they have the moderation, to establish 
a good constitution ? Adieu, ever yours. 

LETTER XCVIL 

Edward Gibbon, Esq. to the Right Hon, 
Lord Sheffield. 

Lausanne, Dec, 15tb, 1789. 
You have often reason to accuse my 
strange silence and neglect in the most 
important of my own affairs ; for I will 
presume to assert, that in a business of 
yours of equal consequence, you should 
not find me cold or careless. But on 
the present occasion my silence is, per- 
haps, the highest compliment I ever paid 
you. You remember the answer of Philip 
of Macedon ; " Philip may sleep, while 
he knows that Parmenio is awake." I 
expected, and, to say the truth, I wished 
that my Parmenio would have decided 
and acted, without expecting my dilato- 
ry aiiswer ; and in his decision 1 should 
have acquiesced with implicit confidence. 
But siiice you v/ill have my opinion, let 
us consider the present state of my af- 
fairs. In the course of rny life 1 have 
often known, and sometimes felt, the 
difilculty of getting money ; but I now 
find myself involved in a more singular 
distress, the difficulty of placing it, and, 
if it continues much longer, I shall al- 
most wish for my land again. 

1 perfectly agree with you, that it is 
bad management to purchase in the 
funds when they do not yield four pounds 
per cent. -x- -X: * -x- * 

■X: -X- -X- -X- -X- -X- -X- 

Some of this money I can place safely, 
by means of my banker here ; and I 
shall possess, what 1 have always desired, 
a command of cash, which I cannot 
abuse to my prejudice, since I have it 
in my power to supply with my pen any 
extraordinary or fanciful indulgence of 
expense. And so much, much indeed, 
for pecuniary matters. What would you 
have me say of the affairs of France ? 
We are too near, and too remote, to form 
an accurate judgment of that wonderful' 
scene. The abuses of the court and go- 
vernment called aloud for reformation ; 
and it has happened, as it will always 
happen, that an innocent well-disposed 



Sect. IV. 



RECENT. 



093 



prince has paid the forfeit of the sins of 
his predecessors ; of the ambition of Lewis 
the Fourteenth, of the profusion of Lewis 
the Fifteenth. The French nation had 
a glorious opportunity; hut they have 
abused, and may lose their advantages. 
If they had been content with a liberal 
translation of our system, if they had 
respected the prerogatives of the crown 
and the privileges of the nobles, they 
might have raised a solid fabric on the 
only true foundation, the natural aristo- 
cracy of a free country. How different 
is the prospect ! Their king, brought a 
captive to Paris, after his palace had been 
stained by the blood of his guards ; the 
nobles in exile ; the clergy plundered in 
a way which strikes at the root of all 
property : the capital an independent 
republic ; the union of the provinces dis- 
solved ; the flames of discord kindled by 
the worst of men (in that light I con- 
sider Mirabeau) ; and the honestest of 
the assembly a set of wild visionaries 
(like our Dr. Price), who gravely debate, 
and dream about tlie establishment of a 
pure and perfect democracy of iive-and- 
twenty millions, the virtues of the gold- 
en age, and the primitive rights and 
equality of mankind, which would lead, 
in fair reasoning, to an equal partition 
of lands and money. How many years 
must elapse before France can recover 
any vigour, or resume her station among 
the powers of Europe ! As yet, there is 
no symptom of a great man, a Richlieu 
or a Cromwell, arising, either to restore 
the monarchy, or to lead the common- 
wealth. The weight of Paris, more 
deeply engaged in the funds than all the 
rest of the kingdom, will long delay a 
bankruptcy ; and if it should happen, it 
will be, both in the cause and the ef- 
fect, a measure of v.eakness, rather than 
of strength. You send me to Charaber- 
ry, to see a prince and an archbishop. 
Alas ! we have exiles enough here, with 
the marshal de Castries and the duke de 
Guignes at their head ; and this inunda- 
tion of strangers, which used to be con- 
fined to the summer, Avill now stagnate 
all the winter. The only ones whom I 
have seen with pleasure are Mr. Mounier, 
the late president of the national assem- 
bly, and the count de Lally ; they have 
both dined with me. Mounier, who is a 
serious dry politician, is returned to 
Dauphin^. Lally is an amiable man of 
the world, and a poet: he passes the 



winter here. You know hov/ much I pre- 
fer a quiet select society to a crowd of 
names and titles, and that I always seek 
conversation with a view to amusement, 
rather than information. What happy 
countries are England and Switzerland*, 
if they know and preserve their happi- 
ness ! 

I have a thousand things to say to my 
lady, Maria, and Louisa, but I can add 
only a short postscript about the Ma- 
deira. Good Madeira is now become 
essential to my health and reputation. 
May your hogshead prove as good as 
the last ; may it not be intercepted by 
the rebels or the Austrians. What a 
scene again in that country ! Happy 
England ! Happy Switzerland ! I again 
repeat. Adieu. 



LETTER XCVIii. 

From the same to the same. 

Lausanne, April 27, 1793. 
My dearest friend, for such you most 
truly are, nor does there exist a pers.on 
who obtains, or shall ever obtain, a su- 
perior place in my esteem and affection. 
After too long a silence I was sitting 
down to write, when, only yesterday 
morning (such is now the irregular 
slowness of the English post), I was sud- 
denly struck, indeed struck to the heart, 
by the fatal intelligence ^ from sir Henry 
Clinton and Mr. De Lally. Alas ! wliat 
is life, and what are our hopes and pro- 
jects ! When I embraced her at your de- 
parture from Lausanne, could I imagine 
that it was for the last time ? Y.'hen I' 
postponed to another summer my jour- 
ney to England, could I apprehend that 
I never, never should see her again ? I 
always hoped that she would spin her 
feeble thread to a long duration, and 
that her delicate frame would survive (as 
is often the case) many constitutions of 
a stouter appearance, hi four days ! 
in your absence, in that of her chil- 
dren ! But she is now at rest ; and 
her mild virtues have surely entitled 
her to the reward of pure and per- 
fect felicity. It is for you that I feel, 
and I can judge of your sentiments by 
comparing them with my own. I have 
lost, it is true, an amiable and affection- 

* The death of lady Sheffiehl. 



fm 



ELEGANT K P I S T L E S. 



Book IV 



?tte friend, whom I had known and loved 
above three-and-twenty years, and whom 
1 often Btiled by the endearing name of 
sister. But you are deprived of the com- 
panion of your life, the wife of your 
choice, and the mother of your children ! 
Poor children ! the liveliness of Maria, 
and the softness of Louisa, render them 
almost equally the objects of my tender- 
est compassion. I do not vvish^to aggra- 
vate your grief ; but, in the sincerity of 
friendship, 1 cannot hold a diiaTerent lan- 
guage. I know the impotence of reason, 
and I much fear that the strength of 
your character will serve to make a 
sharper and more lasting impression. 

The only consolation in these melan- 
choly trials to which human life is ex- 
posed, the only one at least in which I 
have any confidence, is the presence of 
a real friend ; and of that, as far as it 
depends on myself, you shall not be des- 
titute. I regret the few days that must 
be Ipst in some necessary preparation ; 
but I trust that to-morrow se'nnight 
(May the 5th) I shall be able to set for- 
wards on my journey to England ; and 
when this letter reaches you, I shall be 
considerably advanced on my way. As 
it is yet prudent to keep at a respectful 
distance from the banks of the French 
Rhine, I shall incline a little to the right, 
and proceed by Schaffouse and Stutgard 
to Frankfort and Cologne : the Austrian 
Netherlands are now open and safe, and 
1 am sure of being able at least to pass 
from Ostendto Dover ; v/hence, without 
passing through London, I shall pursue 
the direct road to Sheflield Place. Un- 
less I should meet with some unforeseen 
accidents and delays, 1 hope, before the 
end of the month, to share your solitude, 
and sympathise with your grief. All the 
difficulties of the journey, which my in- 
dolence had probably magnified, have 
now disappeared before a stronger pas- 
sion ; and you will not be sorry to hear, 
that, as far as Frankfort to Cologne, I 
shall enjoy the advantage of the society, 
the conversation, the German language, 
and the active assistance of Severy. His 
attachment to me is the sole motive 
which prompts him to undertake this 
troublesome journey ; and as soon as he 
has seen me over the roughest ground, 
he will immediately return to Lausanne. 
The poor young man loved lady S. as a 
mother, acd the whole family is deeply 
aifected bv an event, which reminds them 



too painfully of their own misfortune. 
Adieu. I could write volumes, and shall 
therefore break off abrui)tly. I shall 
write on the road, and hope to find a 
few lines d paste restanls at Frankfort 
and Brussels. Adieu ; ever yours. 



PROM THE 
LETTERS OF ANNA SEWARD. 



LETTER XCIX, 

Anna Seward to George Hardinge, Esq, 

Lichfield, Nov. 11, 1787. 
Seducer ! thou hast made me what I 
thought to have left the world without 
having ever been — in love with a lord. 
His last letter, which you enclosed, con- 
cerning his opinion on capital punish- 
ments, has fairly done the business ; and 
I had rather be honoured with lord Ca- 
melford's amity, than with the marked 
attention and avowed esteem of most 
other of the titled sons of our land. 

Lord C.'s wit, his ease, and those de- 
scriptive powers, which bring scenery to 
the eye with the precision of the pencil, 
had previously delighted me ; but with 
the heart, sweetly shining out in his last 
epistle, I am so intemperately charmed, 
that his idea often fills my eyes with 
those delicious tears, which, beneath the 
contemplation of virtues that emulate 
what we conceive of Deity, instantaneous 
spring to the lids, without falling from 
them ; tears, which are at once prompt- 
ed and exhaled by pleasurable sensations. 
Suffer me to detain, yet a little longer, 
these scriptures of genius and of mercy. 

And now for a little picking at our 
everlasting bone of contention. Hope- 
less love is apt to make folk cross ; so 
you must expect me to snarl a little. 

I am not to learn that there is a large 
mass of bad writing in Shakspeare ; of 
stiff, odd, afi'ected phrases, and words, 
v/hich somewhat disgrace him, and would 
ten times more disgrace a modern wri- 
ter, who has not his excuses to plead. 
All I contend for, and it is a point on 
which I have the suflfrage of most inge- 
nious men, that his best language, being 
more copious, easy, glowing, bold, and 



Sect. IV. 



RECENT. 



m6 



nervous, than that of perhaps any other 
writer, is the best model of poetic lan- 
guage to this hour, and will remain so 
*' to the last syllable of recorded time ;" 
that his bold licenses, when we feel that 
they are happy, ought to be adopted by 
other writers, and thus become esta- 
blished privileges ; and that present and 
future English poets, if they know their 
own interest, will, by using his phrase- 
ology, prevent its ever becoming ob- 
solete. 

Amid the hurry in which I wrote last, 
my thankless pen made no comment 
upon the welcome information you had 
given, that Mr. Wyatt liked me a little. 
Assure yourself I like him a great deal 
more than a little. There's fine style 
for you ! Next to benevolent Virtue, 
thou. Genius, art my earthly divinity. 
To thy votaries, in every line, I look up 
with an awe-mixed pleasure which it is 
delicious to feel. 

When he was first introduced to me, 
the glories of our Pantheon rushing on 
my recollection, my heart beat like a 
'love-sick girl's, on the sight of her ina- 
morato : — 

" A difF'rent cause, says Parson Sly, 
Tiie same effect may give.'* 

I am glad you like Hayley's counte- 
nance. How have I seen those fine eyes 
of his sparkle, and melt, and glow, as 
wit, compassion, or imagination had the 
ascendance in his mind ! 

Mrs. Hardinge seems to have as much 
wit as yourself ; the conversational ball 
must be admirably kept up between you. 
One of your characteristic expressions 
about her is as complete a panegyric as 
ever man made upon woman. " She is 
of all hours." If it is not in Shakspeare, 
and I do not recollect it there, it is like, 
it is worthy of his pen. 

About the Herva of my friend Mathias, 
we are for once in unison ; but you are 
not half so candid as I am. ' Ever have 
you found me ready to acknowledge the 
prosaism of many lines, which you have 
pointed out in my most favourite poets. 
I sent you some of my late friend's, and 
your idol, Davies, which you could not 
but feel were unclassical, and inelegant 
in the extreme ; yet no such concession 
have you made to those instances. 

I have frequently mentioned Cowper's 
Task to you ; but you are invincibly si- 
lent upon that subject. Have I not rea- 



son to reproach? How should an en- 
thusiast in the art she loves bear to see 
her friend thus coldly regardless of such 
a poet as Cowper, while he exalts Davies 
above a Beattie, an Hayley ; above the 
author of Elfrida and Caractacus ! — for 
said not that friend, that no modern 
poet was so truly a poet as Davies ? 

He who can think so, would, I do be- 
lieve, peruse, with delectable stoicism, a 
bard who should now rise up with all the 
poetic glories that lived on the lyres of 
Shakspeare and Milton. " If ye believe 
not Moses and the Prophets, neither 
shall ye be persuaded by me, though 
one arose from the dead ;" — and so 
much at present for prejudice and cri- 
ticism. 

As for the last sentence in your letter, 
my friend, I meddle not with politics ; — 
yet confess myself delighted with our 
juvenile minister, of whom, I trust, we 
may say of his political, as well as natu- 
ral life, for many years to come — 

" Our young Mareellus was not born to die." 
Adieu ! 



LETTER C. 

Anna Seward to Captain Seward. 

Dec. 7, 1787. 
Is it possible that lord Heathfield should 
not see the impropriety of my presuming 
to intrude upon the duke of Richmond's 
attention with an interference, by re- 
quest, in military promotion, since I 
can scarcely be said to have the shadow 
of a personal acquaintance with his 
grace ! 

My father's present state, the almost 
utter loss of all his intellectual faculties, 
is known. Did he possess them, imper- 
tinent surely would be an acknowledg- 
ment from him, that he supposed the 
duke meant any thing more than a po- 
lite compliment, by giving the name of 
obligation to the civility of ordering our 
servants to make up a bed for him dur- 
ing three nights, and to prepare a ba- 
son of gruel for him in the morning, 
before he went to the field. This was 
literally aU he could be prevailed upon 
to accept beneath this roof, when, in his 
years of bloom, he united the occupation 
of Mars to the form of Adonis. - 1 was 
then a green girl, " something between 



69(5 



E L E G A N i E P I S T L E S. 



Hook IV. 



the woman and the child," nor have I 
ever since beheld the duke of Richmond. 
Though I so perfectly remember liim, it 
is more than probable that he remembers 
not me ; and it would be more than im- 
pertinent to presume that I could have 
interest with him. 

As to incurring obligations, I should 
be very glad thus to incur them from 
the duke for your advantage ; — but ob- 
servation, and indeed the revolt I have 
always niyself felt from officious recom- 
mendation, invariably proved to me that 
it injures instead of promoting the inte- 
rests of the recommended. His grace 
would certainly be disgusted by my seem- 
ing to suppose, that any mention I could 
make of a relation, or friend, could ope- 
rate in their favour. Disgust has a 
withering influence upon patronage. What 
is it I could say, that has a shadow of 
probability to enhance the duke's good 
opinion of a military/ man ? — that man 
already recommended to him by lord 
Heathfield, the greatest general exist- 
ing, whose praise ought to be the pass- 
port to martial honours and emolument. 
An attempt of this sort from me, would 
be just as likely to be of use, as if, had I 
been in Gibraltar during the siege, and 
when our artillery was pouring on the 
enemy, I had thrown a boniire-squib 
into the mouth of a forty-pounder to 
assist the force of the explosion. 

And, lest it should be apprehended 
that my poetic reputation might give 
some degree of consequence to my re- 
quest, Mr. Hayley, who is the dake'snear 
neighbour, has told me, that his grace 
had no fondness for v/orks of imagina- 
tion. The race of Maecenas is extinct in 
this period. 

When my dear father was in his bet- 
ter days, he lived on terms of intercourse 
and intimacy with the marquis of Staf- 
ford. Lord Sandwich and my father, 
in their mutual youth, had been on the 
continent together, with the affection of 
brothers. On my publishing the Mo- 
nody on Andre, he desired me to present 
one to each of these lords, expressing an 
assured belief, that the work of an old 
friend's daughter would not be unac- 
ceptable. 

I, who ever thought that men of rank 
have seldom any taste for intellectual 
exertion, which serves not some purpose 
of their own interest ; and feeling an 
invincible repugnance to paying atten- 



tions, which are likely to be repulsed 
with rude neglect, strongly, warmly, and 
even with a few proud tears, expostulat- 
ed against the intrusion. My father 
never knew that great world, with which, 
in his youth, he had much intercourse. 
Frank, unsuspecting, inattentive to those 
nice shades of manners, those effects, re- 
sulting from trivial circumstances, which 
develop the human heart, he judged of 
others by his own ingenuous disposition. 
Benevolent, infinitely good-natured, and 
incapable of treating his inferiors with 
neglect, he thought every kindness, every 
civility he received, sincere — every slight 
shewn, either to himself or others, acci- 
dental. 

Thus he Avould persist in the idea, that 
these lords would be gratified by such a 
mark of attention to them ; and that i 
should receive their thanks. I, who had 
been so much less in their society, knew 
them better ; that such little great men 
are as capable of impoliteness as they are 
incapable of taste for the arts ; — but my 
obedience was insisted upon. 

One condition, however, I made, that, 
if they should not have the good man- 
ners to write, " I thank you, madam, 
for your poem," he would never more 
request me to obtrude my compositions 
upon titled insolence. They had not 
the civility to make the least acknow- 
ledgment. 

My heart (I own it is in some respects 
a proud one) swelled with indignation ; 
— not at the neglect, for I felt it beneath 
my attention, and had expected it, but 
because I had been obliged to give them 
reason to believe that I desired their 
notice. 

My life against sixpence, the duke of 
Richmond would receive a letter from 
me in the same manner. Ah ! a soul 
like lord Heathfield's, attentive to intel- 
lectual exertions in the closet of the stu- 
dious, as in the field of honour, and ge- 
nerous enough to encourage and throw 
around it the lustre of his notice, is even 
more rare than his valour and military 
skill. I wish his lordship to see this let- 
ter. It will explain to him the nature 
of those convictions, and of those feel- 
ings, which must be powerful indeed, ere 
I could hesitate a moment to follow his 
advice, though but insinuated, on any 
subject. My devoted respects and good 
wishes are his, as they are yours, not 
periodically, but constantly. 



Sect. IV. 



RECENT. 



697 



LETTER CI. 

Anna Seivard to Miss Weston. 

Lichfield, April 13, 1788. 

Tour letter, dear Sophia, is full of eii- 
tertaiuing" matter, adorned with the wont- 
ed grace and vivacity of your style. For 
the payment of such debts our little city 
is not responsible. 

I ought, however, to speak to you 
of an extraordinary being who ranged 
amongst us during the winter, since he 
bears your name, amongst us little folk, 
I mean, for he was by no means calcu- 
lated to the meridian of our pompous 
gentry ; though, could he once have 
been received into their circle, they would 
perhaps have endured his figure and his 
profession, and half forgive the superio- 
rity of his talents, in consideration of his 
extreme fondness for every game at 
cards, and of his being an admirable 
whist player. 

The profession of this personage is 
music, organist of Solihull in Warwick- 
shire ; in middle life; his height and 
proportion mighty slender, and well 
enough by nature, but fidgeted and 
noddled into an appearance not over 
prepossessing ; nor are his sharp features 
and very sharp little eyes a whit behind 
them in quizzity. Then he is drest — 
ye gods, how he is drest ! — in a salmon- 
coloured coat, satin waistcoat, and 
small-clothes of the same warm aurora 
tint ; his violently protruded chitterlin, 
more luxuriant in its quantity, and more 
accurately plaited, than B. B.'s itself, is 
twice open hemmed. 

That his capital is not worth a single 
hair, he laments with a serio-comic coun- 
tenance, that would make a cat laugh — 
and, in that ingenuousness with which 
he confesses all his miserable vanities, as 
he emphatically calls them^, he tells us, 
that he had frizzed off the scanty crop 
three thousand years ago. 

This loss is , however, supplied by a wig, 
for the perfection of which he sits an 
hour and half every day under the hands 
of the frizzeur, that it may be plumed 
out like a pigeon upon steady and sailing 
flight — and it is always powdered with 
marechall, — 

*• Sweet to the sense, and yellow to the sight." 

A hat furiously cocked and pinched, too 
small in the crown to admit his head. 



sticks upon the extremest summit of the 
full -winged caxon. 

His voice has a scrannel tone, his ar- 
ticulation is hurried, his accent distin- 
guished by Staffordshire provinciality; 
and it is difficult to stand his bow with 
any discipline of feature. He talks down 
the hours, but knows nothing of their 
flight ; eccentric in that respect, and 
Parnassian in his contempt of the pre- 
cision of eating times as Johnson him- 
self. 

Now look on the other side the medal. 
His wit, intelligence, and poetic genius, 
are a mine ; and his taste and real accu- 
racy in criticism enable him to cut the 
rich ore they produce brilliant. 

He knows of every body, and has read 
every thing. With a wonderfully reten- 
tive memory, and familiar with the prin- 
ciples of all the sciences, his conversation 
is as instructive as it is amusing; for his 
ideas are always uncommon and striking, 
either from absolute originality, or from 
new and happy combination. 

His powers of mimicry, both in sing- 
ing and speaking, are admirable. No- 
body tells a humorous story better; but, 
in narrating interesting facts, his com- 
ments, though always in themselves 
worth attention, often fatigue by their 
plenitude, and by the supensc in which 
we are held concerning the principal 
events. 

The heart of this ingenious and oddly 
compounded being is open, ardent, and 
melting as even female tenderness ; and 
we find in it a scrupulous veracity, and an 
engaging dread of being intrusive. He 
has no vices, and much active virtue. 
For these good dispositions he is greatly 
respected by the genteel families round 
Solihull, and (for his comic powers 
doubtless) his society is much sought 
after by them. 

Hither, while he staid in Lichfield, did 
he often come. Indeed, I found myself 
perpetually seduced, by his powers of 
speeding time, to give up more of that 
fast fleeting possession to him than I 
could conveniently spare. 

Our first interview proved, by mistake, 
embarrassing and ridiculous. Mr. Dewes 
being upon a visit to me, he and I were 
soberly weighing, in our respective ba- 
lances, the quantity of genius that en- 
riched the reign of Anne, and the libe- 
ral portions of |t that our own times may 
boast. 



698 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV, 



It was evening, the grey hour, that 
" flings half an image on the straining 
sight." Comparing the dead and the 
living, by o//ier light tlian that of candles, 
we had not called for them. 

In bolts our servant Edward, who had 
seen as indistinctly as I was about to see. 
*' Madam, here's young Mr. Weston." — 
" Indeed !" exclaimed I, and starting up, 
rushed towards the personage who fol- 
lowed him, crying out, " Dear Joe, 1 am 
vastly glad to see you." — " My name is 
Joseph Weston, madam." The devil it 
is, thought I ; for the voice, and the ac- 
companying wriggle with which he bow- 
ed very low, were not our Joe's voice or 
bow. 

" Lord bless me sir," said I, drawing 
back, " I have a friend of your name, 
for whom, in this dusky hour, I took 
you." He then told me, that he had 
lately passed an evening with Mr. Saville, 
who had kindly assured him I should 
pardon an intrusion which had been the 
wish of years. 

From that period, October last, Wes- 
ton has been much in Lichfield, where 
genius and merit are, to the generality 
of its inhabitants, as dust in the balance 
against inferior station and exterior in- 
elegance. Yet within these walls, and 
at our theatre, this finical, but glowing 
disciple of the Muses, passed many ani- 
mated hours. 

He has the theatric mania upon him, 
in all its ardour. The enclosed very in- 
genious prologue he taught Roxwell, 
who has a fine person and harmonious 
voice, to speak very delightfully. 

I by no means think with you on the 
general abuse of the higher powers of 
mind, or respecting their proving inju- 
rious to the happiness of their possessor. 
I have generally, though not always, 
found, that where there is most genius 
there is most goodness ; and the inex- 
haustible sources of delight that, closed 
to common understandings, are open to 
elevated ones, must inevitably tend to 
give them a superior degree of happi- 
ness. 

Johnson's Tour to the Hebrides has 
been long too much my admiration, in 
point of elegance, for me to think, 
with you, that the letters from Scot- 
land, in Mrs. Piozzi's publication, how- 
ever charming, are to be named with 
it in the strength, or in graces of 
style. 



So miss P- 
isa — 



can now say with Elo- 



" Rise Alps between us, and whole oceans roll." 

May the heroic spirit of this enterprise 
be as much for her happiness as it is to 
her honour ! — Adieu. 



LETTER CII. 

Anna Seward to Thomas Swift, Esq, 

Lichfield, June 5, 1788. 
It was more than compliment when I 
said I should be glad to see you. There 
is much interest for my imagination 
in such an interview. 1 admire your 
poetic genius, and 1 love your candour, 
as much as I despise and hate the insen- 
sibility of the age to poetic excellence. 
It has no patrons amongst the splen- 
did and the powerful. The race of 
Maecenas is extinct. We find senatorial 
oratory their sole and universal passion. 
Absorbed in that pursuit, they can spare 
no hour of attention for the Muses and 
their votaries. Never was there a pe- 
riod in which the nymphs of the Cas- 
talian fountain had a more numerous 
train ; never were they more bounteous 
with their glowing inspirations. If we 
have neither a Shakspeare nor a Milton, 
it is because the fastidiousness of cri- 
ticism will not permit those wild and 
daring efforts, which, fearless of bom- 
bast and obscurity, often enveloped by 
them, and always hazarding every thing, 
enabled our great masters to reach their 
now unapproachable elevations in the 
dramatic and epic line. Lyric poetry 
has risen higher in this than in any 
age. 

Suffer me to observe, that you ought 
not to be discouraged by the apathy of 
the public taste. It is fatal to the 
profits of authorship ; but '* fame is the 
spur that the clear spirit doth raise ;" 
and every poetic writer ought to re- 
member, that the laurel never flourishes 
till it is planted upon the grave of ge- 
nius ; — that Milton's L'Allegro and II 
Penseroso were not known to Pope till 
he was in middle life — so strangely had 
even they fallen into that temporary 
oblivion, whither it is perpetually the 
fate of poetry to fall ; but, to whatever 
deserves that name, the hour of emerg- 
ing will come : — 



Sect. IV. 



RECENT. 



099 



" So sinks the day-etar In tbe ocean's bed, 
But yet, anon, repairs his drooping head} 
And tricks his beams, and with new spangled ore 
Flames in the forehead of the morning sky." 

Mere verses, it is true, sink, like lead in 
the mighty waters, never more to rise ; 
but your Temple has no native alacrity 
in sinkings 

Gary, literally but just fifteen, is a mi- 
racle. I never saw him, nor heard of 
him till after his Ode to General Elliot 
came out. My acquaintance with him 
is not of four months date. His school- 
fellow and friend, Lister, an inhabitant 
of this place, has poetic talents of nearly 
twin excellence . There is only a month's 
difference in their age. You suspect my 
having assisted Gary. Upon my honour, 
I never saw any thing of his that has 
been published before it was sent away 
to be printed. The strength and solidity 
of that boy's mind, his taste, his judg- 
ment, astonish me, if possible, even more 
than the vigour and grace of his fancy. 
He is a warm admirer of your Temple, 
and has written a sonnet to express his 
sense of its excellence. I hope, ere this 
time, he has sent it to you. I charged 
him to send it to the Gentleman's Ma- 
gazine. 

Except my translations of Horace, and 
some letters, signed Benvolio, in that 
publication, together with a few sonnets, 
epitaphs, ballads, &c. that crept into 
that and other public papers, I have 
printed nothing but the Elegy on Cook, 
which I gave to Dodsley, Monody on 
Andr^, and the Louisa, printed by Jack- 
son in this town. Monody on Lady Mil- 
lar, printed by Robinson, and Ode to 
General Elliot. Some other poems of 
mine, which obtained the wreath at B. 
Easton, may be found in the last volume 
of that collection. I hate ever to think 
of printers and booksellers — so little in- 
tegrity have I found amongst them. If 
I was on terms with Jackson, I would 
gladly order him to send you the collec- 
tion you wish, but I have resolved never 
more to have any thing to say, or give 
auy order, either to him or Robinson. 

A set of spirited and witty essays are 
just come out, entitled Variety ; their 
principal author is one of my friends. 
Numbers 25 and 26 are mine. Do not 
stare at my apparent vanity. Those 
numbers are not among the witty es- 
says of this collection. Wit was never 
my talent. 



Thank you for your ingenious pro- 
logue ; but the passage on music is not, 
perhaps, all it should be. It confounds 
the distinctions between poetry and mu- 
sic. Of the latter the ancients knew no- 
thing more than melody. The princi- 
ples of harmonic combination, by which 
all the great independent effects of the 
science are produced, were utterly un- 
known to them. We hear much, it is 
true, of the powers that music possessed 
over the passions in Greece : but, in 
reality, those powers were given by the 
poetry they conveyed, to which musio 
was merely a pleasing vehicle. We all 
know that the Grecian bards, with Ho- 
mer at the head of them, sung their own 
compositions to the harp. It must have 
been a simple, little varied, and proba- 
bly spontaneous melody, to which so long 
a poem as the Iliad could be adapted. 
Doubtless the varieties chiefly resulted 
from the alternately softened tones, and 
heightened energies of the voice, and by 
the changes of the countenance. When 
the ancients spoke of music, they meant 
it generally as another term for poetry. 
So much yet of this equivocal expression 
remains, that we talk even of the modern 
poets striking the lyre. By that expres- 
. sion, you know, we do not mean that they 
are musicians. 

Since the harmonic principles were 
discovered, music has been a great inde- 
pendent science, capable of a sublime 
union with fine poetry, and greatest 
when thus united ; but capable also of 
giving fascinating grace and awful gran- 
deur to the plainest and mostunpoetic 
language, provided it is not so coarse or 
absurd as to force ludicrous images upon 
the mind, which must ever counteract 
all its elevating effects. 

It is, therefore, improper, when we 
speak upon music as a science, which 
obtained in Handel the ne plus ultra of 
its excellence, when we seek to do ho- 
nour to him, and its other great, though 
to him subordinate masters, at once the 
rivals and the friends of our poets ; it is, 
I say, improper to confound the two arts 
by beginning with examples so far back 
as that period, in which it is impossible 
to separate them. 

Handel is as absolute a monarch of the 
human passions as Shakspeare, and his 
every way various excellencies bear the 
same comparison to the pretty, sweet, 
lazy, unvaried compositions of the It«- 



700 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV, 



dan school, breathing no other passions 
than love and jealousy, as the plays of 
Shakspeare bear to those of Racine, Ot- 
way, Dryden, Rowe, Voltaire, and our 
modern tragedies on the French model. 
Poetry itself, though so much the elder 
science, for music has been a science 
only since the harmonic combinations 
were discovered, possesses not a more 
inherent empire over the passions than 
music, of which Handel is the mighty 
master ; than whom 

" Nothing went before so great, 
And nothing greater can succeed." 

Wlien I speak of that empire, it must 
be remembered, that a certain mal-con- 
formation of the auricular membrane as 
inevitably frustrates this effect, upon 
even the most susceptible heart and 
clearest intellect, as mediocrity of ta- 
lents, and dulness of perception, frus- 
trate the effects of poetry. Where the 
ear does not readily distinguish and re- 
cognise melodies, no sensibility of heart, 
no strength of imagination, will disclose 
the magic of the harmonic world. Mil- 
ton knew music scientifically, and felt 
all its powers. To Sam Johnson, the 
sweetest airs and most superb harmonies 
were but unmeaning noise. I often 
regret that Milton and Handel were 
not contemporaries ; that the former 
knew not the delight of hearing his 
own poetry heightened as Handel has 
heightened it. To produce the united 
effects resulting from the combination 
of perfect poetry with perfect music, it 
was necessary that Milton's strains should 
be set by Handel, and sung by Saville. 
Of all our public singers, while many 
are masterly, many elegant, many asto- 
nishing, he only is sublime: a supe- 
riority given by his enthusiastic percep- 
tion of poetic, as well as of harmonic 
beauty. I should observe, that the rev. 
Mr. Benjamin Mence, once of St. Paul's 
and the King's Chapel, was equally great 
in his expression of solemn music ; but 
from the harmonic world that sun has 
long withdrawn its beams. From Mr. 
Mence Mr. Saville first caught his ener- 
gies, or rather, by his example, obtained 
courage to express them. Mr. Harrison 
has great correctness and delicacy, and 
some pathos ; but he has no energy, 
and, without energy, Handel can have 
no justice from his performer. 

Colonel Barry lately appeared amongst 



us, but instantly fleeted away. I was 
delighted to perceive that he had ex- 
changed the languor of indisposition for 
the sprightliness of health. Adieu ! 



LETTER CIIL 

Anna Seward to Thomas Christie, Esq. 
July 1, 1790. 

Yes, my kind friend. Heaven has at length 
deprived me of that dear parent to whom 
I was ever most tenderly attached, and 
whose infirmities, exciting my hourly 
pity, increased the pangs of final sepa- 
ration. It was in vain that my rea- 
son reproached the selfishness of my 
sorrow. 

I cannot receive, as my due, the praise 
you so lavish upon my filial attentions. 
Too passionate was my affection to have 
had any merit in devoting myself to its 
duties. All was irresistible impulse. 
I made no sacrifices, for pleasure lost its 
nature and its name, when I was absent 
from him. I studied his ease and com- 
fort, because I delighted to see him 
cheerful ; and, when every energy of 
spirit was sunk in languor, to see him 
tranquil. It was my assiduous endea^ 
vour to guard him from every pain and 
every danger, because his sufferings gave 
me misery, and the thoughts of losing 
him anguish. 

And thus did strong affection leave 
nothing to be performed by the sense of 
duty. I hope it would have produced 
the same attentions on my part ; but 
I am not entitled to say that it would, 
or to accept of commendation for ten- 
derness so involuntary. 

It gives me pleasure that your pro- 
spects are so bright. A liberal and ex- 
tended commerce may be as favourable 
to the expansion of superior abilities as 
any other profession ; and it is certainly 
a much more cheerful employment than 
that of medicine. The humane phy- 
sician must have his quiet perpetually 
invaded by the sorrows of those who 
look anxiously up to him for relief, 
which no Imman art can, perhaps, ad- 
minister. 

I have uniformly beheld, with rever- 
ence and delight, the efforts of France to 
throw off the iron yoke of her slavery ; 
not the less oppressive for having been 
bound with ribbands and lilies. Ill be- 



Sect. IV,. 



RECENT. 



701 



tide the degenerate Eng-lisli heart, that 
does not wish her prosperity. 

You ask rae after Mrs. Cowley. I 
have not the pleasure of her acquaint- 
ance, but am familiar wdth her inge- 
nious writings. This age has produced 
few better comedies than hers. 

You are very good to wish to see me 
in London : but I have no near view of 
going thither. You will be sorry to 
hear that I have lost my health, and am 
oppressed with symptoms of an here- 
ditary and dangerous disease. 

Lichfield has been my home since 
I was seven years old — this house since 
I was thirteen ; for I am still in the pa- 
lace, and do not think of moving at 
present. It is certainly much too large 
for my wants, and for my income ; yet 
is my attachment so strong to the scene, 
that I am tempted to try, if I recover, 
what strict economy, in other respects, 
will do towards enabling me to remain 
in a mansion, endeared to me as the 
tablet on which the pleasures of my 
youth are impressed, and the image of 
those that are everlastingly absent. 
Adieu. Yours. 



LETTER CIV. 

Anna Seward to Lady Gresley. 

Langford Cottage, July 30, 1791. 
Dear and revered lady Gresley expressed 
a wish of hearing from me. I pay glad 
obedience to a request so flattering. 
Probably Mr. White will have told your 
ladyship how quiet we found the lately 
turbulent Birmingham, though the 
country round bore mournful traces of 
desolating fury. I led him over the 
lawn to Mosely, where my dear friend, 
lady Carhampton, had set up her rest, 
after a life -of filial persecutions. We 
viewed, with aching heart, the scorched 
and ruined remains of that spacious and 
elegant mansion, so late the abode of 
hospitality and cheerfulness, friendship, 
piety, charity, and peace. Alas ! the 
flames had resounded in those pleasant 
apartments, and reduced them to a 
cluster of falling walls. With a face of 
woe her gardener approached the chaise, 
and, in half-choked utterance, narrated 
the afflicting particulars : his lady driven 
from her house by a determined mob, 



who expressed a desire of not injuring* 
her or hers, and even helping to load the 
waggons she had procured to convey 
away her goods from a mansion they 
devoted to destruction because her land- 
lord was a presbyterian. Dreadful bi- 
gotry I by which we see kindled afresh 
those flames of intolerant hatred for 
difference in religious opinions, which 
have been so full of mischief through 
former ages. Lady Carhampton took 
refuge in a cottage at the gate of the 
lawn, till sir Robert Lawley's coach 
arrived to convey her from the dire 
spectacle of persecuting flames, bursting 
through every window of her beloved 
habitation. " The thick drop serene," 
which had long quenched her sight, 
perhaps, in that moment, she thought a 
friendly curtain drawn between her and 
an object so cruel; but Mrs. Nutterville, 
the companion of all her exiles, and to 
whom Mosely was not less dear as a 
home, beheld that direful resplendence. 

Mr. White has perhaps informed you, 
that the mob threatened, wdth a similar 
fate, the splendid residence of lord Beau- 
champ, because he voted for the repeal 
of the test act. Had not the military 
iirrived in time, it had probably fallen. 

Mr. Fitzthomas's rural parsonage, at 
the foot of the hill on which stands the 
princely palace of Ragley, is prettily 
embosomed in circling glades and shrub- 
beries, whose confines are laved by the 
silent Arrow, of picturesque course, and 
with banks very beautifully sylvan. 
Mr. F.'s passion for umbrageous retire- 
ment, has made him indulge the growth 
of his plantations beyond the bounds 
of comfort; so that, penetrating the 
recesses of his bowers, we are perpe- 
tually exposed to the fate of Absalom. 
But this is only in the interior scene. 
A pretty little lawn, half-mooned by the 
house and shrubberies, admits the near 
hill, so magnificently villaed. 

Nothing was ever richer in w^oodland 
scenery than the surrounding country, 
or more friendly than our welcome to 
the rural parsonage. I delivered your 
ladyship's obliging compliments to its 
owner, who respectfully returns them. 
His taste and abilities are too decided 
not to give inevitable value to the con- 
sciousness of being cordially remembered 
by lady G. 

We passed Thursday morning in ex- 
amining the varied splendours of the 



702 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



prouder domain ; but in such precincts, 
my admiration, however high-strung, 
has nothing interesting about it. 

Mr. W. setting out earlier on Friday 
morn, arrived at Tewksbury an hour 
before me. Perceiving him lean out 
of the inn window, w^atching my ap- 
proach, I cried out to him from the 
chaise, in the words of Prince Henry's 
ghost, 

"False, fleeting, perjur'd Clarence, 
That slew me in the field at Tewksbury!" 

Probably to the no small amusement of 
a few street passengers. 

These enthusiasms have been a source 
of unmixed delight to me : they have 
been always felt on approaching scenes 
dignified by any great event in the years 
long vanished, or that have been the 
abode of genius, or the subject of its 
songs. Many a vexation have they 
banished, many a gloom have they illu- 
minated. 

H. White has all this local glow of 
spirit, and it rendered him a thrice plea- 
sant companion on my journey. Con- 
sidering how we bustled about in this 
same town, peeping at the monuments, 
and all other vestiges of that battle, in 
which the red roses were blighted, torn 
up, and deluged in blood — considering, 
that we walked through the cathedral 
at Gloucester during choir-service in the 
afternoon, exulting in the superiority of 
our own, both as to architectural beau- 
ty and choral powers — we did great 
things by my reaching Bristol that 
night, and Mr. Whalley's early the next 
morning. 

At ten o'clock Mr. Whalley arrived 
in his chaise, to conduct me to his Eden, 
among the Mendip mountains. Singu- 
larly, and beyond my high-raised ex- 
pectations, beautiful I did indeed find 
it ; situated, built, furnished, and adorn- 
ed in the very spirit of poetic enthusiasm 
and polished simplicity. It is about 
twelve years since Mr. Whalley began 
to cover, with a profusion of trees and 
shrubs, one of these vast hills, then 
barren like its brethren. The planta- 
tions seem already to have attained their 
full size, strength, and exuberance of 
foliage. 

By the addition of another horse, to 
help the chaise-horses, we ascended the 
sylvan steep. At about two -thirds of its 
height, on a narrow terrace, stands the 



dear white cottage, whose polished 
graces seem smilingly to deride its 
name, though breathing nothing hetero- 
geneous to cottage simplicity. The first 
floor consists of a small hall, with a 
butler's pantry to the right, and good 
kitchen to the left ; housekeeper's room 
beyond that ; scullery behind the kit- 
chen ; the offices at a little distance,, 
detached from the house, many step& 
below this bank, and screened from 
sight by trees. The second floor con- 
tains, in front, to the north-west, three 
lightsome, lovely, though not large, 
apartments, whose spacious sashes are 
of the Gothic form. These are the din- 
ing room, drawing room, and elegant 
boudoir beyond, all opening through 
each other. My apartment, from which 
I now write, is behind the boudoir ; its 
window, at the end of the house, looking 
to the east, and upon a steep lawn, 
sprinkled over with larches, poplars, and 
woodbines, excluded by a circular plant- 
ation from all prospect of that mag- 
nificent vale, upon which the front 
rooms look down, in instant and almost 
perpendicular descent. A gravel walk 
winds up this secluded lawn to the 
mountain top. Mr. and Mrs. Whalley, 
and their other guests, sleep in the attics. 
The wide-extended vale beneath us has 
every possible scenic beauty, excepting 
only the meanders of a river. Scarce two 
hundred yards from the villa, on the 
left hand, a bare brown mountain inter- 
sects this its woody neighbour, and 
towers equal heights. The protection 
it extends from the north-west winds 
has been every thing to Mr. Whalley, as 
to the growth and health of his planta- 
tions. Sloping its giant's foot to the 
valley, it finely contrasts, with barren 
sterility, the rich cultivation of the 
scenery below, and the lavish umbrage 
that curtains these steeps. 

With the sort of sensation that a beau- 
teous country girl, in the first glow of 
youth and health, surveys an antiquated 
dowager of rank and riches, seems this 
little villa to look down on the large 
stone mansion of Langford Court, the 
property of Mr. and Mrs. Whalley, and 
their former residence. It stands in the 
valley, about half a mile from us, en- 
circled by its fine lawn of two hundred 
acres, planted and adorned with great 
taste. Yet more immediately below us 
nestles, in a wood, the village of Lang- 



Sect. I\^ 



RECENT. 



703 



ford. The smoke of its farms and cot- 
tages, curling amongst the trees at early 
morn, imparts the glow of vitality and 
cheerfulness to our romantic retirement. 
I climb, by seven o'clock in a morning, 
the highest terrace, and " drink the 
spirit of the mountain gale," which 
seems to invigorate my whole frame, 
and give my lungs the freest respiration. 
Never before did I breathe, for any con- 
tinuance, an atmosphere so sublimated. 
The extensive vale finely breaks into 
inequalities by knolls and dingles. The 
beautifid fields wearing, from the late 
rains, the brightest verdure, have waved 
outlines of plenteous hedge-moss, and 
appear, by their depth from the eye, 
shining and smooth as the lawns of our 
nobility. They are interspersed with 
thick and dark, though not large, woods. 
The whole wide expanse is dotted over 
by white rough-cast cottages, and here 
and there a village-spire and quiral cha- 
teau. 

Fifteen mUes in width, and about 
seven distant from this elevation, the 
Bristol channel lies, a sheet of silver, 
stretched longitudinally over the vale. 
Beyond, we plainly discern the Welch 
coast, whose mountains bound the ho- 
rizon. 

Mr. Whalley's walks and bowers are 
finely diversified ; 

" Shade above shade, a woody theatre." 

The several terraces ascending over 
€ach other are connected by steep wind- 
ing paths for the active, and by grassy 
steps for the feeble. These terraces are 
so variously planted and disposed as to 
avoid all that sameness to which, from 
their situation, they were liable; now 
secluded and gloomy ; now admitting 
the rich world below to burst upon the 
eye. Hermitages and caves, cut in the 
rocky steeps, contain rustic seats, dedi- 
cated to favourite friends, by poetic in- 
scriptions — one to Mrs. Siddons ; an- 
other to miss Hannah More ; another to 
the accomplished Mrs. Jackson of Bath ; 
one to Mr. Whalley's venerable mother ; 
another to Mr. Inman, the excellent 
clergyman of this parish ; one to Sophia 
Weston ; and one to myself. These 
grottos relieve us perpetually by their 
seats amidst ascents so nearly perpen- 
dicular. 

On the summit of this pendant gar- 
den we find a concave lawn, with a large 



root-house in the centre of that eemi- 
circular bank, whose thick curtains of 
firs, larches, poplars, &c. form a darkly 
verdant fringe, that, rising above the 
root-house, crowns the mountain-top. 
This rustic pavilion, supported by pillars 
made of the boles of old trees, and twined 
round by woodbines and sweet-peas, is 
open in front, and commands the Avhole 
splendour of the vale below. It con- 
tains a large table, on which we lay our 
work, our writing, or our book, which 
we carry thither in a morning, whenever 
the weather will permit. Hitherto the 
skies have not shone upon us with much 
summer warmth and brightness. 

I had the pleasure to find dear Mrs. 
Whalley tolerably well, though feeling, 
at frequent intervals, severe memorials 
of her dreadful accident. She, Mr.W., 
and myself, talk of your ladyship and 
miss Gresleys frequently, and always 
witli the most lively interest. 

Mr. Whalley's mother is here, a mi- 
racle at eighty-five, of clear intellects, 
upright activity, and graceful manners : 
also miss Davy, a fine young woman, 
related to Mrs. Whalley ; but charming 
Sophia is not here ; the scanty number 
of these pretty bed-chambers forbids the 
accommodation of more than two or 
three friends at the utmost. I have 
some hopes of seeing her at Bath on 
Wednesday, whither we have been in- 
vited by Mrs. Jackson, in a letter of 
never-excelled spirit, elegance, and kind- 
ness. She daily expects miss Weston's 
arrival. 

My curiosity is on fire to view the 
drawing-room of Europe, as your lady- 
ship calls it, and to admire, with my 
actual sight, those graces which you 
have so often placed before my mind's 
eye by very animated description. 

Late miss Caroline Ansley, married to 
a Mr. Bosanquet, inhabits the Hall 
House, Langford Court, and makes Mrs. 
Whalley a social and pleasant neighbour. 
Her manners are obliging and inge- 
nuous. She inquired much after lady 
and miss Gresleys, whom she said she 
had the pleasure of knowing very well ; 
and yesterday the celebrated miss Han- 
nah More favoured me with a visit, I 
like her infinitely. Her conversation 
has all the strength and brilliance which 
her charming Avritings teach us to ex- 
pect. Though it was our first inter- 
view, and no previous connection, cor- 



704 



E L E G A N T E P 1 S 1^ L E S. 



Boofi IV, 



respondence, or even message, had passed 
between us, she met me with an extended 
hand, and all the kindness of old ac- 
quaintance. 

1 have wearied my fingers by the 
length of this letter, and fear a similar fate 
for your ladyship's attention. Adieu ! 
dearest madam ! Have the goodness to 
present my affectionate compliments in 
your domestic circle, and to believe me, 
with the highest esteem and attachment, 
your faithful, obliged, and obedient 
servant. 



LETTER CV. 
Anna Seivard to Mrs. Stokes. 

Licbfid', July 31, 1796. 

i HAVE not seen Wakefield's observations 
on Pope. They may, as you tell me they 
are, be very ingenious ; but as to pla- 
giarism. Pope would lose little in my 
esteem from whatever of that may be 
proved against him ; since it is allowed, 
that he always rises above his clumsy 
models, in their tinsel drapery. 

Poetry, being the natural product of 
a highly-gifted mind, however uncul- 
tivated, must exist, in a rude form at 
least, from the instant that the social 
compact gives to a man a superplus of 
time from that which is employed in pro- 
viding for his natural wants, together 
with liberation from that anxiety about 
obtaining such provision, which is ge- 
nerally incompatible with those ab- 
stracted ideas from which poetry results. 
As this leisure, and freedom to thought, 
arises with the progress of subordina- 
tion and inequality of rank, men be- 
come poets, and this long before their 
language attains its copiousness and ele- 
gance. 

The writers of such periods, there- 
fore, present poetic ideas in coarse and 
shapeless ingenuity. In the unskilled 
attempt to refine them, they become, 
in the next stage of the progress, an odd 
mixture of quaintness and simplicity ; 
but it is reserved for genius, learning, 
and judgment in combination, supported 
by the ample resources of a various, 
mature, and complete language, to ele- 
vate, polish, and give the last perfection 
to the rudiments of poetry, first so 
coarse and abortive, afterwards so quaint, 



and so shredded out into wearisome re- 
dundance. 

That woik of ever -new poetic in- 
formation and instruction, T. Warton's 
Critical Notes to Milton's Lesser Poems, 
will shew you how very largely Milton 
took, not only from the classics, but 
from his verse-predecessors in our own 
language ; from Burton's writings, in- 
terlarded with verse ; from Drayton ; 
from Spenser ; from Shakspeare ; from 
the two Fletchers, and from Drummond. 
The entire plan, and almost ail the out- 
lines of the sweet pictures in L'Aliegro, 
II Penseroso, are in Burton's Anatomic 
of Melancholy, or a Dialogue between 
Pleasure and Pain, in verse, with a 
passage of his in prose ; and these 
were taken and combined in Milton's 
imagination, with the fine hints in a 
song in Beaumont and Fletcher's play. 
The Nice Valour, or Passionate Mad- 
man. 

In Comus, Milton was much indebted 
to Fletcher's beautiful pastoral play. The 
Faithful Shepherdess ; but Milton and 
Pope, though v/ith excellence differ- 
ent both in nature and degree, were 
arch-chymists, and turned the lead and 
tinsel of others to the purest and finest 
gold. 

Dr. Stokes is mistaken in supposing 
Milton my first poetic favourite — ^ great 
as I deem him, the superior of Virgil, 
and the equal of Komer, my heart and 
imagination acknowledge yet greater the 
matchless bard of Avon. 

I thank you for the discriminating 
observations in your letter of April the 
24th, upon my late publication. Mil- 
ton says, that from Adam's lip, not 
words alone pleased Eve ; so may I 
say, that from your pen praise alone 
would not satisfy my avidity of pleasing 
you. The why and wherefore you are 
pleased, which is always so ingenious 
when you write of verse, form the 
zest, which makes encomium nectar. 
Mr. Hayley's letter to me on the sub- 
ject is very gratifying : it joins, to a ge- 
nerous ardency of praise, the elegance, 
spirit, and afl^'ection of his former epis- 
tles. 

Ah ! yes, it is very certain, that 
not only some, but all our finest 
poets, frequently invert the position 
of the verb, and prove that the Bri- 
tish Critic, who says it is not the ha- 
bit of good writers, is a stranger to 



ISkct. IV. 



R E C E N T. 



705 



their compositions. When Thomson 

says, 

*' Vanish the woods, the dim seen river seems 
Sullen and slow to roll his misty train," 

it is picture ; which it would not have 
been, if he had coldly written, 

" The woods are vanish'dj" 

since, in the former, by the precedence 
of the verb to the noun, we see the fog- 
in the very act of shrouding the woods ; 
but to these constituent excellencies of 
poetry the eye of a reviewer is the mole's 
dim curtain. Again, in the same poem. 
Autumn, this inversion is beautifully 
used, while its author is paying, in a 
simile, the finest compliment imaginable 
to the talents and excursive spirit of his 
countrymen : — 

*■* As from their own clear north, in radiant 
streams, 
Bright over Europe bursts the Boreal morn." 

And what spirit does Pope often give 
his lines, by using this inversion in the 
Imperative mood: — 

** Rise, crown'd with light, imperial Salem, vise!" 

Then, as to the imputed affectation of 
the word Lyceum, Thomson calls the 
woods " Nature's vast Lyceum." For 
his purpose it was necessary to elevate 
the term by its epithet, for mine to 
lower it by that which I applied — minute 
Lyceum ; and in neither place is its ap- 
plication affected. I am allowed to be 
patient of criticism, and trust no one is 
readier to feel its force, and, when just, 
to acknowledge and to profit by it ; but 
to a censor, who does not know the 
meaning of the word thrill, 1 may, with- 
out vanity, exclaim, 

"Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests !" 

Have you seen Mrs. Inchbald's late 
work. Nature and Art. She is a favourite 
novelist with me. Her late work has 
improbable situations, and is inferior to 
her Simple Story, which ought to have 
been the title of this composition, to 
which it is better suited than to the his- 
tory of Dorriforth : yet we find in Art 
and Nature the characteristic force of 
her pen, which, with an air of un design- 
ing simplicity, places in a strong point 
of view the worthlessness of such cha- 
racters as pass with the world for re- 
spectable. She seems to remove, as by 



accident, their specious veil, and with- 
out commenting upon its removal : and 
certain strokes of blended pathos and 
horror, indelibly impress the recollec- 
tion. 

But, with yet greater powers than 
Mrs. Inchbald's, does the author of Caleb 
Williams grapple our attention. I con- 
ceive that he said to himself, " I v/ill 
write a book, that shall have no proto- 
type, yet the taste of the age for the 
marvellous shall be humoured. Female 
pens have given us ruined castles, tolling 
befls, lights that palely gleaming make 
darkness visible, whispering voices from 
viewless forms and beckoning shadows : 
that ground is preoccupied. Let me 
try if I cannot harrow readers, who have 
mind, with dread and breathless expect- 
ation, without exciting supernatural 
ideas, and even without the assistance of 
enamoured interests." If such was his 
design, the success is complete. Yet has 
his work many defects ; and we perceive 
his pernicious principles to be those of 
an absurd and visionary anarchist, who 
would open all the prison doors, and let 
thieves and murderers walk at large, in 
the hope of philosophizing them into 
virtue. 

I learn with regret, that Mr. Mason 
is going to print a new work of his by a 
private press, for his friends only. This 
resolve, doubtless, resulted from disgust 
to the idea of seeing his compositions 
si>bject to the ignorance and effrontery 
of Revievz-impertinence, which assumes 
the right of supposing, that its fabri- 
cators understand verse-making better 
than the first poets of our age — even 
than he, 

"Whom on old Humber's bank the Muses bore. 
And nurs'd his youth along the marshy shore." 



LETTER CVI. 

Anna Seward to Thomas Parky Esq. 

Lichfield, Sept. 95, 1800. 

I HAVE an immense deal to say to you, 
and therefore will not waste my time in 
apologies for the length of my involun- 
tary silence. 

Mrs. Park's complaints are unrjues- 
tionably nervous. Proteus-like, they as- 
sume, in turn, the form of various dis- 
eases ; yet, with all their teasing versa- 
2 Z 



706 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV, 



tility, and harassing obstinacy, they are 
not esteemed dangerous. 

To have seen you both beneath my 
roof this tropical summer, and in tole- 
rable health and spirits, would have given 
me lively pleasure. From the different 
aspect of my apartments, and the luxu- 
riant umbrage of my lawns and terrace, 
the over-fervid sun could not have smote 
us with his beams. I shall be glad to 
learn, that no accumulation of malady 
resulted to either of you from the long 
duration of the skiey ardours. 

It is nine years since I passed the three 
summer months at home. Imperious 
malady has always expelled me my little 
Eden, and driven me to the coast in the 
month of July. I felt very cross and 
Eveish to leave my scene in the season 
of light and bloom ; and thus compelled, 
as I was, to seek the Buxton fountain 
early in the spring, I ventured to omit 
my coast-expedition this year. 

The decided pre-eminence you chal- 
lenge for Cowper, over all his contem- 
porary bards, stimulates me considerably. 
Highly as I deem of his genius, I by no 
means think it unequalled in his day. 
The superior popularity of the Task, over 
any verse-composition of its period, must 
be acknowledged ; but it is accountable 
from other causes than poetic pre-emi- 
nence, viz. its possessing sufficient merit 
to render it very dear to far the greater 
part of the discerning few, while it is 
intelligible and interesting to the un- 
discerning many. That is not so with 
some of our noblest poetry, which must 
be confessed very superior to the Task- 
as Paradise Lost, Comus, Lycidas, and 
Gray's two matchless odes, and his De- 
scent of Odin. Yet not any of those 
compositions, had they been coeval with 
the Task, would have had the least chance 
with it, as to attaining speedy popularity. 
Therefore is it, that speedy popularity, 
however genuine and independent of re- 
view, magazine, and newspaper puffing, 
is no test of pre-eminence ; though, 
when thus genuine, it remains a proof of 
considerable merit. The superior works 
I have mentioned are all of much too 
coy grace, and abstracted sublimity, to 
be really felt and sincerely admired by 
the common reader, who may yet be 
truly susceptible of the beauties of such 
a poem as the Task. Those readers will, 
however, be clamorous in applauding 
works, though above the reach of their 



conceptions, which have, by the slowly 
accumulating suffrages of the enlighten- 
ed few, obtained high and established re- 
putation. 

Then Cowper's Task, with no incon- 
siderable portion of true genius and esti- 
mable sentiments, is not only level with 
their capacities, but gratifies the two 
most general and nurtured feelings of 
the human mind ; its enthusiasm con- 
cerning the Deity, and its malice to its 
fellovz-creatures. The sombre piety of 
that poem gratifies the first, and its se- 
vere moral satire, and, on some occa- 
sions, most ungenerous and unjust sa- 
tire, pampers the second ; while the 
winter's walk, the winter evening, the 
post-boy, the newspaper, the tea-table — 
all sweetly touched and described, will 
delight thousands, who would feel no 
thrill of impressive feeling in the au- 
gustly horrible Pandemonium of Milton, 
who would be ennuied in his Eden, 
and puzzled and bewildered in the wild- 
wood of his enchanter, and by the wizard 
streams of his Deva. 

Let it be remembered, that Cowper's 
compositions mrhyme, whatever strength 
of thought may be found in them, have 
no poetic witchery, either of imagery, 
landscape, or numbers ; that Crowe's 
Lewesdon Hill, though its subject is less 
amusingly desultory than that of the 
Task, may yet, as a work of genius, chal- 
lenge the finest parts of Cowper's poem. 
Let it be remembered how variously 
and how beautifully Hayley has written ; 
though I confess his genius seems rapidly 
to have declined from its meridian, since 
that noble poem, the Essay on Epic 
Poetry, appeared. Of this decline I am 
afraid you will think, and that it will be 
generally thought, his late work. Epis- 
tles on Sculpture, is another proof; 
though it has many beauties, and though 
much learned information on the subject 
is contained in the notes. He was so 
good to send it me. You will there see, 
or have already seen, how passionately 
he deplores his lost protege ; and that he 
there gives him his own name, confirm- 
ing the public surmise that he was his 
son ; but, if it really was so, he either 
chose to deceive me on the subject, or I 
strangely misunderstood him, when I 
was his guest at Eartham, in the summer 
1782, when this youth was an infant, 
not two years old, and whose real father 
I understood to be the gallant young 



Sect. IV. 



RECENT. 



707 



Howel, a former adoption of Mr. Hay- 
ley's, who was lost on his return from 
the West Indies. 

But to resume our subject. Recollect 
the flood of picturesque imagination, 
which, in richly harmonious verse, Dar- 
win has poured over the discoveries and 
systems of philosophic science ; how ori- 
ginal, how true to nature, and how vivid 
Ms pictures of the animal and vegetable 
world ! How appropriate, how varied, 
how exquisite his landscapes ! What en- 
tertaining and poetic use he has made of 
the most remarkable occurrences of the 
late century ! I deeply feel, that of the 
first poetic excellence, invention, there 
is an immensely transcending portion in 
Darwin's Botanic Garden to what can be 
found in the Task. 

Cowper is the poetic son of Dr. Young. 
More equal, more consistent, more ju- 
dicious, far less uniformly sombre than 
his parent, but also much less fre- 
quently sublime. Darwin has no parent 
amongst the English poets ; he sprung, 
in his declining years, with all the 
strength and fancy of juvenile life, fi'om 
the temples of an immortal Muse, like 
Pallas from the head of Jove. 

Nor should it be forgotten, that Cole- 
ridge's Ode to the Departing Year is sub- 
limer throughout than any part of Cow- 
per 's Task ; that the stripling, Southey, 
has written an epic poem, full of strength 
as to idea, and grandeur as to imagery ; 
that both those writers, in their rhyme- 
productions, far outshine Cowper's pro- 
saic couplets. 

When these claims are made, without 
mentioning the various and charming 
Mason, since his poetic sun was setting 
when Cowper's rose — when they are 
poised in the scale, surely you will re- 
sign your colossal claim for the muse of 
Cowper, destined as she is to immortal 
remembrance. That destiny I asserted 
for her to Dr. Darwin and sir Brooke 
Boothby, ten years ago, when I heard 
them decide, that the Task was too pro- 
saic to survive its century, and that they 
could not read it through. 

And now, what shall I say to you on 
the subject of miss Bannerman's volume ? 
Long as my letter already is, I feel that 
I have much to add on the subject, to 
justify my utter dissent from you on that 
theme. Dr. A.'s lavish praise of powers, 
which appear to me of such strutting 
feebleness, surprises me much less than 



yours, since he pronounced the prosaic 
and long defunct Leonidas a fine epic 
poem. 

In the first place, you style miss B. 
pre-eminent as a Scotish poetess. Ah ! 
have you forgotten Helen Williams and 
her Peru, published when she was under 
twenty ? I confess an epic poem was too 
arduous an attempt for years so blossom- 
ing, an unclassic education, and inexpe- 
rience in criticism. Peru, consequently, 
wants strength, and a sufiicient portion 
of characteristic variety, and its meta- 
phors and epithets are sometimes incon- 
gruous ; but the numbers are richly har- 
monious, the landscapes vivid, and the 
fancy wildly and luxuriantly elegant. 

Have you forgotten, also, that miss 
Baillie, just emerged as the acknowledged 
author of the Plays on the Passions, is a 
Scotish woman ; and, in my estimation, 
if indeed they are hers, as nobody now 
seems to doubt, a very great poet. What- 
ever may be the faults of her two trage- 
dies, poetic strength and beauty are to 
be found in them, which place her in the 
first rank of those, who, in this period, 
have struck the Delphic lyre. No plays, 
except Jephson's, approach Shakspeare's 
so nearly. 

Surely that o])scurity, which Burke 
pronounces a source of the sublime, is 
totally different in its nature to the 
strained and abortive conceptions of miss 
Bannerman's pen ! The obscurity he 
means is where sentiment is rather 
liinted than expressed ; and, to an in- 
telligent mind, conveys a diiierent 
meaning to that whicli the words simply 
bear. 

Certainly an author is not obliged to 
find his reader brains ; but that obscu- 
rity, which puzzles a reader, who has 
poetic sensibility and taste, to guess what 
the author means, is a great inexpiable 
fault ; and, if it occurs frequentl}^ is as 
sure a proof of weakness in the powers 
of composition, as the former species is 
of strength. 

There are other things, as you well 
know, which may render poetry obscure 
to the prosers, without fault in the com- 
poser ; as inversions, using epithets as 
verbs active, or as noun substantives, 
together with the bold and graceful omis- 
sion of the conjunctives. 

But the palpable obscure, in which miss 
B.'s ideas are perpetually struggling, is 
not the result of the poetic licenses, any 
2 Z 2 



70B 



E L E G A N 1 E fM S T L E S. 



IJOOK IV. 



more than of that mode of expression, 
which purposely leaves something to be 
supplied by the imagination of the reader. 
Unquestionably she has a good ear for 
the construction of numbers ; her lines 
flow tunefully. Flowing numbers are, 
however, but the drapery of poetry, va- 
luable when they clothe clear and vigor- 
ous thoughts and striking imagery ; but 
worth little v» hen they enrobe such blown 
and empty conceptions as I find on the 
pages of miss B. 

You speak of the wildness of her fancy, 
— ^it seems to me elaborate, yet incom- 
prehensible ; inflated, yet trite; and, if 1 
know what invention is, that prime es- 
sential in poetry, she has absolutely none. 
Therefore is it, that no time, no instruc- 
tion, no experience, will make her a poet, 
though her command of numbers tolera- 
bly qualifies her for a translator ; not of 
that class, however, which rise upon 
their originals. 

I will take an early opportunity of 
shewing you the ground of these my 
convictions. Meantime. &c. 



LETTER CVII. 

Anna Seivard to Walter Scott, Esq. 

Liciiiield, April '29, 1802. 

Accept my warmest thanks for the so 
far overpaying bounty of your literary 
present*. In speaking of its contents I 
shall demonstrate, that my sincerity may- 
be trusted, whatever cause I may give 
you to distrust my judgment. In saying 
that you dare not hope your works will 
entertain me, you evince the existence 
of a deep preconceived distrust of the 
latter faculty in my mind. That distrust 
is not, I flatter myself, entirely founded, 
at least if 1 may so gather from the de- 
light with which I peruse all that is 
yours, whether prose or verse, in these 
volumes. 

Your dissertations place us in Scot- 
land, in the midst of the feudal period. 
They throw the strongest light on a part 
of history indistinctly sketched, and 
partially mentioned by the English his- 
torians, and which, till now, has not been 
sufficiently elucidated, and rescued by 
those of your country from tlie imputed 

* Minstrelsy of the Scotish Border, consist- 
ing: of historical and romantic ballads, eol- 
iectrd by Walter Scott, esq. — S. 



guilt of unprovoked depredation on the 
part of the Scots. 

The old border ballads of your first 
volume are so far interesting as they cor- 
roborate your historic essays ; so far va- 
luable as that they form the basis of 
them. Poetically considered, little surely 
is their worth ; and 1 must think it more 
to the credit of Mrs. Brown's memory 
than of her taste, that ^she J could take 
pains to commit to remembrance, and to 
retain there, such a quantity of uncouth 
rhymes, almost totally destitute of all 
which gives metre a right to the name 
of poetry. 

Poetry is like personal beauty ; the 
homeliest and roughest language cannot 
conceal the first, any more than coarse 
and mean apparel the second. But gro- 
velling colloquial phrase, in numbers in- 
harmonious ; verse that gives no picture 
to the reader's eye, no light to his un- 
derstanding, no magnet to his affections, 
is, as composition, no more deserving 
his praise, than coarse forms and features 
in a beggar's raiment are worth his at- 
tention. Yet are there critics who seem 
to mistake the squalid dress of language 
for poetic excellence, provided the verse 
and its mean garb be ancient. 

Of that number seems Mr. Pinkerton, 
in some of his notes to those old Scotish 
ballads which he published in 1781 ; and 
the late Mr. Headly more than so seems 
in that collection of ancient English 
ballads, which he soon after gave to the 
press. We find there an idiot preference 
of the rude, and, in itself, valueless, 
foundation, on which Prior raised one of 
the loveliest poetic edifices in our lan- 
guage, the Henry and Emma. With 
equal insolence and stupidity, Mr. Headly 
terms it " Matt's versification Piece," 
extolling the imputed superiority of the 
worthless model. It is preferring a 
barber's block to the head of Anti- 
nous. 

Mr. Pinkerton, in his note to the el- 
dest Flowers of the Forest, calls it, very 
justly, an exquisite poetic dirge ; but, 
unfortunately for his decisions in praise 
of ancient above modern Scotish verse, 
he adds, *' The inimitable beauty of the 
original induced a variety of versifiers to 
mingle stanzas of their own composition ; 
but it is the painful, though necessary 
duty of an editor, by the touchstone of 
truth, to discriminate such dross from the 
gold of antiquity ;" and, in the not« to 



Sect. IV. 



R E C E N T. 



709 



that pathetic and truly beautiful elegy, 
Jjady BothwelFs Lament, he says the four 
stanzas he has given appear to be all that 
are genuine. It has since, as you ob- 
serve, been proved, that both the Fiod- 
den Dirges, even as he has given them, 
are modern. Their beauty was a touch- 
stone, as he expresses it, which might 
have shewn their younger birth to any 
critic, whose taste had not received the 
broad impression of that torpedo, anti- 
quarianism. 

You, with all your strength, origina- 
lity, and richness of imagination, had a 
slight touch of that torpedo, when you 
observed, that the manner of the ancient 
minstrels is so happily imitated in the first 
Flowers of the Forest, that it required 
the strongest positive evidence to con- 
vince you that the song was of modern 
date. The phraseology, indeed, is of 
their texture ; biit^ comparing it with 
the border ballads in your first volume, I 
should have pronounced it modern, from 
its so much more touching regrets, so 
much more lively pictures. 

Permit me too to confess, that I can 
discover very little of ail which consti- 
tutes poetry in the first old tale, which 
you call beautiful, excepting the second 
stanza, v/hich gives the unicorns at the 
gate, and the portraits, " with holly 
aboon their brie." To give them, no 
great reach of fancy was requisite ; but 
still they are picture, and, as such, 
poetry. 

Lord Maxwell's Good Night is but a 
sort of inventory in rhyme of his pro- 
perty, interspersed with some portion of 
tenderness for his wife, and some expres- 
sions of regard for his friends ; but the 
first has no picture, and the latter little 
pathos . That ballad induced me, by what 
appeared its deficiencies, to attempt a 
somewhat more poetic leave-taking of 
house, land, and live-stock. My ballad 
does not attempt the pathetic, and you 
will smile at my glossary Scotch. 

Mr. Erskine's supplemental stanzas to 
the poem, asserted to have b'een written 
by Collins on the Highland superstitions, 
have great merit, and no inferiority to 
those whose manner they assume. 

In the border ballads, the first strong 
rays from the Delphic orb illuminate 
Jellom Grame, in the 4th, 16th, 17th, 
18th, and 20th stanzas. There is a good 
corpse-picture in Clerk Saunders, the 
rude original, as you observe, of a ballad 



in Percy, whicli I have thought furnished 
Burger with the hint for his Leonore. 
How little delicate touches have improved 
this verse in Percy's imitation ! 

" O ! if I come within thy bower 
I am no mortal man ! 
And if I kiss thy rosy lip 
Thy days will not be loiig=^-." 

And now, in these border ballads, 
the dawn of poesy, which broke over 
Jellom Grame, strengthens on its pro- 
gress. Lord Thomas and fair Annie 
has more beauty than Percy's ballad of 
that title. It seems injudiciously al- 
tered from this in your collection ; but 
the Binnorie, of endless repetition, has 
nothing truly patheti* ; and the ludicrous 
use made of the drowned sister's body, 
by the harper making a harp of it, to 
which he sung her dirge in lier father's 
hail, is contemptible. 

Your dissertation precediijgTam Lane, 
in the second voiume, is a little mine of 
mythologic information and ingenious 
conjecture, however melancholy the 
proofs it gives of dark and cruel super- 
stition. Always partial to the fairies, I 
am charmed to learn tiiat Shakspeare 
civilised the elfins, and, so doing, endear- 
ed their memory on English ground. It 
is curious to find the Grecian Orpheus 
metamorphosed into a king of Winchel- 
sea. 

The Terrible Graces look through 
a couple of stanzas in the first part 
of Thomas the Rhymer, " O they 
rade on," &c. also, " It was mirk, 
mirk, night;" and potent are the poetic 
charms of the second part of this ora- 
cular ballad, which you confess to have 
been modernized; yet more potent in 
the third. Both of them exhibit tender 
touches of sentiment, vivid pictures, 
landscapes from nature, not from books, 
and all of them \Aorthy the author of 
Glenfinlas. 

" O tell me how to woo thee" is a 
pretty ballad of those times, in which it 
was the fashion for lovers to worship their 
mistresses, and when ballads, as you beau- 
tifully observe, reflected the setting rays 
of chivalry. Mr. Leyden's Cout Keelder 
pleases me much. The first is a sublime 
stanza, and sweet are the landscape- 
touches in the 3d, 10th, and 11th, and 
striking the winter simile in the 9th. 

* This stanza has no rhymes, but we do not 
miss them, so harmouious is the metre. — S. 



710 



ELEGANT E P 1 S T 1. E S. 



Book IV 



The picture of the fern is new in poetry, 
and to the aye, thus, 

" The next blast that young Keelder blew. 
The wind grew deadly still : 
Yet the sleek fern, with fingery leaves, 
Wav'd wildly o'er the hill." 

The " wee demon" is admirably ima- 
gined. 

And now the poetic day, which had 
gTadually risen into beauty and streiigth 
throug-h this second volume, sets nobly 
amidst the sombre yet often-iiluminated 
grandeur of Glenfinlas. 

Permit me to add one observation to 
this ah'eady long' epistle. The battle of 
Flodden-field, so disastrous to Scotland, 
has been, by two poetic females, beauti- 
fully mourned ; but your boasted James 
the Fourth deserved his fate, from the nn- 
g'enerous advantag-e he sought to take of 
Henry the Eighth, by breaking the peace, 
without provocation, when that monarch 
was engaged in a war with France. So 
deserve all the rulers of nations, who, 
imstimulated by recent injuries, thus un- 
clasp " the purple testament of bleeding- 
war." 

Perhaps this voluminous intrusion on 
your time will be thought merciless ; but 
it seemed to me that barren thanks, and 
indiscriminate praise, was an unworthy 
acknowledgment of the honour confer- 
red upon me by the gift of these highly 
curious and ingenious books. 

A bright luminary in this neighbour- 
hood recently shot from its sphere, with 
av.'ful and deplored suddenness — Dr. 
Darwin, on whose philosophical talents 
and dissertations, so ingeniously conjec- 
tural, the adepts in that science looked 
with admiring, if not always acquiescent 
respect ; in whose creative, gay, luxuri- 
ant, and polished imagination, and har- 
monious numbers, the votaries of poetry 
basked delighted ; and on whose discern- 
ment into the cause of diseases, and skill 
in curing them, his own and the neigh- 
bouring counties reposed. He w^as born 
to confute, by his example, a frequent 
assertion, that the poetic fancy loses its 
fine efflorescence after middle life. The 
Eoianic Garden, one of the most highly 
imaginative poems in our language, was 
begun after its author had ])assed his 
forty-siTvth year. I have the honour to 
remain, sir. Sec. 



LETTER CVIIL 

A'.ma Seivard to Miss Fern, 

L'.chfield, Feb. 7, 18J6, 
After a seven weeks' stay with mCy 
Mrs. Martin and her daughters are pre- 
paring to quit my roof for Mr. Hinck- 
ley's, and I trust you will hasten to re- 
sume your friendly influence over my 
many wants, and few solitary hours. 
My health and my heart have need of 
you. We will often resume lord Orford's 
letters, and bask in the sunshine of their 
spirit. 

Often have I seen strange contrarieties 
in the human soul ; never any which 
surprised me more than in that of our 
sometime Horace Walpole. His delight- 
ful letters have not only amused me in- 
finitely, but filled me with contrition for 
the long injustice which I had done to 
his heart, instigated by my indignation 
over his conduct to poor Chatterton, 
which excited so much general reproba- 
tion, and which certainly deprived the 
world of his glorious talents. 

I am now convinced, that lord Orford 
was no more answerable for that disas- 
trous event than is the man, who, by a 
random and inconsiderate shot, deprives 
an illustrious stranger of life ; and for 
the following reason : Lord Orford was 
an extraordinary instance of the possibi- 
lity of possessing the most brilliant wit 
and genuine humour, extensive know- 
ledge of history and of the belles lettres, 
witli a certain degree of poetic genius, 
elegant though not eminent ; all this 
witliout the least perception of the pa- 
thetic, or the sublime excellencies, either 
in prose or verse. 

This strange limitation of talents so 
considerable, this scarcely conceivable 
defect in the organization of his sensibi- 
lities, this miraculous separation of 
warmth of heart, of cordial sympathizing 
friendship, from any sympathy with ima- 
ginary Eori^ows, however consonant to 
truth, nature, and real life ! — ah ! what 
a phjenomenon in character do they pre- 
sent. 

At first view, it may seem scarcely less 
strange when I declare, that these con- 
tradictions, these defects in the feelings, 
this abortion in the talents of lord Or- 
ford, unfolding themselves in his epistles, 
have taught me to love and delight in 
the man, whom 1 had so long detested 



Sect. IV. 



RECENT. 



711 



for bis apparently unfeeling conduct to- 
wards the ill-starred Chatterton ; con- 
vinced, as I was, that it must have pro- 
ceeded from cold pride and induration 
of heart. 

On inspectiuff the recesses of his bo- 
som, disclosed in these fascinating let- 
ters, I find, that I might as justly have 
condemned a blind man for not distin- 
guishing colours, as the sometime Ho- 
race Walpole for not perceiving that the 
manifest deception, offered to his consi- 
deration, as poetic relics of antiquity, 
was replete with the noblest effusions of 
a creative and sublime genius that ever 
glowed in the fancy of opening youth ; 
that, compared with Milton's composi- 
tions at the same early age, their immense 
transcendency is apparent, and that Chat- 
terton stood unparalleled, not only by 
him, but by any child of sixteen that 
was ever born for the glory of human 
intellect ; that, with every cultivation 
which learnmg could bestow, no rose of 
the Pierian garden ever equalled this 
amaranth of the desert. 

Alas! it was not for the man, whose 
strangely tempered perceptions could 
feel none of the varied and matchless 
excellencies of the Clarissa and Grandi- 
son : and who could despise the most 
splendid metaphysic poem in any Ian- 
gauge (Akenside's Pleasures of Imagina- 
tion), to discern the grandeur of Chat- 
terton's muse. Her assumed antiquity 
was an evident, though most pardonable 
fraud. Lord Orford was disgusted by 
the fraud, while, to his narrow ideas of 
poetic excellence, the result appeared to 
be modern fustian, in the robe of an- 
cientiT. 

As to the admiration frequently ex- 
pressed in these letters, of Homer and 
Virgil, Pindar, Shakspeare, and ^Ill- 
ton, that was the poetic religion of his 
lordship's classic education. If Homer, 
Virgil, Pindar, Milton, and the tragic 
parts of Shakspeare's plays, had been 
first introduced to him in ripened life, 
and as recent compositions, I dare be 
sure they would have appeared heavy, 
tiresome, and bombastic. But for his 
early personal affection for Gray, so had 
he deemed of his inspirations. As it was, 
cold and scanty is the praise allotted 
to him in the letters of this celebrated 
commoner, and at length peer of the 
realm. 

lliough Akenside stands not an equal 



height with those pre-eminent bards, 
yet is his place of great elevation ; and 
he, who was not aware that it was ele- 
vated, was not likely to discern the ra- 
diance of the new Georgium Sidus in the 
poetic hemisphere. 

Then Richardson, whose prose has all 
the painting, the imagery, the dramatic 
spirit, and the pathetic powers of the 
best poetry ; what but pity remains for 
an ingenious man, who has pronounced 
the grand works of such a writer vapid 
and dull ! 

If I was shewn compositions, which I 
thought turgid as well as deceptive, and 
believed them the fabrication of a hack 
writer, I should advise him, as lord Or- 
ford did, to renounce the muses and mind 
his engrossing. Wonder, therefore, at 
defective taste, rather than condemna- 
tion for supposed cruelty, is all we 
have a right to feel on that unhappy 
theme. 

Of unwortliy pride, which I had im- 
puted to lord O. as adjunct to hardness 
of heart, his letters also acquit him. The 
solicitous attention and time which he 
bestowed upon that incorrigihly impru- 
dent and unstable draughtsman, Bentley, 
is acquittance positive on that head. So 
also his indulgent and constant friend- 
ship for Mrs. Clive, of comic memory, 
even after he became conscious that she 
drank, and could be provoked to swear 
like a trooper. Thus this brilliant mor- 
tal, whom I thought so haughty and 
heartless, comes out, as to benevolence, 
pure gold from this epistolary ordeal ; 
and I cordially remit to his affections 
the gross defects of his taste. 

Thus, during a little gleam of exemp- 
tive health, I have been induced to throv.' 
on paper, for your consideration, some 
of those reflections which my ever busy 
mind has recently revolved. If I could 
think less frequently, or more superfi- 
cially, it would probably be better for my 
impaired constitution. In youth, the 
energetic emplojTuent of the intellectual 
faculties strengthens and improves them, 
without injuring the bodily ones ; but 
mental, as well as corporal repose, is the 
necessary cradle of advanced life. My 
disorder produces much actual drowsi- 
ness ; that is in itself disorder. "Wlien 
I am awake, I cannot persuade my spirit 
to feed on the opiate themes of common- 
life occurrences. Adieu ! We shall soon, 
I trust, converse instead of correspond- 



712 



ELEGANT EP1§TLES. 



Book IV. 



ing, which is a much less pressure upon 
the fibres of the brain : it is then that 
we skirmish away with the rising ideas, 
even on abstract subjects, without in- 
tense investig-ation. 



FROM THE 
LETTERS OF BISHOP WAR BURTON. 



LETTER CIX. 

Mr. Warhurton to Mr. Hurd. 

Bedford-vow, October 28tl), 1749. 
Dear sir, 
I DEFERRED making" my acknowledg- 
ments for the favour of your last oblig- 
ing letter till I came to town. I am now 
got hither to spend the month of No- 
vember : the dreadful month of Novem- 
ber ! when the little wretches hang and 
drown themselves, and the great ones 

sell -themselves to the C and the 

devil. I should be glad if any occasion 
would bring you hither, that I might 
have the pleasure of waiting on you — 
I don't mean to the C and the de- 
vil, but in Bedford Row. Not that I 
would fright you from that earthly 

Pandemonium, a C , because I never 

go hither. On the contrary, I wish 
i could get you into the circle. For 
(with regard to you) I should be some- 
thing of the humour of honest Cornelius 
Agrippa, who, when he left off conjur- 
ing, and wrote of the vanity of the art, 
could not forbear to give receipts, and 
teach young novices the way to raise 
the devil. One method serves for both, 
and his political representatives are ren- 
dered tractable by the very same method, 
namely, fumigations. But these high 
mysteries you are unworthy to partake 
of. Ycu are no true son of Agrippa, 
who choose to waste your incense in 
raising the meagre spirit of friendship, 
when the wisdom of the prince of this 
world v.ould have inspired you with 
more proiitable sentimerits. 

Let me hear, at least, of your health ; 
and believe lliat no absence can lessen 
what the expressions of your good \v\\\ 
have made me, that is to say, xnvy much 
your servant. 

I have now put that volume, of Avhicli 



the epistle to Augustus is part, to the 
press ; so should be obliged to you to 
send it by your letter carrier, directed 
to Mr. Knapton, bookseller, in Ludgate- 
street. But you must be careful not to 
pay the carriage, because that will en- 
danger a miscarriage, as I have often 
experienced. — I intend to soften the 
conclusion of the note about Grotius 
and the archbishop, according to your 
friendly hint. 



LEITER CX, 

Mr. Hurd to Dr. Warhurton, 

Shifnal, September 13th, 1755v 
Your truly friendly letter, of the 31st 
past, brought me all the relief I am 
capable of in my present situation. Yet 
that relief had been greater, if the fact 
had been, as you suppose, that the best 
of fathers was removing from me, in 
this maturity of age, by a gradual in- 
sensible decay of nature ; in which case, 
I could have drawn to myself much 
ease from the considerations you so 
kindly suggest to me. But it is not 
his being out of all hope of recovery 
(which I had known long since, and 
was prepared for), but his being in per- 
petual pain, that afflicts me so much. 
I left him, last night, in this disconsolate 
condition. So near a prospect of death, 
and so rough a passage to it — I own to 
you I cannot be a wdtness of this, in one 
whom nature and ten thousand obliga- 
tions have made so dear to me, without 
the utmost uneasiness. Nay, I think the 
very temper and firmness of mind, with 
which he bears this calamity, sharpens 
my sense of it. I thank God, an attach- 
ment to this world has not as yet been 
among my greater vices. But were 
I as fond of it as prosperous and happy 
men sometimes are, what I have seen 
and felt for this last month were enough 
to mortify such foolish affections. And 
in truth it would amaze one, thatTa few 
such instances as this, which hardly any 
man is out of the reach of, [did not 
strike dead all the passions, were it not 
that Providence has determined, in spite 
of ourselves, by means of these instincts, 
to accomplish its own great purposes. 
But why do I trouble my best friend 
with this sad tale and rambling reflec- 
tions ? I designed onlv to tell him that 



Sect. IV. 



RECENT 



713 



I am quite unhappy here; and that, 
though it is more than time for me to 
return to Cambridge, I have no power 
of coming to a thought of leaving this 
place. However, a very few weeks, per- 
haps a few days, may put an end to this 
irresolution. 

1 thank you for your fine observa- 
tion on the neglect to reform the eccle- 
siastical laws. It is a very material 
one, and deserves to be well considered. 
But of these matters when I return 
to my books, and my mind is more 
easy. 

I wish you all the health and all the 
happiness your virtues deserve, and this 
wretched world will admit of. I know 
of nothing that reconciles me more to 
it than the sense of having such a fi-iend 
as you in it. I have the greatest obliga- 
tions to Mrs. Warburton and the rest of 
your family for their kind condolence. 
My best respects and sincerest good 
wishes attend them. I must ever be, &c. 

R.HURD. 



LETTER CXI. 

From the same to the same. 

Cambridsfe, Dec. 1, 1755. 
I HAVE to tell you, that it has pleased 
God to release my poor father from his 
great misery. You will guess the rest, 
when I acquaint you that his case was 
cancerous. All his family have great 
reason to be thankful for his deliver- 
ance : and yet I find myself not so well 
prepared for the stroke as 1 had thought. 
I blame myself now for having left him. 
Though when I was with him, as I could 
not hide my own uneasiness, I saw it 
only added to his. I know not what to 
say. He was the best of men in all re- 
lations, and had a generosity of mind 
that was amazing in his rank of life. 
In his long and great affliction he shew- 
ed a temper which philosophers only 
talk of. If he had any foible, it was, 
perhaps, his too great fondness for the 
un worthiest of his sons. — My mother is 
better than could be expected from her 
melancholy attendance. Yet her health 
has suffered by it. I have many letters 
to write, but would not omit communi- 
cating what so tenderly concerns me, to 
my best friend. 

I thank you for your book and your 



kind letters. Mr. Balguy and I think 
much more hardly of Jortin than you do. 
I could say much of this matter at an- 
other time. 



LETTER CXII. 

Dr. Warburton to Mr. Hurd. 

I OUGHT rather to rejoice with all, who 
loved that good man lately released, 
than to condole with them. Can there 
be a greater consolation to all his friends 
than that he was snatched from human 
miseries to the reward of his labours ? 
You I am sure must rejoice, amidst all 
the tenderness of filial piety and the 
softenings of natural affection; the 
gentle melancholy, that the incessant 
memory of so indulgent a parent and so 
excellent a man will make habitual ^ 
will be always brightened by the sense 
of his present happiness ; where, per- 
haps, one of his pleasures is his minister- 
ing care over those which were dearest 
to him in life. I dare say this will be 
your case, because the same circum- 
stances have made it mine My great 
concern for you was while your father 
was languishing on his death-bed. And 
my concern at present is for your mo- 
ther's grief and ill state of health. True 
tenderness for your father, and the dread 
of adding to his distresses, absolutely re- 
quired you to do what you did, and to 
retire from so melancholy a scene. 

As I know your excellent nature, 
I conjure you by our friendship to divert 
your mind by the conversation of your 
friends, and the amusement of trifling 
reading, till you have fortified it suffi- 
ciently to bear the reflection on this 
common calamity of our nature, without 
any other emotion than that occasioned 
by a kind of soothing melancholy, which 
perhaps keeps it in a better frame than 
any other kind of disposition. 

You see what man is, when never so 
little within the verge of matter ,and 
motion in a ferment. The affair of 
Lisbon has made men tremble, as well 
as the continent shake, from one end of 
Europe to another, from Gibraltar to 
the Highlands of Scotland. To suppose 
these desolations the scourge of Heaven 
for human impieties, is a dreadful re- 
flection ; and yet to suppose ourselves 
in a forlorn and fatherless world, is ten 



714 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



BaoK i\\ 



times a more frightful consideration. In 
the first case, we may reasonably hope 
to avoid our destruction by the amend- 
ment of our manners ; in the latter, we 
are kept incessantly alarmed by the blind 
rage of warring elements. 

The relation of the captain of a vessel, 
to the Admiralty, as Mr. Yorke told me 
the story, has something very striking in 
it. He lay off Lisbon on this fatal 1st 
of November, preparing to hoist sail for 
England. He looked towards the city 
in the morning, which gave the promise 
of a fine day, and saw that proud metro- 
polis rise above the waves, flourishing in 
wealth and plenty, and founded on a 
rock that promised a poet's eternity, at 
least, to its grandeur. He looked an 
hour after, and saw the city involved in 
flames, and sinking in thunder. A 
sight more awful mortal eyes could not 
behold on this side the day of doom. 
And yet does not human pride make us 
miscalculate ? A drunken beggar shall 
work as horrid a desolation , with a kick 
of his foot against an ant-hill, as sub- 
terraneous air and fermented minerals 
to a populous city. And if we take in 
the universe of things rather with a phi- 
losophic than a religious eye, where is 
the difi^erence in point of real importance 
between them ? A difl'erence there is, 
and a very sensible one, in the merit of 
the two societies. The little Troglo- 
dytes amass neither superfluous nor ima- 
ginary wealth ; and consequently have 
neither drones nor rogues amongst them. 
In the confusion, we see, caused by such 
a desolation, we find, by their immediate 
care to repair and remedy the general 
mischief, that none abandons himself to 
despair, and so stands not in need of 
bedlams and Coroners' inquests : but, as 
the poet says, 

** In this, 'tis God directs; in that, 'tis man." 

And you will say, remember the 
sovereignty of reason. To this I reply, 
that the common definition of man is 
false : he is not a reasoning animal. 
The best you can predicate of him is, 
that he is an animal capable of reason, 
and this too we take upon old tradition. 
For it has not been my fortune yet to 
meet, I won't say with any one man, but 
I may safely swear with any one order 
of men, who ever did reason. 



LETTER CXIIL 

Dr. Warhurton to Mr. Hurd. 

Grosvenor Square, Feb. 17, 1759. 
Though I do not altogether approve of 
your modest scheme for the furniture of 
your house, 1 altogether dislike your 
modest scheme for the future furniture 
of your mind. What you mention are 
indeed the necessaries of it; but not so 
much necessaries for yourself, as neces- 
saries for the public, and the foundation 
of erecting something lasting for their 
use. — Men are never so fond of mora- 
lizing as when they are ill at ease. I 
hope that is not your case. If it be, 
you wrong your friend, who has a right 
to know it, and to relieve it. 

I was in hopes that on coming to 
Leicester you would have had intelligence 
of your papers. As that is not the case, 
you ought immediately to advertise them, 
with a slight reward, as things of no use 
hut to the owner. 1 can say this, after 
twenty years' existence, of the sheets of 
the Divine Legation ; and sure you may 
say it of things not in esse but in posse. 
However, we will both hope they may be 
of use to posterity. Seriously, Dr. Birch 
tells me (for your loss makes much noise, 
so much does the malignity of men de- 
light in mischance), that 'tis very pro- 
bable the packet will be presently brought 
to you by such an advertisement. 

Weston, the son of the late bishop of 
Ex«ter, the present Gazetteer by pro- 
fession, by inclination a Methodist, and 
connected with Thomas and Sherlock, 
is writing against my conclusion of the 
Dedication to the Jews, concerning Na- 
turalization. It seems he wrote in de- 
fence of that biU. The father was tutor 
to Walpole, and the son is one of his 
pupils. I am afraid he will be a sharer 
in that silent contempt with which I treat 
my answerers. 

God bless you. You know it is the 
court phrase, speaking of some favourite 
chaplain, that he should be pushed. I 
know but of one parson that is capable 
of being pushed, and that is yourself : 
every body else I meet with are full 
ready to go of themselves. If you be 
sparing of your letters to me while I am 
in town, 1 will call you a niggard, for 
I am sure that will anger t)ie generosity 
of your nature most. 

I have a fine .addition to your note on 



Sect. IV. 



RECENT. 



^15 



Falkland and Walpole. If you have an 
opportunity, why should not you use it 
now ? The addition is occasioned by a 
silly thing said by Spence, in the Life of 
his Taylor, but whose consequences are 
not trifling. 

P. S. I am pleased that you are oblig- 
ed to be at Leicester, and with Mrs. 
Arnald, till the settled spring invites you 
to Thurcaston : or rather till your set- 
tled love of us brings you to London, to 
have one peep more at young Ascanius, 
and see, before inoculation, 

" Ecquid in antiquain virtutem animosque viriles 
Et pater JEneas et avunculus excitat Hector?^'' 



LETTER CXIV. 

J/r. Hurd to Dr. Warhurton . 

Thurcaston , August 26, A^'bS. 
Coming home this week from a short 
\isit to Mr. Mason and Mr. Wright, of 
Romely, I received your two favours of 
the 14th and 19th, together with the 
enclosed letter of Mr. Yorke ; which had 
the effect you kindly intended by it, to 
afford me much pleasure. It was im- 
possible not to sympathise with him in 
his pathetic lamentations for his late 
loss ; and not to esteem the vein of pious 
reflection with which he supports it. 
Humanity is but a poor thing at best ; 
but in certain situations is capable of 
becoming so wretched, that, let proud 
philosophy say what it will, it is not to 
be endured without the aids and hopes 
of religion. 

For his obliging compliment on the 
Dialogues, it was perhaps the more ac- 
ceptable, as the general opinion of them, 
as far as I can collect it, is not the most 
favourable. The Dialogues themselves, 
it is said, might pass, but for the notes 
and preface. It is true, I have heard of 
no good reason why tliis playful part of 
my book should be so particularly disre- 
lished. But there is no disputing about 
tastes ; and if such be that of the public, 
I have that deference for its decisions 
which Fenelon had for the Pope's, and 
Avill myself retract, that is, withdraw, 
them in another edition. WTiat parti- 
cularly pleases me in ^Iv. Yorke's com- 
pliment is, that he finds an extraordinary 
reach of thought in some passages. For 
it would have been mortifpng, indeed, 
if my pen had so far disguised the excel- 



lent hints you gave me for the two last 
Dialogues, as not to be taken notice of 
by a capable and attentive reader. 

The composition of the characters in 
lord Clarendon's Continuation is, as you 
truly observe, its chief fault : of which 
the following, I suppose, may be the 
reason. Besides that business, and age, 
and misfortunes had perhaps sunk his 
spirit, the Continuation is not so properly 
the History of the first six years of 
Charles the Second, as an anxious apo- 
logy for the share himself had in the ad- 
ministration. This has hurt the com- 
position in several respects. Amongst 
others, he could not with decency allow 
his pen that scope in his delineation of the 
chief characters of the court, who were all 
his personal enemies, as he had done in 
that of the enemies to the king and mo- 
narchy in the grand rebellion. The en- 
deavour to keep up a shew of candour, 
and especially to prevent the appearance 
of a rancorous resentment, has deadened 
his colouring very much, besides that it 
made him sparing in the use of it. Else, 
his inimitable pencil had attempted, at 
least, to do justice to Bennet, to Berke- 
ley, to Coventry, to the nightly Cabal of 
facetious memory, to the Lady, and, if his 
excessive loyalty had not intervened, to 
his infamous master himself. That 
there was somewhat of this in the case, 
seems clear from some passages where 
he was not so restrained ; such, for in- 
stance, as the additional touches to 
Falkland's and Southampton's charac 
ters. With aU this, I am apt to think 
there may still be something in what I 
said of the nature of the subject. Ex- 
quisite virtue and enormous vice afford 
a fine field for the historian's genius. 
And hence Livy and Tacitus are, in their 
way, perhaps, equally entertaining. But 
the little intrigues o^ a selfish court, 
about carrying or defeating this or that 
measure, about displacing this and bring- 
ing in that minister, which interest no- 
body very much but the parties con- 
cerned, can hardly be made very striking 
by any ability of the relator. If cardinal 
de Retz has succeeded, his scene was 
busier, and of another nature from that 
of lord Clarendon. But, however this be, 
and when all abatements are made, one 
finds the same gracious facility of ex- 
pression ; above all, one observes the 
same love of virtue and dignity of senti- 
ment, which ennobled tlie History of 



716 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



the Rebellion. And if this raises one's 
ideas most of the writer, the Continua- 
tion supports and confirms all that one 
was led to conceive of the man and the 
minister. 

I return Mr. Yorke's letter, hy this 
first return of the post, with many 
thanks ; and am ever, &c. 



LETTER CXV. 

Mr. Hurd to the Bishop of Gloucester. 

Thurcaston, March 4, 17G0, 

My lord, 
I HAD your favour of the 19th past, and 
about the same time received the con- 
firmation of Mr. Allen's recovery, under 
his own hand. I hope this fit is now 
over. But it affects me very much to 
think that the declining years of this 
good man are likely to be rendered so 
uneasy to him, as they must be, by the 
frequent returns of this disorder. 

Mrs. Warburton is always extremely 
kind. From a letter she did me the 
favour to write to me after her interview 
with Mrs. Johnson, I find she is intent 
on dignifying all your lordship's domes- 
tics, as well as your footmen. For 
whereas the chaplains of other bishops, 
and even Lambeth chaplains, are usually 
thrust, with the other lumber of the 
family, into any blind corner, she invites 
me to repose, in state, in the Abbot's 
apartment at Gloucester. You will 
judge, after this, if I can have the heart 
to say one word against the shoulder - 
knots. 

Your early intelligence of the success 
of Dr. Richardson was very obliging. 
I am glad of it, because I know it will 
make him very happy ; and because a 
piece of justice is done at last upon a 
man, who had no regard to the decency 
of his own character. 

Your lordship is always so good to me, 
that you will be pleased to hear of the 
health and usual cheerfulness of my mo- 
ther. She is in a disposition rather to 
beg your blessing than pay compliments. 
Though, to conceal nothing, I must tell 
you her infirmity, that she takes all bi- 
shops for such as she reads in her Bible 
they should be. So that 'tis only by ac- 
cident she does not misapply the vene- 
ration she professes for your lordship. 

I resolve to have your Sermon, though 



at the expense of sixpence ; which your 
lordship will consider as one argument, 
amongst others, of the regard with 
which I am ever, &c. 



LETTER CXVL 

The Bishop of Gloucester to Mr. Hurd. 
Grosvenor Square, March 31, 1760. 

I HAVE two kind letters of yours to ac- 
knowledge. 

I am extremely glad that good Mrs. 
Hurd enjoys reasonable health. Her 
mistake about bishops pleases me the 
more, as an excellent woman, like her- 
self (my mother), lived and died in this 
capital error. 

You ought not to have excepted my 
Sermon from the poverty of the press. 
And in the dusky road towards anti- 
quity, if it drew you aside by its glim- 
mering, you fared no better than many 
before you have done, who, in a bad 
light, have mistaken a glow-worm for a 
jewel. 

I am inclined to think that Mr. Allen 
is not likely to come to London this 
spring. For my part, I shall leave this 
place on the recess at Easter ; and, if he 
has laid aside the thoughts of his jour- 
ney, I shall not return, but take to the 
Bath waters ; the first trial I make for 
my old complaint of indigestion, after 
having tried every thing else to little 
purpose. 

Poor Mr. Towne rather goes backward 
than advances in his health. He talks 
of coming this spring to town for his 
health ; in which I think he judges 
right ; as little opinion as I have of the 
physical tribe. 



LETTER CXVn. 

Mr. Hurd to the Bishop of Gloucester. 

Thurcaston, June 22, 1760. 

Though your lordship can never come 
sooner to me than I wish, 1 confess the 
time of your moving northward is ear- 
lier than I expected. I should other- 
wise have made some inquiries after 
Mrs. Warburton's and my little friend's 
projected flight along with you, which 
I have been feeding upon in imagina- 
tion this good while, but which, I am 



Sect. IV. 



RECENT. 



717 



afraid, is now laid aside by your lord- 
ship's mentioning nothing at all of it. 
As there is now so little time to delibe- 
rate upon the matter, I will only say that 
I shall be at home and alone at the time 
you mention ; for I hope 1 need not say 
that my little house, with the best ac- 
commodations it can aflford, are always 
wholly at Mrs. Warburton and your 
lordship's service. 

The roads are so uncommonly good 
after this dry spring, that there will be 
no difficulty in coming hither in your 
chaise. However, my servant shall be 
in waiting for you at the Cranes, in Lei- 
cester, on Tuesday morning, either to 
shew you the best way for the carriage, or 
to have my horses ready, if your lordship 
should prefer riding. 

Remorseless death has cut down poor 
Chapman in the flower of his life and 
fortune. I knew him formerly very 
well. He was, in his nature, a vain 
and busy man. I found he had not 
virtue enough to prefer a long and valu- 
able friendship to the slightest, nay al- 
most to no prospect of interest. On 
which account I dropped him. But the 
rebuff he afterwards met with in the 
career of his ambition, might help, and 
I hope did, to detach his mind from the 
world, and to make him know himself 
better. — His preferments, I suppose, are 
flying different ways. An acquaintance 
of mine at St. John's is, I hear, besieg- 
ing the great man for his little govern- 
ment of Magdalen. 

I have only to add my humble service 
to Mrs. Warburton and the family, toge- 
ther with my best wishes for your lord- 
ship's good journey to Thurcaston ; 
which has long prided itself in having 
given birth to one good bishop, and 
will not be insensible to the honour of 
being visited by another. At least, I 
can answer for its rector, who is ever, 
with all devotion, &c. 



LETTER CXVin. 

The Bishop of Gloucester to Mr. Hurd. 

Prior Park, November 4, ITCO. 
I HAVE your kind letter of the 24th past, 
and would not leave this place without 
acknowledging it. I am going to look 
about me in this new world, but am in 
no more hurry than some older bishops 



are in their journey to one still newer. 
The settlement of the court and mini- 
stry is yet perhaps as little known to 
themselves as to us. All depends upon 
the disposition of a new king, who is 
always the darling of the people, and 
who suffer him to do all he pleases : as 
he grows stale, they suffer him to do 
nothing which they can hinder him 
from doing. 

I received a kind letter fi*om Mr. Yorke. 
He talks still of the chapter of accidents 
with regard to Lincoln's Inn. As we 
are turning over a new leaf, that chapter 
of accidents may be at the beginning'. 
They talk of changes in the law : but 
they, who talk, know just as much as 
you or L 

You shall hear from me again when 
I get to town, and have seen a little of 
the carte du pais. 

Mr. Allen and family follow me in a 
week or fortnight. He goes to renew 
his contract with the government. My 
wife, I fancy, will stay behind, the Bath 
waters being now very necessary for the 
perfect re-establishment of her health. 

Dr. Balguy is much recovered, and 
will leave Bath in a week or fortnight : 
but to return at spring. He goes to 
Winchester ; from thence to his mo- 
ther's : and from her, in March, back 
to Bath. His route lies near you. 

All here are tolerably well, and en- 
tirely yours. With what affection I am 
so, you know : with what effect, God 
knows. But his providence, which 
brought us together, will keep us toge- 
ther. For the rest, caliginosd node 
premit. 



LETTER CXIX. 

From the same to the same. 

Grosvenor Sqviare, Jan. 6, 1761. 
I AM here alone, and have been so this 
fortnight. But I have the satisfaction 
to tell you, that all the family are well 
at Prior Park, which I have the pleasure 
to believe is more agreeable to you to 
know, than any thing 1 could tell you 
from the great world ; that is, from this 
great congeries of vice and folly. 

Sherlock was much more to blame 
for not letting his chaplain understand 
early that he was a blockhead by birth, 
than the chaplain for not gi zing his 



718 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



master the late intelligence that his 
parts were decayed by time ; because 
the bishop, with all his infirmities of 
age, could see the one ; but his chaplain, 
at his best, could never find out the 
other. 

The Poem on the Death of a Lady 
I had communicated to me by lord Hol- 
derness. You may be sure I did not slip 
that opportunity of saying to the patron 
all that was fitting of the author and his 
poem. He considered what I said as 
flattering- to himself, for he acquainted 
our friend that he had shewn me the 
poem ; as I understand by a letter I 
have received from Aston, pretty much 
to the same purpose with the account 
I had from you of that matter. 

In asking after addresses'^, you ask 
after those ephemera, or water-flies, 
whose existence, the naturalists tell us, 
is comprised within the compass of a 
summer's day. Indeed, these winter- 
flies have a still shorter date. Into 
what dark regions mine is retired, with 
the rest, I don't know. But if you 
vrould amuse yourself with my thoughts, 
for sixpence you may have my Discourse 
on the Lord's Supper ; for, as small as the 
price is, it is too big to send you in my 
frank. 

On this occasion, I will tell you what 
(though perhaps I may have told it you 
before) I said in the drawing-room to a 
knot of courtiers in the old king's time. 
One chanced to say, he heard the king 
was not well. Hush, said colonel Ro- 
binson, it is not polite or decent to talk 
in this manner ; the king is always well 
and in health ; you are never to suppose 
that the diseases of his subjects ever ap- 
proach his royal person. I perceive then, 
colonel, replied I, there is some differ- 
ence between your master and mine. 
Mine was subject to all human infir- 
mities, sin excepted : yours is subject 
to none, sin excepted. But as concern- 
ing my Discourse, it is assuredly ortho- 
dox : so says the archbishop of Canter- 
bury ; and that I have demolished both 
Hoadly and Bossuet : for 

*' Tis the same rope at either end they twist." 

The archbishop did not say this, but 
Mr. Pope. However, the archbishop 
says, what you are likely enough to say 
after him— that the people, for whom 

* The Address of the Bishop and Clergy of 
the Diocese of Gloucester. — H. 



I intend this edition, are not likely to 
profit much by it. 

Decay of parts all must have, if not 
feel, poets as well as priests : and it ia 
true what Avas told you, that Voltaire 
has lately given evidence to this truth. 
What you say of this poet's turn would 
make an excellent note to — But, sage 
historians, 'tis your part, 5)^c. and perhaps 
shall do so. 

God bless you ; and, when you write 
next, let me know how your good mo- 
ther does ; that is, whether her health 
continues such as not to increase your 
cares and anxieties. 



LETTER CXX. 

Mr. Hurd to the Bishop of Gloucester. 

Thiu-caston, Dec. 25, 1761. 
Though I troubled your lordship with a 
letter not long since, yet you will per- 
haps excuse my appearing before you, 
at this time, with my Christmas saluta- 
tions : a good old custom, which shews 
our forefathers made a right use of the 
best tidings that ever came from Heaven ; 
I mean, tomcveB.se good-will toiuards men. 
Your lordship will take a guess, from 
the sermonic cast of this sentence, at 
my late employment. Though I am 
not likely to be called upon in this way, 
I know not what led me to try my 
hand at a popular sermon or two : I say 
popular, because the subjects and man- 
ner of handling are such, but not of the 
sort that are proper for my Leicester- 
shire peop/e. To what purpose I have 
taken this trouble, your lordship may 
one day understand. For you, who are 
my example and guide in these exercises, 
must also be my judge. If you blame, 
I may learn to write better : if you ap- 
prove, I shall require no other theatre. 
But when does your lordship think to 
instruct us on this head, in the address 
to your Clergy ? Certainly, the common 
way of sermonizing is most wretched : 
neither sense, nor eloquence ; reason, 
nor pathos. Even our better models 
are very defective. I have lately turned 
over Dr. Clarke's large collection, for 
the use of my parish ; and yet, with 
much altering, and many additions, 
I have been able to pick out no more 
than eight or ten that 1 could think 



Sect, IV. 



RECENT. 



719 



passable for that purpose. He is clear 
and happy enough in the explication of 
Scripture ; hut miserably cold and life- 
less ; no invention, no dignity, no force ; 
utterly incapable of enlarging- on a plain 
thought, or of striking out new ones : 
in short, much less of a genius than I had 
supposed him. 

'Tis well you have not my doings be- 
fore you, while I am taking this liberty 
with my betters. But, as I said, your 
lordship shall one day have it in your 
power to revenge this flippancy upon me. 

Your lordship has furnished me with a 
good part of my winter's entertainment, 
I mean by the books you recommended 
to me. I have read the Political Me- 
moirs of Abbe St. Pierre. I am much 
taken with the old man : honest and 
sensible ; full of his projects, and very 
fond of them ; an immortal enemy to 
the glory of Louis the XlVth, I suppose, 
in part, from the memory of his disgrace 
in the academy, which no Frenchman 
could ever forget ; in short, like our 
Burnet, of some importance to himself, 
and a great talker. These, I think, are 
the outlines of his character. I love him 
for his generous sentiments, which in a 
churchman of his communion are the 
more commendable, and indeed make 
amends for the lay -bigotry of Mr.Crevier. 

I have by accident got a sight of this 
mighty Fingal. I believe I mentioned 
my suspicions of the Fragments : they 
are ten-fold greater of this epic poem. 
To say nothing of the want of external 
evidence, or, which looks still worse, his 
shuffling over in such a manner the little 
evidence he pretends to give us, every 
page appears to me to afford internal 
evidence of forgery. His very citations 
of parallel passages hear against him. 
In poems of such rude antiquity, there 
might be some flashes of genius. But 
here they are continual, and clothed in 
very classical expression. Besides, no 
images, no sentiments, but what are 
matched in other writers, or may be 
accounted for from usages still subsist- 
ing, or well known from the story of 
other nations : in short, nothing but 
what the enlightened editor can well ex- 
plain himself. Above all, what are we 
to think of a long epic poem, disposed, 
in form, into six books, with a beginning, 
middle, and end, and enlivened, in the 
classic taste, with episodes ? Still this is 
nothing. What are we to think of a 



work of this length, preserved and handed 
down to us entire, by oral tradition, 
for 1400 years, without a chasm, or so 
much as a various reading, I should 
rather say, speaking ? Put all this toge- 
ther, and if Fingal be not a forgery 
convict, all I have to say is, that the 
sophists have a fine time of it. They 
may write, and lie on, with perfect se- 
curity. And yet has this prodigy of 
North-Britain set the world agape. 
Mr. Gray believes in it : and without 
doubt this Scotsman may persuade us, 
by the same arts, that Fingal is an ori- 
ginal poem, as another employed to 
prove that Milton was a plagiary. But 
let James Macpherson beware the con- 
sequence. Truth will out, they say, and 
then — 

" 2ui Bavium non odit, amel tua carmina, 
McevU' 

My dear lord, excuse this rhapsody, 
which I write currente calamo ; and let 
me hear that your lordship, Mrs. War- 
burton, and the dear boy, are perfectly 
well. I think to write by this post to 
Mr. Allen. 



LETTER CXXI. 

The Bishop of Gloucester to Mr. Hurd. 

Prior Park, Dec. 27, 1761. 
Let me wish you (as we all do) all the 
happiness that goodness can derive from 
this season. 

The honour this country derives from 
the duke of York's visit can hardly com- 
pensate the bad news of a Spanish war, 
which puts the city of London in a 
consternation. This event does honour 
to Mr. Pitt's sagacity, and the wisdom 
of his advice upon it. Whether this 
war, which was foreseen by nobody 
to be inevitable but by him, can be 
successfully managed by any body but 
by him, time must shew ; for I would 
not pretend to be wiser than our teach- 
ers, I mean, the news-writers, who refer 
all doubtful cases, as the Treasury does 
all desperate payments, to time. The 
best thing which time (since I wrote last) 
has brought to pass, is the advancement 
of Mr. Yorke to be attorney-general. I 
would have you, by all means, write him 
yo^ir compliments upon it ; for, with a 



720 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



high value, he has a great friendship for 
you. What you say of Hume is true : 
and (what either I said in my last, or 
intended to say) you have taught him to 
write so much better, that he has tho- 
roughly confirmed your system. 

I have been both too ill and too lazy 
to finish my discourse on the Holy Spirit. 
Not above half of it is yet printed. 

I have been extremely entertained 
with the wars of Fingal. It can be no 
cheat, for I think the enthusiasm of this 
specifical sublime could [hardly be coun- 
terfeit. A modern writer would have 
been less simple and uniform. — Thus far 
had I written when your letter of Christ- 
mas-day came to hand ; as you will easily 
understand by my submitting to take 
shame upon me, and assuring you, that 
I am fully convinced of my false opinion 
delivered just above concerning Fingal. 
I did not consider the matter as I ought. 
Your reasons for the forgery are unan- 
swerable. And of all these reasons, but 
one occured to me, the want of external 
evidence; and this, 1 own, did shock me. 
But you have waked me from a very 
pleasing dream ; and made me hate the 
impostor, which is the most uneasy sen- 
timent of our waking tlioughts. 

I am much pleased with what you tell 
me of a set of sermons ad populu7n, 
I mean to people of condition. For na- 
ture formed you for, and providence will 
bring you to, another theatre. Your 
judgment of Clarke is, like your other 
judgments of men, perfectly exact and 
true. 

I received a letter from Mason of the 
14th, and he tells me news — that your 
Letters on Chivalry are in the press ; 
and he desire^, when they come out, 
1 would send them to him in covers. 

Sterne has published his fifth and 
sixth volumes of Tristram. They are 
wrote pretty much like the first and se- 
cond ; but whether they will restore his 
reputation as a writer with the public, 
is another question. The fellow himself 
is an irrecoverable scoundrel. 

My Discourse on the Holy Spirit grows 
upon me, especially in the latter part 
about the Methodists, which is the part 
I could have wished would have grown 
the least. But a wen grows faster than 
sound flesh. I have yet printed off but 
72 pages. 

I think the booksellers have an inten- 
tion of employing Baskerville to print 



Pope in 4to. ; so they sent me the last 
octavo to look over. I have added the 
enclosed to the long note in the be- 
ginning of the Rape of the Lock, in 
answer to an impertinence of Joseph 
Warton. When you have perused it, 
you will send it back. 

I have sometimes thought of collect- 
ing my scattered anecdotes and critical 
observations together, for the founda- 
tion of a Life of Pope, which the book- 
sellers tease me for. If I do that, all 
of that kind must be struck out of the 
notes of that edition. You could help 
me nobly to fill up the canvass. 



LETfER CXXII. 

The Bishop of Gloucester to Mr. Hurd. 

Grosvenor Square, Nov. 24, 1762. 
My dear rector of Folkton*, 
This shall be only to remind you of what 
you may forget. 

Imprimis, your first fruits. Your friend 
Pearson has put me in mind of 
this. 
Item, Should you not write a letter of 
thanks to the chancellor, into whose 
favour you seem to have been much 
crept ? 
Item, Should you not write to the bi- 
shop of London, to thank him for his 
recommendation to his brothers. 
Item, Should you not write a letter of 
thanks to the archbishop of York ? I 
have sent you his letter enclosed. 
These, you will say, are like a tailor's 
items of stay-tape and canvass. But re- 
member, a coat cannot be made without 
them. I say nothing to you of the pub- 
lic. You are too much a philosopher to 
turn your eyes downwards on the dis- 
sensions of the great ; and 1 cannot 
dwell upon the subject with any satis- 
faction. I am afraid we are at the eve 
of much disturbance, and ready to ex- 
change a war abroad for one at home, 
less murderous, but more calumniating. 
We have long prayed to be delivered 
irom our enemies ; I wish the archbishop 

* The sine cure rectory of Folkton, near 
Hunmanby, E. R. of Yorkshire* vacated by 
the translation of Dr. Osbaldiston from Car- 
lisle to London, and given me by the chan- 
cellor, lord Northington, at tUe request of 
Mr .Allen. -H. 



Sect. IV. 



RECENT. 



^21 



could hit upon an efficacious form of 
prayer, to be delivered from ourselves. 
God bless you, and preserve the peace 
at Thurcaston, and in all its borders ! 



LETTER CXXni. 

Mr. Hurd to the Bishop of Gloucester. 

Thurcaston, Feb. 10, 1763. 
I THANK God that I can now, with some 
assurance, congratulate with myself on 
the prospect of your lordship's safe and 
speedy recovery from your sad disaster *. 

Mrs. Warburton's last letter was a 
cordial to me ; and, as the ceasing of 
intense pain, so this abatement of the 
fears I have been tormented with for 
three or four days past, gives a certain 
alacrity to my spirits, of which your 
lordship may look to feel the eflfects in 
a long letter. 

And now supposing, as 1 trust 1 may 
do, that your lordship will be in no great 
pain when you receive this letter, I am 
tempted to begin, as friends usually do 
when such accidents befal, with my 
reprehensions, rather than condolence. 
I have often wondered why your lordship 
should not use a cane in your walks, 
which might haply have prevented this 
misfortune ; especially considering that 
Heaven, I suppose the better to keep its 
sons in some sort of equality, has thought 
fit to make your outward sight by many 
degrees less perfect than your inward. 
Even I, a young and stout son of the 
church, rarely trust my firm steps into 
my garden, without some support of this 
kind. How improvident, then, was it in 
a father of the church to commit his 
unsteadfast footing to this hazard ! Not 
t<j insist, that a good pastoral staflF is 
the badge of your office, and, like a 
sceptre to a king, should be the constant 
appendage to a bishop. 

This, and such like remonstrances, in 
the style, though not, I hope, in the spi- 
rit of Job's comforters, I should be apt 
to make, if the moment were favourable, 
and I were now at your bed-side ; as 
I had been probably, ere this, if I could 
have found a supply for my two churches ; 
for the person I engaged in the summer 
is run away, as you will think natural 
enough, when I tell you, he was let out 

* Of breaking his left arm, by a fall in the 
garden-of Prior Park. — //. 



of gaol to be promoted to this service. 
But time and patience bring an end of 
all our distresses. I am at last promised 
a resident curate from Cambridge, but 
am to wait for him till after the Lent 
ordination. 

I have this day a letter from Mr. Ma- 
son, who promises to call here next 
week in his way to London. He speaks 
in high admiration of your late books, 
especially of the part against Wesley. 
I hope, by the time he comes, to have 
another letter from Prior Park, and so 
to be able still more authentically to re- 
lieve his concern for the ill news I have 
to tell him. 

Since Sunday last, I have been able to 
think of nothing with satisfaction. 1 
shall now return, with some composure, 
to my books, and the finishing my two 
Dialogues on Travelling, or, as they 
almost pretend to be called, on Educa- 
tion. I have taken the greater pleasure 
in composing them, from the fancy that 
they may one day be of some use to my 
friend Ralph. And to tliis end I con- 
fess I have the ambition to have these 
papers pass through the hands of Mrs. 
Warburton; and if I may presume so 
far, to make a convert of her to my 
party ; for at present I should not think 
it strange if she inclined to think favour- 
ably of so prevailing a practice. I have 
even that confidence in the goodness of 
my cause, that I should not be displeased 
if, in the mean time, she saw what Rous- 
seau, who is fashionable in this part of 
his scheme, has to say in defence of this 
custom. In particular, I could wish to 
know what she thinks of the ingenious 
expedient of making Emilius fall despe- 
rately in love, before he sets out on 
his travels. It looks as if he took a 
mistress to be as necessary to a modern 
traveller as to an ancient knight errant. 
But does she conceive that this would 
be an adviseable experiment to be made, 
in due time, on her son ; that he would 
or ought to go abroad in these circum- 
stances, or that any good could come of 
it, if he did? I mean, though Rousseau 
himself, or another Mentor, should take 
the charge of the voyage. I take this 
violent machine of a love fit to be, in 
effect, a confession that no human means 
can be thought of to make this early 
travel of boys, for the purpose of educa- 
tion, either safe or useful. But I have 
a hundred other objections, of which, as 
3 A 



722 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



KooK iV. 



I said, I consent that Mrs. Warburton 
shall he the judge, if she will do me the 
honour to peruse these papers, and to 
moderate, as her good sense will well 
enable her to do, hetween Mr, Locke 
and lord Shaftesbury. 

But to return to your lordship, whom 
I have left too long. Your continuance 
in bed is now, I hope, the most uneasy 
circumstance to be apprehended. It 
were well if you had the faculty of slum- 
bering, which Pope celebrates in some 
prelates ; or that you had the knack of 
dreaming awake, as might be said to 
the honour of some others. In either 
case, the time might pass away some- 
what comfortably in your confinement. 
But in defect of these two remedies, 
which you cannot have, it may serve, 
for the time at least, to divert your 
thoughts, to cast your eye on this long 
letter. This is my best excuse for 
troubling you at this rate ; and, now 
the secret is out, it is fit I take my leave 
as speedily as I can, with assuring you 
only of my constant prayers and best 
wishes for your lordship, and of the in- 
violable affection with which I must be 
ever, &c. 

LETTER CXXIV. 

The Bishop of Gloucester to Mr. Hurd. 

Grosvenor Square, March, 1763. 
My dearest friend. 
You say true, 1 have a tenderness in my 
temper which will make me miss poor 
Stukeley ; for, not to say that he was 
one of my oldest acquaintance, there 
was in him such a mixture of simplicity, 
drollery, absurdity, ingenuity, supersti- 
tion, and antiquarianism, that he often 
afforded me that kind of well-seasoned 
repast, which the French call an ambigu, 
I suppose from a compound of things 
never meant to meet together. I have 
often heard him laughed at by fools, 
who had neither his sense, his know- 
ledge, nor his honesty ; though, it must 
be confessed, that in him they were all 
strangely travestied. Not a week before 
his death, he walked from Bloomsbury 
to Grosvenor Square, to pay me a visit : 
was cheerful as usual, and as full of lite- 
rary projects. But his business was (as 
he heard Geekie was not likely to con- 
tinue long) to desire I would give him 
the earliest notice of his death, for tliat 



he intended to solicit for his prebend of 
Canterbury, by lord Chancellor and lord 
Cardigan. " For," added he, " one never 
dies the sooner, you know, for seeking 
preferment." 

You have had a curiosity, v/hich I 
never shall have, of reading Leland's Se- 
cond Thoughts. I believe what you say ; 
they are as nonsensical as his first. 

It is as you say of Percy's Ballads. 
Pray is this the man who wrote about 
the Chinese ? Antiquarianism is, in- 
deed, to true letters, what specious fun- 
guses are to the oak ; which never shoot 
out and flourish till all the vigour and 
virtue of that monarch of the grove be 
effete, and near exhausted. 

I envy the meeting of you three at 
Thurcaston : while I am confined here 
to the assemblies of pride and dulness. 

I did mention to you, I think, the in- 
sult committed on the head of the su- 
preme court of justice. The abuse was 
extreme, and much felt ; generally re- 
sented, but I believe by nobody more 
than by me, as you will see by the en- 
closed. I have made what I had to 
say, on that head, the conclusion of my 
dedication ^^ It will please neither party. 
I was born to please no party. But 
what of that ? In matters of moral con- 
duct it is every honest man's chief con- 
cern to please himself. 

P. S. When you have done with it, 
send it back. 



LETTER CXXV. 

Prom the same to the same. 

Februaiy, 1767. 

My dear friend, 
I KNEW you to be a wise man ; but not 
so wise as I find you ; and therefore two 
or three days ago I wrote you a letter, 
directed to your chambers in Lincoln's 
Inn, which 1 suppose they will send you. 
You have done perfectly right in dele- 
gating Lincoln's Inn, this term, to your 
assistant. Millar has just left me ; and 
I have ordered him to write to Cadell, 
to send you a copy of the Sermons into 
Leicestershire. 

I shall put off my journey to Gloucester, 
and visitation, to suit your leisure. I 
am now thinking more seriously of my 

* To lord Mansaeld.— //. 



Sect. IV. 



RECENT. 



72: 



last volume of the Divine Legation, and 
my mornings at present are amused 
with it. I have given a keij to some 
material things in it, in one of these 
sermons ; and some dissertations in 
others, that vriil be resumed when I 
publish (if I live to publish it) the last 
volume of that work. In the mean time, 
nothing can do me more honour than 
what you say of your sermonizing. 

With regard to the many Harmonies 
— I have used none, nor read any : but 
I imagine that Le Clerc's and Toinard's 
must be the best ; the last of which 
Mr. Locke speaks highly of. 

As to our friend Balguy, I not long 
since received a letter from him from 
Cambridge, where he proposed to spend 
the Christmas with his friend, the master 
of St. John's. From whence, when he 
heard that you was come to town, he 
intended to go up, and spend the rest 
of the winter there on a trial ; so that, if 
it agreed with him, he would spend 
every winter there. He mentioned no- 
thing of the state of his health, further 
than what he had told me at Bath, at 
the latter end of the year, that he was 
of late afflicted with an asthma, and 
that the air at Winchester was too sharp 
for him. 

P. S. In applauding your wisdom, 
I forgot all my selfishness. But, where 
a whole letter is free from it, it may be 
allowed to appear in a postscript. Your 
absence will be a great mortification, as 
well as loss to us both. 



LETTER CXXVJ. 

From the same to the same. 

Prior Park, Feb. 24. 1768. 
I AM glad to understand, by yours of the 
19th, that Thurcaston promises to set 
you right in your health. 

I do intend to write to the two chiefs 
in a little time. Instead of 400/. I have 
destined 500/. for this business ; think- 
ing, on reflection, that 400/. would be 
too scanty for the purpose. The 500/. 
being in 4 per cent, annuities, will al- 
ways bear that interest. The course 
four years, if three sermons a year ; or 
three years, if four sermons. So much 
for that matter at present. I hope, 
that not only my Lecture, but yourself, 
will be benefited, in reputation at least, 



by its commencing with you. Nor will 
you be hurried ; for, at soonest, it will 
not begin till after the next long vaca- 
tion, or with the new year. 

You talk (and well) of your n olden as:e 
of study, long past. For myself, I can 
only say, I have the same appetite for 
knowledge and learned converse I ever 
had ; though not the same appetite for 
writing and printing. It is time to be- 
gin to live for myself; 1 have lived for 
others longer than they have deserved 
of me. I have had, from Dr. Balguy, a 
curious letter of what passed in the house 
of commons, on sir George Say lie's mo- 
tion for bringing in his bill for limiting 
the rights of the crown, hj prescription. 
He was supported admirably well by our 
friend, who, mentioning the case of the 
duke of Portland (indeed the occasion 
of the motion), was answered, as to that 
point, by Norton, with a challenge to 
debate it then, or elsewhere ; and, in a 
manner, according to his wont, a little 
brutaUy, though of the same side, as to 
the main question of subjecting the 
crown to the prescriptive laws of society. 
The truth was, that Norton, when at- 
torney-general, had approved of, and 
ad\-ised the court measure against the 
duke of Portland. The opposition lost 
the motion, but by a very small majority, 
of 134 against 11 4. 

Two or three posts ago 1 received a 
letter from Mr. Yorke, in which are 
these words : — " Mr. Hurd is retiring to 
his hermitage, till Easter term : Mrs. 
Yorke is become an attentive and admir- 
ing hearer of him. Her good works 
must supply my defects.'" — As yours 
now supply mine in that place. 

LETTER CXXVIi. 

Dr. Hurd to the Bishop of Gloucester. 

Thurcaston, July IS, I76S. 
I WAS extremely happy, my dear lord, to 
find three of your kind letters, on my 
return to this place. I shall take them 
in the order of their dates. 

That of the 5th, which contains the 
transcript to Mr. Yorke, has so much 
of yourself in every word, that I cannot 
but be tenderly afi'ected by it. Your 
lordship knows how to work up an 
ideal picture in such a way as is likelv 
to make it very acceptable to Ih.c party 
to whom it was presented. 
3A2 



724 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



liOOK IV. 



1 am glad to find that the Life of 
Petrarch did not disappoint your expec- 
tations. I must, at my leisure, look 
over these three volumes. 

Your short note of the 6th calls upon 
me to wish you joy of having put the 
last hand to your generous and pious 
donation. Mr. Yorke, I suppose, will 
soon notify to me my appointment to 
be your first preacher. 'Tis true, as 
you say, my own ease will be sacrificed 
to the occasion ; but that sacrifice would 
be well made, if I could hope to answer 
your design in any tolerable degree, and 
to support the honour of your Lecture ; 
which last will very much depend on this 
first essay. I can only assure you of 
my best endeavours to do both. I think 
I may promise not to disgrace your in- 
stitution by any extravagancies at setting 
-out: and this caution, on such a sub- 
ject, and in such times, may not be 
without its merit. 

I now come to your favour of the 10th. 
The compliment from the University to 
our friend was out of the common 
forms : but his services to the body have 
been uncommonly great, and the sweet- 
ness of his manners makes him very 
popular. 

Little Wat was sent back without a 
degree. The professor advised him to 
try his fortune again at Oxford, rather 
than return to Cambridge, as he talked 
of doing next term. He even told him, 
that success at Cambridge would not 
wipe oflF the dishonour of this rejection 
by his own university. The advice was 
good ; but the keen atmosph-ere of Oxford 
may not agree with his constitution. 
It is well, if he has no better reason for 
taking this degree, than one of the half 
dozen pleasant ones you invent for him. 
I think it certain the two Sisters will act 
in concert on this occasion. 

Poor Dr. At well's death throws a 
good living into the hands of Mr. Mason 
(for his late curate, Upton, told me it 
was capable of great improvement), and 
will, I hope, restore peace to the chapter 
of Gloucester. He was a man of sense 
and learning ; but had a turn of mind 
too busy, and a temper too acrimonious, 
for his own ease, or that of others, with 
whom he had any near connection. — 
Whom does your lordship think of mak- 
ing rural dean in Stow deanery ? 

I thank you, my dear lord, for your 
congratulations on my advancement to 



the doctorate ; though 1 doubt it will 
seem a little incongruous in me to com- 
bat the scarlet whore in her own vest- 
ments. This did not Joseph Mede ; 
who should have been my example in 
every thing. But your lordship is too 
reasonable to expect either the talents 
or the modestly of that incomparable man, 
in your little adventurer against Babylon. 
After all, if I am defective in this qua- 
lity, you must, in part, ascribe it to 
yourself, who have contributed so much 
to make me vainer than I ought to be : 
witness what you say of your portico- 
reading, in the close of this letter which 
I am now answering. But you sufiFer, 
I doubt, for your complaisance : for was 
not the rheumatic pain, you complain 
of, the fruit of regaling over my Anti' 
Leland in fresco ? 

Accept my best wishes for yourself, 
and for those who are so dear to you at 
Prior Park and at Claverton; and be- 
lieve me to have the fideliti/ you so kindly 
ascribe to your ever affectionate 

R. HURD. 



LETTER CXXVIII. 

The Bishop of Gloucester to Mr. Hurd. 

Prior Park, Dec. 26, 17G8. 

My dearest friend. 
You make me very happy in your assur- 
ance to me of your perfect recovery. 
Had I lived in the time of Tully, and in 
his friendship, as I live in yours, I should 
have sacrificed to iEsculapius in behalf 
of your honest and skilful surgeon. 

You give me equal satisfaction in the 
promise you make, of never declining me 
nor my friendship, when it is convenient 
or useful to you. 

A bishop *, more or less, in this world, 
is nothing ; and perhaps of as small ac- 
count in the next. 1 used to despise 
him for his antiquarianism ; but of late, 
since I grew old and dull myself, I cul- 
tivated an acquaintance with him for 
the sake of what formerly kept us asun- 
der. Had he lived a little longer, I 
should have been capable of succeeding 
him in the high station of his president- 
ship. We laugh at the wrong heads we 
neither care for, nor have to do with ; 
but it is otherwise when our friends are 
struck with this malady. It seems poor 

* Bishop of Carlisle, Dr. Lyfctelton.— H. 



Sect. IV. 



RECENT. 



725 



Towne thought my silence (which was 
so short that I did not advert to it) was 
mysterious ; so he wrote me the en- 
closed ; which, together with my answer 
on the blank, it is not worth while to 
send back. I took the liberty to men- 
tion your name ; for his theme wanted an 
example. 

Ralph is now at home, and taller, 
better, and wiser ; if not by some inches, 
yet by some lines. As to his learning, 
I leave that to his master, with the 
same implicit faith that a good catholic 
does his salvation to the church. 

You now only want our dear friend 
Dr. Balguy's company, which, if he be 
a man of his word, you will have, I sup- 
pose, in a few days, and then he will be 
assistant in our correspondence. 1 de- 
sire no larger a compass than you two 
will comprehend : the circle will not 
only be large, but perfect, while one leg 
is fixed, and the other always running. 
My dearest Mr. Hurd, ever yours, 

W. Gloucester. 



FROM THE LETTERS OF 
THE RT. HON. CHARLES JAMES FOX. 

LETTER CXXIX. 

From Mr, Fox to Mr. Wakefield. 

South Street, Dec. 17, 1796. 
Sir, 
I RECEIVED, a few days ago, your oblig- 
ing letter, together with the very beauti- 
ful book which accompanied it. The 
dedication of such an edition of such an 
author is highly gratifying to me ; and 
to be mentioned in such a manner, by a 
person so thoroughly attached to the^ 
principles of liberty and humanity, as 
you, sir, are known to be, is. peciQiarly 
flattering to me. I am, with great re- 
gard, sir, your obedient, humble ser- 
vant, C. J. Fox. 

LETTER CXXX. 

From the same to the same. 

St. Anne's Hill, Monday. 
Sir, 
I RECEIVED, on Saturday, the second 
volume of Lucretius, together Avith a 



pamphlet of yours upon Porson's Hecuba, 
for which I beg leave to return you 
my thanks. I had received, some time 
since, your letter, announcing to me the 
present of the Lucretius : but delayed 
answering it till I got the book, which 
my servant had not then an opportunity 
of sending me, lest there might be some 
mistake, from your mentioning Park 
Street, instead of South Street, for my 
residence. * -Jt * 

I feel it to be unpardonable in me to 
take advantage of your civility in sending 
me your books, to give you all this trou- 
ble ; but I could not refuse myself so fair 
an opportunity of getting my doubts 
upon these passages cleared. * * * 

I am, with great regard, sir, your 
most obedient servant, C. J. Fox. 



LETTER CXXXL 

From the same to the same. 



St. Anne's Hill, Friday. 



Sir, 



1 RECEIVED yesterday your very obliging 
letter, for which I return you many 
thanks, as well as for the Bion and 
Moschus, which I will tell ray servant 
to take an early opportunity of sending 
down to me. * * * 

I am very sorry more encouragement 
has not been given to your Lucretius ; 
but I am willing to flatter myself, that 
it is owing to many people not choosing 
to buy part of a work till the whole is 
completed. Both the Latin and Greek 
elegiac verses, in the beginning of the se- 
cond volume, have given me great satis- 
faction ; but I should fear the inferior 
rank which you give to our own country 
wiU not generally please ; and certainly, 
in point of classical studies, or poetry, 
to which the mention of Apollo naturally 
carries the mind, we have no reason to 
place the French above us. I am with 
great regard, sir, your obedient servant, 
C. J. Fox. 



LETTER CXXXn. 

From the same to the same. 
St. Anne's Hill, Tuesday, Jan. 30, 1798. 
Sir. 
I HAVE received the third volume of 
your magnificent and beautiful Lucre- 
tius, for which I take the earliest oppor- 



726 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



tunity of returning you my thanks. I 
cannot help flattering' myself, that, now 
the work is complete, it will be far 
more patronized than it has hitherto 
been : but, it must be alloAved, that these 
times are not favourable to expensive 
purchases of any kind ; and I fear, also, 
that we may add, that the political opi- 
nions we profess are far from being a re- 
commendrition to general favour, among 
those, at least, in whose power it is to 
patronize a work like yours. 

I am at present rather engaged in 
reading Greek ; as it is my wish to re- 
cover, at least, if not to improve, my 
former acquaintance (which was but 
slight) with that language : but it will 
not be long before I enter regularly 
upon your Lucretius ; and when 1 do, 
if I should find any difficulties which 
your notes do not smooth, I shall take 
the liberty of troubling you for further 
information ; presuming upon the oblig- 
ing manner in which you satisfied some 
doubts of mine, upon a former occasion. 
I am, with great regard, sir, your obe- 
dient servant, C. J. Fox. 

LETTER CXXXin. 

From Mr. Fox to Mr. Wakefield. 



St. Anne's Hill. Feb. 2,1798. 



Sir, 



It is an instance of my forgetfulness, 
but 1 really thought I had acknowledged 
the receipt of the publications which 
you were so good as to send me. Ex- 
cepting the Pope, which I have not yet 
looked into, I read the rest with great 
pleasure ; and quite agree with you, 
that Bryant has made no case at all upon 
the subject of the Trojan war. I can- 
not refuse myself taking this opportu- 
nity of asking your opinion relative to 
the 24th Iliad, whether or not it is 
Homer's ? If it is, I think the passage 
about Paris and the Goddesses must be 
an interpolation : and if it is not, by de- 
nying Homer the glory of Priam's expe- 
dition from Troy, and interview with 
Achilles, we take from him the most 
shining passages, perhaps, in all his 
works. I am, sir, your obedient humble 
servant, C. J. Fox. 

P. S. Though I have not begun to 
read Lucretius regularly, yet I have 
dipped in it sufficiently to have no ap- 



prehension of quoting the line of Phae- 
drus. I think the elegiac verses to the 
poet are very classical and elegant in- 
deed ; and, you know, we Etonians hold 
ourselves (I do not know whether or not 
others agree with us) of some authority, 
in matters of this sort. 



LETTER CXXXIV. 

From the same to the same. 



St. Anne's Hill, Feb. 16, 1798. 



Sir, 



I SHOULD have been exceedingly sorry, 
if, in all the circumstances you mention, 
you had given yourself the trouble of 
writing me your thoughts upon Homer's 
poetry ; indeed, in no circumstances, 
should I have been indiscreet enough to 
make a request so exorbitant : in the 
present, I should be concerned if you 
were to think of attending even to my 
limited question, respecting the authen- 
ticity of the 24th Iliad, or to any thing 
but your own business. 

I am sorry your work is to be pro- 
secuted ; because, though 1 have no 
doubt of a prosecution failing, yet I fear 
it may be very troublesome to you. If, 
either by advice or otherwise, I can be of 
any service to you, it will make me very 
happy ; and I beg you to make no scruple 
about applying to me : but I do not 
foresee that I can, in any shape, be of 
any use, unless it should be in pressing • 
others, whom you may think fit to con- 
sult, to give every degree of attention to 
your cause. I suppose there can be 
little or no difficulty in removing, as 
you wish it, the difficulty from the pub- 
lisher to yourself; for to prosecute a 
printer, who is willing to give up his 
author, would be a very unusual, and 
certainly a very odious, measure. 

1 have looked at the three passages 
you mention, and am much pleased with 
them: I think " curalium," in particu- 
lar, a very happy conjecture ; for neither 
" cceruleum" nor " beryllum" can, I 
think, be right ; and there certainly is 
a tinge of red in the necks of some of 
the dove species. After all, the Latin 
words for colours are very puzzling : for, 
not to mention " purpura," which is 
evidently applied to three different co- 
lours at least — scarlet, porphyry, and 
what we call purple, that is, amethyst, 
and possibly to many others — the chapter 



Sbct. IV. 



RECENT. 



727 



of Aulus Gellius, to which you refer, 
has always appeared to me to create 
many more difficulties than it removes ; 
and most especially that passage which 
you quote, " virides equos." I can con- 
ceive that a poet might call a horse 
" viridis," though I should think the 
term rather forced ; but Aulus Gellius 
says, that Virgil gives the appellation of 
" glauci," rather than " coerulei," to the 
virides equos, and consequently uses vi- 
rides, not as if it were a poetical or figu- 
rative way of describing a certain colour 
of horses, but as if it were the usual and 
most generally intelligible term. Now, 
what colour usual to horses could be 
called viridis, is diflScult to conceive ; and 
the more so, because there are no other 
Latin and English words for colours 
which we have such good grounds for 
supposing corresponding- one to the other 
as viridis andgreew, on account of grass, 
trees, &c. &c. However, these are points 
which may be discussed by us, as you 
say, at leisure, if the system of tyranny 
should proceed to its maturity. Whe- 
ther it will or not, 1 know not ; but, if 
it should, sure 1 am, that to have so cul- 
tivated literature as to have laid up a 
store of consolation and amusement, 
will be, in such an event, the greatest 
advantage (next to a good conscience) 
•which one man can have over another. 
My judgment, as well as my wishes, 
leads me to think, that we shall not ex- 
perience such dreadful times as you 
suppose possible ; but, if we do not, 
what has passed in Ireland is a proof, 
that it is not to the moderation of our 
governors that we shall be indebted for 
whatever portion of ease or liberty may 
be left us. I am, sir, youi most obedient 
servant, C. J. Fox. 



LETTER CXXXV. 

From the same to the same. 



St. Anne's Hili, Feb. 23, 1798. 



Sir, 



Nothing, but your stating yourself to 
be in some degree at leisure now, could 
justify my troubling you with the long, 
and, perhaps, unintelligible scrawl which 
I send with this. I most probably have 
shewn much ignorance, and certainly 
some presumption, in seeming to dis- 
pute with you, upon points of which 
you know so much, and 1 so little : all 



I can say in my defence is, that disput- 
ing is sometimes a way of learning. 

I have not said any thing yet upon 
the question which you seem to have 
thought most upon — whether the Iliad 
is the work of one, or more authors? 
I have, for the sake of argument, ad- 
mitted it ; but yet, I own, I have great 
doubts, and even lean to an opinion dif- 
ferent from yours. I am sure the in- 
equality of excellence is not greater than 
in " Paradise Lost," and many other 
poems written confessedly by one au- 
thor. I will own to you, also, that in 
one only of the instances of inequality 
which you state, I agree with you, Ath 
is detestable ; but I cannot think as you 
do, of the death of Hector. There are 
parts of that book, and those closely 
connected wdth the death of Hector, 
which I cannot help thinking equal to 
any thing. 

It is well for you that my paper is at 
an end, and that I have not the con- 
science to take a new sheet. Your hum- 
ble servant, C. J. Fox. 

LETTER CXXXVI. 

From the same to the same, 

St. Anne's Hili, March 16, 1798, 
Sir, 

* * * •* * ¥! ¥: 

I am very much concerned at your Lu- 
cretius meeting with so little encourage- 
ment as you say ; and 1 feel the more, 
because I cannot help thinking, that part 
of the prejudice, which occasions so un- 
accountable a neglect, is imputable to the 
honour you have done me by the dedica- 
tion of it — an honour, I assure you, that 
I shall always most highly value. I am, 
sir, yours ever, C. J. Fox. 

LETTER CXXXVII. 

From the same to the same. 



St. Anne's Hill, March 1, 1799. 



Sir 



Although 1 am wholly without any 
resources, even of advice, and much 
more of power, to offer you my services 
upon the present occasion, yet I cannot 
help troubling you with a few lines, to 
tell you how very sincerely concerned I 
am at the event of your trial. 

The liberty of the press I considered 



7^ 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



as virtually destroyed by the proceedings 
against Johnson and Jordan ; and what 
has happened to you I cannot but lament 
therefore the more, as the sufiferings of 
a man whom I esteem, in a cause that is 
no more. 

I have been reading your Lucretius, 
and have nearly finished the second vo- 
lume : it appears to me to be by far the 
best publication of any classical author : 
and if it is an objection with some per- 
sons, that the great richness and variety 
of quotation and criticism in the notes 
takes off, in some degree, the attention 
from the text, I am not one of those, 
who will ever complain of an editor for 
giving me too much instruction and 
amusement. I am, with great regard, 
and all possible good wishes, sir, your 
most obedient servant, C. J. Fox. 



LETTER CXXXVIII. 

Mr, Fox to Mr, Wakefield, 



Sir, 



St. Anne's Hill, June 9, 1799. 



Nothing could exceed the concern I 
felt at the extreme severity (for such it 
appears to me) of the sentence pro- 
nounced against you. 

I should be apprehensive, that the 
distance of Dorchester must add con- 
siderably to the difficulties of your situ- 
ation ; but should be very glad to learn 
from you that it is otherwise. 

If any of your friends can think of any 
plan for you, by which some of the con- 
sequences of your confinement may be in 
any degree lessened, I should be very 
happy to be in any way assisting in it. 
From some words that dropped from 
you, when I saw you, I rather under- 
stood that you did not feel much inclina- 
tion to apply to your usual studies in 
your present situation ; otherwise it had 
occurred to me, that some publication, 
on a less expensive plan than the Lucre- 
tius, and by subscription, might be eli- 
gible, for the purpose of diverting your 
mind, and for serving your family ; but 
of this you are the best judge : and all 
I can say is, that I shall always be happy 
to shew the esteem and regard with 
which I am, sir, your most obedient 
servant, C. J. Fox. 

Rev. Gii.BEUT Wakefield, 
King's Bench Prison. 



Sir, 



LETTER CXXXIX. 

From the sa?ne to the same. 

St Anne's Hill, June 10, 1799. 



Within a few hours after I wrote to 
you yesterday a gentleman called, who 
informed me, that a scheme had been 
formed for preventing some of the ill 
consequences of your imprisonment, and 
upon a much more eligible plan than 
that which I suggested. Of course, you 
will not think any more of what I said 
upon that subject ; only that, if you do 
employ yourself in writing during your 
confinement, my opinion is, that, in the 
present state of things, literature is, in 
every point of view, a preferable occu- 
pation to politics. 

I have looked at my Roman Virgil, 
and find that it is printed from the Me- 
dicean MS, as I supposed. The verses 
regarding Helen, in the second book, 
are printed in a different character, and 
stated to be wanting in the MS. Yours 
ever, C. J. Fox. 



LETTER CXL. 

From the same to the same. 



Sir, 



St. Anne's Hill, June 12, 1799. 



I RETURN you your friend's letter, which 
gave me great satisfaction. The sen- 
tence upon lord Thanet and Ferguson 
is, all things considered, most abomina- 
ble ; but the speech accompanying it is, 
if possible, worse. 

I think a Lexicon in Greek and Eng- 
lish is a work much wanted; and, if 
you can have patience to execute such a 
work, I shall consider it a great benefit 
to the cause of literature. I hope to 
hear from you, that your situation at 
Dorchester is not worse, at least, than 
you expected ; and when I know you 
to be in a state of perfect ease of mind 
(which at this moment could not be ex- 
pected), I will, with your leave, state to 
you a few observations, which I just 
hinted to you when I saw you, upon 
Person's note to his Orestes, regarding 
the final y. I am, with great regard, 
sir, yours evCr, C. J. Fox. 



Sect. IV. 



RECENT. 



729 



LETTER CXLI. 

From the same to the same, 

St. Anne's Hill, June 27, 1799. 
Sir, 
In consequence of a letter, which lord 
Holland shewed me, I have written to 
lord Shaftesbury and to lord Ilchester, 
who are both very humane men, and 
would, I should hope, be happy to do 
any thing that may make your situation 
less uneasy. I am, sir, yours ever, 

C.J. Fox. 



all events, it is a very pleasant and 
healthful exercise. My wound goes on, 
I believe, very well ; and no material 
injury is apprehended to the hand ; but 
the cure will be tedious, and 1 shall be 
confined in this town for more weeks 
than I had hoped ever to spend days 
here. I am much obliged to you for 
your inquiries, and am, sir, your most 



obedient servant, 



C. J. Fox. 



LETTER CXLIII. 

From the same to the same. 



LETTER CXLIl. 

From the same to the sajne. 

No. 11, Sackville Street, Sept. U, 1799. 
Sir^ 
I ASSURE you I take very kindly your 
letter, and the quotation in it*. I think 
the question of " How far field sports 
are innocent amusements," is nearly 
connected with another, upon which, 
from the title of one of your intended 
works, I suspect you entertain opinions 
rather singular ; for if it is lawful to 
kill tame animals, with whom one has a 
sort of acquaintance, such 2i% fowls, oxen, 
&c., it is still less repugnant to one's 
feelings to kill wild animals ; but then 
to make a pastime of it — I am aware 
there is something to be said upon this 
point. On the other hand, if example 
is allowed to be any thing, there is no- 
thing in which all mankind, civilised or 
savage, have more agreed than in mak- 
ing some sort of chase (for fishing is 
of the same nature) part of their busi- 
ness or amusement. However, 1 admit 
it to be a very questionable subject ; at 

* Mr. Wakefield, in the preceding letter (not 
inserted here) had expressed his notion that 
field sports, in the exercise of one of which 
Mr. F. had wounded his hand, were amuse- 
ments imworthy a man of letters ; and in con- 
firmation of it had quoted a passage from 
Cicero, in which that great man says, that in 
his secession from public life, and his disgust 
with men in power, he gave himself up neither 
to chagrin, nor to pleasures unworthy of a man 
of letters: indignis komine docto voluptatibus. 
Cicero speaks here, in general, of pleasures 
unworthy of a learned man ; but does not 
hint at field sports, or specify any sort of 
amusement in the passage quoted. It evinced 
gieat good temper in Mr. Fox not to shew any 
irritation at Mr. W.'s reflection upon him, 
which, to say the least of it, was apparently 
ill-mannered. 



Sir, 



St Anne's Hill, Oct 22, 1799. 



I BELIEVE I had best not continue the 
controversy about field sports ; or at 
least, if I do, I must have recourse, I 
believe, to authority and precedent, ra- 
ther than to argument ; and content 
myself with rather excusing than jus- 
tifying them. Cicero says, I believe, 
somewhere, "^ Si quem nihil delcctaret 
" nisi quod cum laude et dignitate con- 
" junctum foret, .... huic homini ego 
" fortasse, et pauci, Deos propitios, ple- 
" rique iratos putarent." But this is 
said, I am afraid, in defence of a liber- 
tine, whose public principles, when 
brought to the test, proved to be as 
unsound as his private life was irregular. 
By the way, I know no speech of Cice- 
ro's more full of beautiful passages than 
this is (pro M. Cselio), nor where he is 
more in his element. Argumentative 
contention is what he by no means ex- 
cels in ; and he is never, 1 think, so 
happy, as when he has an opportunity of 
exhibiting a mixture of philosophy and 
pleasantry ; and especially when he can 
interpose anecdotes, and references to 
the authority of the eminent characters 
in the history of his country. No man 
appears, indeed, to have had such real 
respect for authority as he ; and there- 
fore, when he speaks on that subject, he 
is always natural and in earnest ; and 
not like those among us, who are so 
often declaiming about the wisdom of 
our ancestors, without knowing what 
they mean, or hardly ever citing any 
particulars of their conduct, or of their 
dicta. 

1 shewed your proposed alteration in 
the Tristia to a very good judge, who 
approved of it very much. I confess, 
myself, that I like' the old reading best. 



730 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



and think it more in Ovid's manner; 
but this, perhaps, is mere fancy. 1 have 
always been a great reader of him, and 
thought myself the greatest admirer he 
had, till you called him the first poet of 
antiquity, which is going even beyond 
me. The grand and spirited style of the 
Iliad ; the true nature and simplicity of 
the Odyssey ; the poetical language (far 
excelling that of all other poets in the 
world) of the Georgics ; and the pathetic 
strokes in the JEneid, give Homer and 
Virgil a rank, in my judgment, clearly 
above all competitors ; but next, after 
them, I should be very apt to class Ovid, 
to the great scandal, I believe, of all who 
pique themselves upon what is called pu- 
rity of taste. You have somewhere com- 
pared him to Euripides, I think ; and 
I can fancy I see a resemblance in them. 
This resemblance it is, I suppose, which 
makes one prefer Euripides to Sopho- 
cles ; a preference which, if one were 
writing a dissertation, it would be very 
difficult to justify. * * * 

I cannot conceive upon what princi- 
ple, OP indeed from what motive, they 
hare so restricted the intercourse be- 
tween you and your family. My first 
impulse was, to write to lord Ilchester 
to speak to Mr. Erampton ; but, as you 
seem to suspect that former applications 
have done mischief, I shall do nothing. 
Did you, who are such a hater of war, 
ever read the lines at the beginning of 
the second book of Cowper's Task ? 
There are few things in our language 
superior to them, in my judgment. Be 
is a fine poet, and has, in a great degree, 
conquered my prejudices against blank 
verse. I am, with great regard, sir, 
your most obedient servant, 

C. J. Fox. 

My hand is not yet so well as to give 
me the use of it, though the wound is 
nearly healed. The surgeon suspects 
there is more bone to come away. I 
have been here something more than a 
fortnight. 

LETTER CXLIV. 

From Mr. Fox to Mr. Wakefield. 

St. Anne's Hill, April 5, 1801. 
Sir, 
I AM exceedingly concerned to hear of 
the loss you have sustained, as well as 



of the additional suffering which your 
family has experienced (as of course they 
must), from your separation from them 
during so trying a calamity. 

You mentioned to me, before, your 
notion of reading lectures upon the Clas- 
sics, but not as a point upon which you 
had fully determined. If I can be of 
any use in promoting your views, I will 
not fail to do so : for in proportion as 
classical studies are an enjoyment to 
myself (and they are certainly a very 
great one), I wish them to be diffused 
as widely as possible. ^ * ^' 

Yours ever, C. J. Fox. 

LETTER CXLV. 

From the same to the same. 



St. Anne's Hill, April 13, 1801 < 



Sir, 



I AM much obliged to you for your let- 
ter ; and found immediately, from Kus- 
ter's index, the passage in question. It 
is in a note upon 'Itttz's/^, v. 1365. The 
verses you refer to in the 5th iEneid are 
indeed delightful ; indeed I think that 
sort of pathetic is Virgil's great excel- 
lence in the ^neid, and that in that way 
he surpasses all other poets of every age 
and nation, except, perhaps (and only 
perhaps), Shakspeare. It is on that ac- 
count that I rank him so very high ; for 
surely to excel in that style, which speaks 
to the heart, is the greatest of all excel- 
lence. I am glad you mention the 
eighth book as one of those you most 
admire. It has always been a peculiar 
favourite with me. Evander's speech 
upon parting with his son, is, I tliink, 
the most beautiful thing in the whole, 
especially the part from v. 574 ; and is, 
as far as I know, wholly unborrowed. 
What is more remarkable is, that it has 
not, I believe, been often attempted to 
be imitated. It is so indeed in Valerius 
Flaccus, lib. i. v. 323, but not, I think, 
very successfully. 

Dum metus est, nee adhuc dolor 

goes too minutely into the philosophical 
reason to make, with propriety, apart of 
the speech. It might have done better, 
as an observation of the poet's, in his 
own person ; or still better, perhaps, it 
would have been, to have left it to the 
reader. The passage in Virgil is, I 
think, beyond any thing. 



SEfiT. IV. 



RECENT. 



731 



Sin aliquem infandum casmn 

is nature itself. And then the tender- 
ness in turning towards Pallas, 

Dum te, care puer ! &c. 

In short, it has always appeared to me 
divine. On the other hand, I am sorry 
and surprised, that, among the capital 
books, you should omit the fourth. All 
that part of Dido's speech that follows, 

Nujtijletu ingemuit nostra? 

is surely of the highest style of excel- 
lence, as well as the description of her 
last impotent efforts to retain ^neas, 
and of the dreariness of her situation 
after his departure. 

I know it is the fashion to say Virgil 
has taken a great deal in this hook 
from Apollonius ; and it is true that he 
has taken some things, hut not nearly 
so much as I had been taught to expect, 
before I read Apollonius. I think Me- 
dea's speech, in the fourth Argonaut, 
V. 356, is the part he has made most use 
of. There are some very peculiar breaks 
there, which Virgil has imitated cer- 
tainly, and which I think are very beau- 
tiful and expressive: I mean, particu- 
larly, V. 382 in Apollonius, and v. 380 in 
Virgil. To be sure, the application is 
different, but the manner is the same : 
and that Virgil had the passage before 
him at the time, is evident from what 
foUows : — 

MvYitraio Ss xa< wot' ejnoto, 

argsvyo/xevog y.ajj.a.TOtai, 

compared with 

Supplicia hausurum scopulis, et nomine Dido 
Sape vocaturum.—^ 

It appears to me, upon the whole, that 
Ovid has taken more from ApoUonius 
than Virgil. 

I was interrupted as I was writing 
this on Sunday ; and have been prevented 
since, by company, from going on. 

I have dwelt the longer upon Virgil's 
pathetic, because his wonderful excel- 
lence in that particular has not, in my 
opinion, been in general sufficiently no- 
ticed. The other beauties of the eighth 
^neid, such as the rites of Hercules, 
and the apostrophe to him, both of 
which Ovid has so successfully imitated 
in the beginning of the fourth Metamor- 
phosis ; the story of Cacus ; the shield ; 
and, above all, the description of Evan- 



der's town, and of the infancy of Rome, 
which appears to me, in its way, to be 
all but equal to the account of Alcinoiis 
in the Odyssey, have been, 1 believe, 
pretty generally celebrated ; and yet 
I do not recollect to have seen the eighth 
book classed with the second, fourth, 
and sixth, which are the general fa- 
vourites. I am, with great regard, sir, 
yours ever, C. J. Fox. 



LETTER CXLVI. 

From the same to the same. 



St. Anne's Hill, April 2S, ISOl. 



Sir, 



I AM much obliged to you for your cau- 
tion about Heyne's Virgil ; and if I 
purchase it at all, I will wait for the new 
edition. T^Tien I was a book buyer, in 
my younger days, it was not in exist- 
ence ; and lately 1 have bought but 
few classical books, except Greek ones ; 
and some Latin authors, of whom I had 
before no valuable edition. I had once a 
good many editions of Virgil ; but having 
had frequent occasions to make pre- 
sents, and Virgil being always a proper 
book for that purpose, I have now only 
the fine Roman one, in three volumes 
folio ; a school Delphin ; a Variorum ; 
and Martyn's Georgics. I am glad to 
find that you are not the heretic about 
the fourth book that I suspected you to 
be. Your notion, in respect to poets 
borrowing from each other, seems al- 
most to come up to mine, who have 
often been laughed at by my friends as 
a systematic defender of plagiarism : in- 
deed, I got lord Holland, when a school- 
boy, to write some verses in praise of it ; 
and, in truth, it appears to me, that the 
greatest poets have been most guilty, if 
guilt there be, in these matters. Dido 
is surely far superior to Medea in gene- 
ral. Your observation on the utility of 
communications upon these subjects 
may possibly be the cause of my mak- 
ing many trifling ones upon them. 
The loss of the older Roman writers is 
certainly the greatest that could have 
happened to philology ; and probably, 
too, on account of their own merit, is 
in every view a considerable one. Of 
the more modern writers whom you 
mention, I have never read any but 
A. Gellius. I bought Apuleius last year. 



732 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



with an intention to read him, but 
something or other has always prevented 
me. I never saw one quotation from 
Tertullian that did not appear to me 
full of eloquence of the best sort ; and 
have often thought, on that account, of 
buying an edition of him : but have 
been rather discouraged, from supposing 
that it might be necessary to know 
more than 1 do of the controversies in 
which he was engaged, to relish him 
properly. 

With respect to your lectures, I should 
think that Latin would succeed better 
than Greek authors ; but this is very 
uncertain. From the audience, how- 
ever, which you may have upon the 
first, it will not be difficult to collect 
what probability there is of getting as 
good, or a better one, to the second. 

It would be very good in argument, 
to state the inefficacy of the petitions on 
the slave trade, in the way you mention ; 
and I do believe, that, in fact, the sup- 
posed inefficacy of petitions has been 
one of the great causes of the supine- 



ness, or rather lethargy, of the country : 
but it is not true, that petitions, though 
they have been ultimately unsuccessful, 
have been therefore wholly inefficacious. 
The petitions in 1797 produced, as 
Mr. Pitt says (and I suspect he says 
truly), the negociation at Lisle : no 
great good, you will say ; but still they 
were not wholly inefficacious. And even 
with regard to the slave trade, I con- 
ceive the great numbers which have 
voted with us, sometimes amounting to 
a majority, have been principally owing 
to petitions. Even now, in this last 
stage of degradation, I am not sure that 
if the people were to petition generally 
(but it must be very generally), that it 
would be without effect. 

Your attention to the unfortunate 
wretches you speak of* must do you the 
highest honour in the eyes of all men, 
even of tory justices ; and that is saying 
(a bold word) S^a^craAfov sitos. Yours 
ever, C. J. Fox. 

* His fellow-prisoners. 



BOOK THE FOURTH. 



RECENT LETTERS. 



SECTION V. 



FROM THE LETTERS OF HORACE WALPOLE, EARL OF ORFORD, AND 

DR. FRANKLIN. 



FROM THE 
LETTERS OF THE EARL OF ORFORD. 



LETTER I. 

The Hon. Horace Walpole to Richard 
West, Esq. 

Paris, April 21, N.S. 1739. 
Dear West, 
You figure us in a set of pleasures, 
which, believe me, we do not find: cards 
and eating are so universal, that they 
absorb all variation of pleasures. The 
operas indeed are much frequented three 
times a week ; but to me they would be 
a greater penance than eating maigre : 
their music resembles a gooseberry tart 
as much as it does harmony. We have 
not yet been at the Italian playhouse ; 
scarce any one goes there. Their best 
amusement, and which in some parts 
beats ours, is the comedy ; three or four 
of the actors excel any we have : but 
then to this nobody goes, if it is not one 
of the fashionable nights, and then they 
go, be the play good or bad — except on 
Moliere's nights, whose pieces they are 
quite weary of. Gray and I have been 
at the Avare to-night : I cannot at all 
commend their performance of it. Last 
night I was in the Place de Louis le 
Grand (a regular octagon, uniform, and 
the houses handsome, though not so 
large as Golden Square), to see what 
they reckoned one of the finest burials 
that ever was in France. It was the 
duke de Tresmes, governor of Paris and 



marshal of France. It began on foot 
from his palace to his parish church, and 
from thence in coaches to the opposite 
end of Paris, to be interred in the church 
of the Celestins, where is his family 
vault. About a week ago we happened 
to see the grave digging, as we went to 
see the church, which is old and small, 
but fuller of fine ancient monuments 
than any except St. Denis, which we 
saw on the road, and excels Westmin- 
ster ; for the windows are all painted in 
mosaic, and the tombs as fresh and well 
preserved as if they were of yesterday. 
In the Celestins' church is a votive co- 
lumn to Francis II, which says, that it 
is one assurance of his being immor- 
talized, to have had the martyr Mary 
Stuart for his wife. After this long di- 
gression I return to the burial, which 
was a most vile thing. A long proces- 
sion of flambeaux and friars ; no plumes, 
trophies, banners, led horses, scutche- 
ons, or open chariots ; nothing but 

Friars, 
White, black, and grey, with all their trnm- 
pei*y. 

This goodly ceremony began at nine at 
night, and did not finish till three this 
morning ; for, each church they passed, 
they stopped for a hymn and holy water. 
By the bye, some of these choice monks, 
who watched the body while it lay in 
state, fell asleep one night, and let the 
tapers catch fire of the rich velvet man- 
tle, lined with ermine and powered with 
gold flower-de-luces, which melted the 
lead coffin, and burnt oflF the feet of the 



734 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



deceased before it wakened them. The 
French love show ; but there is a mean- 
ness reigns through it all. At the house 
where I stood to see this procession, the 
room was hung with crimson damask 
and gold, and the windows were mended 
in ten or a dozen places with paper. At 
dinner they give you three courses ; but 
a third of the dishes is patched up with 
salads, butter, puff-paste, or some such 
miscarriage of a dish. None but Ger- 
mans wear fine clothes ; but their coaches 
are tawdry enough for the wedding of 
Cupid and Psyche. You would laugh ex- 
tremely at their signs ; some live at the 
Y grec, some at Venus's toilette, and 
some at the sucking cat. You would 
not easily guess their notions of honour : 
I'll tell you one : it is very dishonour- 
able for any gentleman not to be in the 
army, or in the king's service as they 
call it, and it is no dishonour to keep 
public gaming houses ; there are at least 
an hundred and fifty people of the first 
quality in Paris who live by it. You 
may go into their houses at all hours of 
the night, and find hazard, pharaoh, &c. 
The men who keep the hazard-table at 
the duke de Gesvres' pay him twelve 
guineas each night for the privilege. 
Even the princesses of the blood are 
dirty enough to have shares in the banks 
kept at their houses. We have seen 
two or three of them ; but they are not 
young, nor remarkable but for wearing 
their red of a deeper dye than other wo- 
men, though all use it extravagantly. 

The weather is still so bad, that we 
have not made any excursions to see 
Versailles and the environs, not even 
walked in the Thuilleries ; but we have 
seen almost every thing else that is 
worth seeing in Paris, though that is 
very considerable. They beat us vastly 
in buildings, both in number and magni- 
ficence. The tombs of Richlieu and Ma- 
zarine at the Sorbonne and the College 
de Quatre Nations are wonderfully fine, 
especially the former. We have seen 
very little of the people themselves, who 
are not inclined to be propitious to 
strangers, especially if they do not play, 
and speak the language readily. If we 
did not remember there was such a place 
as England, we should know nothing of 
it : the French never mention it, unless 
it happens to be in one of their proverbs. 
Adieu ! 

Yours ever. 



LETTER II. 

The Hon. Horace Walpole to Richard 
West, Esq. 

From Paris, 1739. 
Dear West, 
I SHOULD think myself to blame not to 
try to divert you, when you tell me 1 
can. From the air of your letter you 
seem to want amusement, that is, you 
want spirits. 1 would recommend to 
you certain little employments that I 
know of, and that belong to you, but 
that I imagine bodily exercise is more 
suitable to your complaint. If you 
would promise me to read them in the 
Temple garden, I would send you a lit- 
tle packet of plays and pamphlets that 
we have made up, and intend to dispatch 
to Dick's the first opportunity. — Stand 
by, clear the way, make room for the 
pompous appearance of Versailles le 
grand ! — But no ; it fell so short of my 
idea of it, mine, that I have resigned to 
Gray the office of writing its panegyric. 
He likes it. They say I am to like it 
better next Sunday ; when the sun is to 
shine, the king is to be fine, the water- 
works are to play, and the new knights 
of the Holy Ghost are to be installed ! 
Ever since Wednesday, the day we were 
there, we have done nothing but dispute 
about it. They say, we did not see it to 
advantage, that we ran through the apart- 
ments, saw the garden en passant, and 
slabbered over Trianon. I say, we saw 
nothing. However, we had time to see 
that the great front is a lumber of little- 
nesses, composed of black brick, stuckfuU 
of bad old busts, and fringed with gold 
rails. The rooms are all small, except 
the great gallery, which is noble, but 
totally wainscoted with looking glass. 
The garden is littered with statues and 
fountains, each of which has its tutelary 
deity. In particular, the elementary god 
of fire solaces himself in one. In an- 
other, Enceladus, in lieu of a mountain, 
is overwhelmed with many waters. 
There are avenues of water-pots, who 
disport themselves much in squirting up 
cascadelins. In short, 'tis a garden for 
a great child. Such was Louis Qua- 
torze, who is here seen in his proper 
colours, where he commanded in person, 
unassisted by his armies and generals, 
and left to the pursuit of his own puerile 
ideas of glory. 



Sect. V. 



RECENT. 



735 



We saw last week a place of another 
kind, and which has more the air of 
what it would be, than any thing- I have 
yet met with : it was the convent of the 
Chartreux. All the conveniences, or 
rather (if there was such a word) all the 
adaptmenis are assembled here, that me- 
lancholy, meditation, selfish devotion, 
and despair would require. But yet 'tis 
pleasing. Soften the terms, and mel- 
low the uncouth horror that reigns here, 
but a little, and 'tis a charming solitude. 
It stands on a large space of ground, is 
old and irregular. The chapel is gloomy : 
behind it, through some dark passages, 
you pass into a large obscure hall, which 
looks like a combination-chamber for 
some hellish council. The large cloister 
surrounds their burying-ground. The 
cloisters are very narrow, and very long, 
and let in to the cells, which are built 
like little huts detached from each other. 
We were carried into one, where lived a 
middle-aged man, not long initiated into 
the order. He was extremely civil, and 
called himself Dom Victor. We have 
promised to visit him often. Their ha- 
bit is all white ; but besides this, he was 
infinitely clean in his person ; and his 
apartment and garden, which he keeps 
and cultivates without any assistance, 
was neat to a degree. He has four little 
rooms, furnished in the prettiest man- 
ner, and hung with good prints. One of 
them is a library, and another a gaUery. 
He has several canary birds disposed in 
a pretty manner in breeding cages. In 
his garden was a bed of good tulips in 
bloom, flowers and fruit trees, and all 
neatly kept. They are permitted at cer- 
tain hours to talk to strangers, but never 
to one another, or to go out of their con- 
vent. But what we chiefly went to see 
was the small cloister, with the history 
of St. Bruno, their founder, painted by 
Le Soeur. It consists of twenty-two 
pictures, the figures a good deal less 
than life. But sure they are amazing ! 
I don't know what Raphael may be in 
Rome, but these pictures excel all I have 
seen in Paris and England. The figure 
of the dead man, who spoke at his burial, 
contains all the strongest and horridest 
ideas of ghastliness, hypocrisy discovered, 
and the height of damnation ; pain and 
cursing. A Benedictine monk, who was 
there at the same time, said to me of this 
picture : C'est une fable, mais on la croy- 
oit autrefois. Another, who shewed me 



relics in one of their churches, expressed 
as much ridicule for them. The pictures 
I have been speaking of are ill preserved, 
and some of the finest heads defaced, 
which was done at first by a rival of Le 
Sceur's. Adieu, dear West, take care of 
your health ; and some time or other we 
will talk over all these things with more 
pleasure than I have had in seeing them. 
Yours ever. 



LETTER III. 

From the same to the same. 

From a Hamlet among the Mountains of 
Savoy, Sept. 28,''l739, N. S. 

Precipices, mountains, torrents, wolves, 
rumblings, Salvator Rosa — ithe pomp of 
our park and the meekness of our palace ! 
Here we are, the lonely lords of glorious 
desolate prospects. I have kept a sort 
of resolution which I made, of not writ- 
ing to you as long as I staid in France : 
I am now a quarter of an hour out of 
it, and write to you. Mind, 'tis three 
months since we heard from you. I be- 
gin this letter among the clouds ; where 
I shall finish, my neighbour heaven pro- 
bably knows ; 'tis an odd wish in a mor- 
tal letter, to hope not to finish it on this 
side the atmosphere. You will have a 
billet tumble to you from the stars when 
you least think of it : and that I should 
write it too ! Lord, how potent that 
sounds ! But I am to undergo many 
transmigrations before I come to " yours 
ever." Yesterday I was a shepherd of 
Dauphin^ ; to-day an Alpine savage ; to- 
morrow a Carthusian monk ; and Friday 
a Swiss Calvinist. I have one quality 
which I find remains with me in all 
worlds and in all aethers ; I brought it 
with me from your world, and am ad- 
mired for it in this ; 'tis my esteem for 
you ; this is a common thought among 
you, and you will laugh at it, but it is 
new here ; as new to remember one's 
friends in the world one has left, as for 
you to remember those you have lost. 

Aix in Savoy, Sept. 30tli. 
We are this minute come in here, and 
here's an awkward abb^ this minute come 
in to us. I asked him if he would sit 
down. Oui, oui, out. He has ordered 
us a radish soup for supper, and has 
brought a chess-board to play with Mr. 
Conway. I have left 'em in the act, and 



736 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



am set down to write to you. Did you 
ever see any thing like the prospect we 
saw yesterday ? I never did. We rode 
three leagues to see the Grande Char- 
ti*euse ; expected bad roads, and the 
finest convent in the kingdom. We were 
disappointed pro and con. The building 
is large and plain, and has nothing re- 
markable but its primitive simplicity : 
they entertained us in the neatest man- 
ner, with eggs, pickled salmon, dried 
fish, conserves, cheese, butter, grapes, 
and figs, and pressed us mightily to lie 
there. We tumbled into the hands of a 
lay brother, who, unluckily having the 
charge of the meal and bran, showed us 
little besides. They desired us to set 
down our names in the list of strangers, 
where, among others, we found two 
mottos of our countrymen, for whose 
stupidity and brutality we blushed. The 
first was of sir J * * * D * * *, who 
had wrote down the first stanza of Justum 
4* tenacem, altering the last line to Mente 
quatit Carthusiana, The second was of 
one D * *, Caslum ipsum peiimus stuUiiid; 
Sf hie ventri indico helium. The Goth ! 
But the road. West, the road ! winding 
round a prodigious mountain, and sur- 
rounded with others, all shagged with 
hanging woods, obscured with pines or 
lost in clouds ! Below, a torrent break- 
ing through cliffs, and tumbling through 
fragments of rocks ! Sheets of cascades 
forcing their silver speed down chan- 
nelled precipices, and hasting into the 
roughened river at the bottom ! Now 
and then an old foot-bridge, with a 
broken rail, a leaning cross, a cottage, 
or the ruin of an hermitage ! This sounds 
too bombast and too romantic to one that 
has not seen it, too cold for one that has. 
If I could send you my letter post be- 
tween two lovely tempests that echoed 
each other's wrath, you might have some 
idea of this noble roaring scene, as you 
were reading it. Almost on the summit, 
upon a fine verdure, but without any 
prospect, stands the Chartreuse. We 
staid there two hours, rode back through 
this charming picture, wished for a paint- 
er, wished to be poets ! Need I tell you 
w€ wished for you ? Good night ! 

Yours ever. 



J^ETTER IV. 

The Hon. Horace Walpole to Richard 
West, Esq. 

Florence, February 27, 1740, N. S. 
Well, West, I have found a little un* 
masqued moment to write to you ; but 
for this week past I have been so muflled 
up in my domino, that I have not had the 
command of my elbows. But what have 
you been doing all the mornings ? Could 
you not write then ? No, then I was 
masqued too ; I have done nothing but 
slip out of my domino into bed, and out 
of bed into my domino. The end of the 
Carnival is frantic, bacchanalian ; all the 
morn one makes parties in masque to the 
shops and coffee-houses, and all the even- 
ing to the operas and balls. Then I have 
danced, good gods, how I have danced !■ 
The Italians are fond to a degree of our 
country dances : Cold and raw they only 
know by the tune ; Blowzy-bella is al- 
most Italian, and Buttered peas is Pizelli 
al buro. There are but three days more ; 
but the two last are to have balls all the 
morning at the fine unfinished palace of 
the Strozzi; and the Tuesday night a 
masquerade after supper ; they sup first, 
to eat graSf and not encroach upon Ash- 
wednesday. What makes masquerading 
more agi'eeable here than in England, is 
the great deference that is showed to the 
disguised. Here they do not catch at 
those little dirty opportunities of saying 
any ill-natured thing they know of you, 
do not abuse you because they may, or 
talk indecently to a woman of quality. 
I found the other day, by a play of 
Etheridge's, that we have had a sort of 
Carnival even since the Reformation ; 
'tis in She would if she could^ they talk 
of going a-mumming in Shrove-tide. — 
After talking so much of diversions, I 
fear you will attribute to them the fond- 
ness I own I contract for Florence ; but 
it has so many other charms, that I shall 
not want excuses for my taste. The 
freedom of the Carnival has given me 
opportunities to make several acquaint- 
ances ; and if I have not found them re^ 
fined, learned, polished, like some other 
cities, yet they are civil, good-natured, 
and fond of the English. Their little par- 
tiality for themselves, opposed to the vio- 
lent vanity of the French, makes them 
very amiable in my eyes. I can give 
you a comical instance of their great 
prejudice about nobility; it happened 



Sect. V. 



R E C E N^. 



737 



yesterday. Wliile we were at dinner at 
Mr. Mann's, word was broug-ht by his 
secretary, that a cavalier demanded au- 
dience of him upon an aifair of honour. 
Gray and I flew behind the curtain of the 
door. An elderly gentleman, whose at- 
tire was not certainly correspondent to 
the greatness of his birth, entered, and 
informed the British minister that one 
Martin, an English painter, had left a 
challenge for him at his house, for hav- 
ing said Martin was no gentleman. He 
would by no means have spoke of the 
duel before the transaction of it, but that 
his honour, his blood, his &c. would 
never permit him to fight with one who 
was no cavalier ; whicli was what he 
came to inquire of his excellency. We 
laughed loud laughs, but unheard : his 
fright or his nobility had closed his ears. 
But mark the sequel ; the instant he was 
gone, my very English curiosity hurried 
me out of the gate St. Gallo ; 'twas the 
place and hour appointed. We had not 
been driving about above ten minutes, 
but out popped a little figure, pale but 
cross, with beard unshaved and hair un- 
combed, a slouched hat, and a consider- 
able red cloak, in wliich was wrapped, 
under his arm, the fatal sword that was 
to revenge tJie highly injured Mr. Mar- 
tin, painter and defendant. I darted my 
head out of the coach, just ready to say 
" Your servant, Mr. Martin," and talk 
about the architecture of the triumphal 
arch that was building there ; but he 
would not know me, and walked off. 
We left him to wait for an hour, to grow 
very cold and very valiant the more it 
grew past the hour of appointment. We 
were figuring all the poor creature's hud- 
dle of thoughts, and confused hopes of 
victory or fame, of his unfinished pic- 
tures, or his situation upon bouncing 
into the next world. You will think us 
strange creatures ; but 'twas a pleasant 
sight, as we knew the poor painter was 
safe. I have thought of it since, and 
am inclined to believe that nothing but 
two English could have been capable of 
such a jaunt. I remember, 'twas re- 
ported in London that the plague was at 
a house in the city, and all the town 
went to see it. Adieu ! 

Yours ever. 



LETTER V. 

The Hon. Horace Walpole and Mr. Gray 
to Richard West, Esq. 

Rome, April 16, 1740, N. S. 
Fll tell you, West, because one is 
amongst new things, you think one can 
always write new things. When 1 first 
came abroad, every thing struck me, 
and I wrote its history ; but now I am 
grown so used to be surprised, that I 
don't perceive any flutter in myself when 
I meet with any novelties ; curiosity and 
astonishment wear ofl", and the next 
thing is, to fancy that other people 
know as much of places as one's self; 
or, at least, one does not remember that 
they do not. It appears to me as odd 
to write to you of St. Peter's as it would 
do to you to write of Westminster Ab- 
bey. Besides, as one looks at churches, 
&c. with a book of travels in one's hand, 
and sees every thing particularized there, 
it would appear transcribing to write 
upon the same subjects. I know you 
will hate me for this declaration ; I re- 
member how ill I used to take it when 
any body served me so that was travel- 
ling. Well, I will tell you something, if 
you will love me : you have seen prints 
of the ruins of the temple of Minerva 
Medica ; you shall only hear its situa- 
tion, and then figure what a villa might 
be laid out there. 'Tis in the middle of 
a garden : at a little distance are two 
subterraneous grottos, which were the 
burial-places of the liberti of Augustus. 
There are all the niches and covers of 
the urns with the inscriptions remain- 
ing ; and in one, very considerable re- 
mains of an ancient stucco ceiling with 
paintings in grotesque Some of the 
walks would terminate upon the Cas- 
tellum Aquee Martis^, St. John Lateran, 
and St. Maria Maggiore, besides other 
churches; the walls of the garden would be 
two aqueducts, and the entrance through 
one of the old gates of Rome. This 
glorious spot is neglected, and only serves 
for a small vineyard and kitchen-garden. 
] am very glad that I see Rome while 
it yet exists ; befoi-e a great number of 
years are elapsed, I question whether it 
will be worth seeing. Between the ig- 
norance and poverty of the present 
Romans, every thing is neglected and 
falling to decay ; the villas are entirely 
out of repair, and the palaces so ill kept, 
3 B 



738 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



tliat half the pictures are spoiled by damp. 
At the villa Ludovisi is a large oracular 
head of red marble, colossal, and with 
vast foramina for the eyes and mouth : — 
the man that shewed the palace said it 
was un ritratto dellafamiglia. The car- 
dinal Corsini has so thoroughly pushed 
on the misery of Rome, by impoverish- 
ing it, that there is no money but paper 
to be seen. He is reckoned to have 
amassed tliree millions of crowns. You 
may judge of the affluence the nobility 
live in, when I assure you, that what the 
chief princes allow for their own eating 
is a testoon a day, eighteen pence ; there 
are some extend their expense to five 
pauls, or half a crown : cardinal Albani 
is called extravagant for laying out ten 
pauls for his dinner and supper. You 
may imagine they never have any enter- 
tainments : so far from it, they never 
have any company. The princesses and 
duchesses, particularly, lead the dis- 
mallest of lives. Being the posterity of 
popes, thougli of worse families than the 
ancient nobility, they expect greater re- 
spect than my ladies the countesses and 
marquises will pay them ; consequently 
they consort not, but mope in a vast pa- 
lace, with two miserable tapers, and two 
or three monsignori, whom they arc 
forced to court and humour, that they 
may not be entirely deserted. Sundays 
they do issue forth in a vast unwieldy 
coach to the Corso. 

In short, cliild, after sunset one passes 
one's time here very ill ; and if 1 did not 
wish for you in the mornings, it would 
be no compliment to tell you that I do 
in the evening. Lord ! how many Eng- 
lish 1 could change for you, and yet buy 
you wondrous cheap I And then French 
and Germans I could fling into the bar- 
gain by dozens. Nations swarm here. 
You will have a great fat French cardi- 
nal, garnished with thirty abbes, roll 
into the area of St. Peters, gape, turn 
short, and talk of tlie chapel of Versailles. 
I heard one of them say, t'other day, he 
liad been at the Capita/c. One asked, of 
course, how he liked it — /Ih ! il y a 
assez de belles choscs. 

Tell Asheton I have received his letter, 
and will write next post ; but I am in a 
violent hurry, and have no more time ; so 
(iray finishes this delicately- 

Not so delicate ; nor indeed would his 
coFiScience suffer him to write to you, 



till he received dc vosnouvelles, if he had 
not the tail of another person's letter to 
use, by way of evasion. I sha'n't de- 
scribe, as being in the only place in the 
world that deserves it ; which may seem 
an odd reason — but they say as how it's 
fulsome, and every body does it (and I 
suppose every body says the same thing) ; 
else I should tell you a vast deal about 
the Coliseum, and the Conclave, and the 
Capitol, and these matters. Apropos 
du Colisee, if you don't know what it is, 
the prince Borghese will be very capable 
of giving you some account of it, who 
told an Englishman, that asked what it 
was built for — " They say 'twas for 
Christians to fight with tigers in." We 
are just come from adoring a great piece 
of the true cross, St. Longinus's spear, 
and St. Veronica's handkerchief; all 
which have been this evening exposed^to 
view in St. Peter's. In the same place, 
and on the same occasion, last night, 
Walpole saw a poor creature, naked to 
the waist, discipline himself with a 
scourge, filled With iron prickles, till he 
had made himself a raw doublet, that he 
took for red satin torn, and showing the 
skin through. I should tell you, that he 
fainted away three times at the sight, 
and I twice and a half at the repetition 
of it. All this is performed by the light 
of a vast fiery cross, composed of hun- 
dreds of little crystal lamps, which ap- 
pears through the great altar, under the 
grand tribuna, as if hanging by itself in 
the air. All the confraternities of the 
city resort thither in solemn procession, 
habited in linen frocks, girt with a cord, 
and their heads covered with a cowl all 
over, that has only two holes before to 
see through. Some of these are all 
black, others parti-coloured and white : 
and with these masqueraders that vast 
church is filled, who are seen thumping 
their breast, and kissing the pavement 
with extreme devotion. But methinks I 
am describing: — 'tis an ill habit; but 
this, like every thing else, will wear off. 
We have sent you our compliments by a 
friend of yours, and correspondent in a 
corner, who seems a very agreeable man, 
one Mr. Williams : I am sorry he staid 
so little a while in Rome. I forget Porto 
Bello all this while ; pray let us know 
where it is, and whether you or Asheton 
had any hand in the taking of it. Duty 
to the admiral. Adieu ! Ever yours, 

T. Gray. 



Sect. V. 



RECENT. 



730 



LETTER VI. 

The Hon. Horace Walpole to R.lVcsi, Esq. 
Naples, June 14, 1740, N. S, 
Dear West, 
One hates writing descriptions that are 
to be found in every book of travels ; but 
we have seen something to-day that I am 
sure you never read of, and perhaps 
never heard of. Have you ever heard 
of the subterraneous town ? a whole Ro- 
man town, with all its edifices, remain- 
ing under ground ? Don't fancy the in- 
habitants buried it there to save it from 
the Goths : they were buried with it 
themselves ; which is a caution we are 
not told they ever took. You remember, 
in Titus's time, there were several cities 
destroyed by an eruption of Vesuvius, 
attended with an earthquake. Well, this 
was one of them, not very considerable, 
and then called Herculaneum. Above it 
has since been built Portici, about three 
miles from Naples, where the king has a 
villa. This under-ground city is, per- 
haps, one of the noblest curiosities that 
ever has been discovered. It was found 
out by chance, about a year and a half 
ago. They began digging, they found 
statues ; they dug further, they found 
more. Since that they have made a 
very considerable progress, and find con- 
tinually. You may walk the compass of 
a mile ; but, by the misfortune of the 
modern town being overhead, they are 
obliged to proceed with great caution, 
lest they destroy both one and t'other. 
By this occasion the path is very nar- 
row, just wide enough and high enough 
tor one man to walk upright. They 
have hollowed as they found it easiest to 
work, and have carried their streets not 
exactly where were the ancient ones, 
but sometimes before houses, sometimes 
through them. You would imagine that 
all the fabrics were crushed together ; 
on the contrary, except some columns, 
they have found all the edifices standing 
upright, in their proper situation. There 
is one inside of a temple quite perfect, 
with the middle arch, two columns, and 
two pilasters. It is built of brick, plas- 
tered over, and painted with architec- 
t^ire : almost all the insides of the houses 
are in the same manner ; and, what is 
very particular, the general ground of 
all the painting is red. Besides this 
temple, they make out very plainly an 
amphitiieatre : the stairs, of white mar- 



ble, and the seats are very perfect ; the 
inside was painted in the same colour 
with the private houses, and great part 
cased with white mfarble. They have 
found, among other things, some fine 
statues, some human bones, some rice, 
medals, and a few paintings, extremely 
fine. These latter are preferred to all the 
ancient paintings that have ever been 
discovered. We have not seen them 
yet, as they are kept in the king's 
apartment, whither all these curiosities 
are transplanted ; and 'tis difficult to see 
them — but we shall. I forgot to tell 
you, that in several places the beams of 
the houses remain, but burnt to char- 
coal ; so little damaged that they retain 
visibly the grain of the wood, but, upon 
touching, crumble to ashes. What is 
remarkable, there are no other marks or 
appearances of fire, but what are visible 
on these beams. 

There might certainly be collected 
great light from this reservoir of anti- 
quities, if a man of learning had the in- 
spection of it ; if he directed the work- 
ing, and would make a journal of the 
discoveries. But I believe there is no 
judicious choice made of directors. 
There is nothing of the kind known in 
the world ; 1 mean a Roman city entire 
of that age, and that has not been cor- 
rupted with modern repairs ■^. Besides 
scrutinizing this very carefully, I should 
be inclined to search for the remains of 
the other towns, that were partners Avith 
this in the general ruin. Tis certainly 
an advantage to the learned world, that 
this lias been laid up so long. Most of 
the discoveries in Rome were made in a 
barbarous age, where they only ran- 
sacked the ruins in quest oftreasure, and 
had no regard to the form and being of 
the building ; or to any circumstances 
that might give light into its use and 
history. I shall finish this long account 
with a passage which Gray has observed 
in Statins, and which directly pictures 
out this latent city : — 

Hcec ego Chalcidicis ad ie, Marcelle, sonabam 
Litlorihus, fractas ubi Vest'ius egerit iiax, 
/Emilia Trinacriis volvens incendia JJummis. 
Mirajides ! credetne virum ventura propago. 
Cum segeies iterum, cum jam hcEc deserlu virebunf. 
Infra urbes populosque preml 9 

Svj.v. lib. iv, epist. 4. 

Adieu, my dear West! and believe me 
yours ever. 

* Pompeia was not then discovcre.l. 

3B2 



'40 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



LETfER VII. 

The Honourable Horace Walpole to John 
Chute, Esq. '^ 

Stovve, Aug. 4, 1753. 

My dear sir, 
You would deserve to be scolded, if you 
had not lost almost as much pleasure as 
you have disappointed me off. Whe- 
ther George Montagu will be so content 
with your commuting punishments, I 
don't know : I should think not : he 
cried and roared all night X when I deli- 
vered your excuse. He is extremely 
well housed, after having roamed like a 
Tartar about the country, with his whole 
personal estate at his heels. There is an 
extensive view, which is called pretty : 
but Northamptonshire is no county to 
please me. What entertained me was, 
that he, who in London was grown an 
absolute recluse, is over head and ears 
in neighbours, and as popular as if he 
intended to stand for the county, instead 
of having given up the town. The very 
first morning after my arrival, as we 
were getting into the chaise to go to 
Wroxton, they notified a sir Harry Dan- 
vers, a young squire, booted and spurred, 
and buckskin-breeched. *' Will you 
drink any chocolate?" — " No; a little 
wine and water, if you please." I sus- 
pected nothing but that he had rode till 
he was dry. " Nicolb, get some wine 
and water." He desired the water might 
be warm- I began to stare— Montagu 
understood the dialect, and ordered a 
negus. I had great difficulty to keep 
my countenance, and still more when I 
saw the baronet finish a very large jug 
indeed. To be sure, he wondered as 
much at me, v»^ho did not finish a jug ; 
and I could not help reflecting, that liv- 
ing always in the world makes one as 
unfit for living out of it, as always living 
out of it does for living in it. Knightley, 
the knight of the shire, has been enter- 
taining all the parishes round -with a 
turtle feast, which, so far from succeed- 
ing, has almost made him suspected for 
a Jew, as the country parsons have not 
yet learned to wade into green fat. 

The roads are very bad to Greatworth, 
and such numbers of gates, that if one 

* Of the Vine, in Hampshire, 
f In not accompanying Mr. Walpole on a 
visit to Mr. George Montagu, at Greatworth. 
X A phrase of Mr. Montagu's. 



loved punning, one should call it the 
Gate-house. The proprietor had a won- 
derful invention : the chimnies, which 
are of stone, have niches and benches in 
them, where the man used to sit and 
smoke. I had twenty disasters, accord- 
ing to custom ; lost my way, and had 
my French boy almost killed by a fall 
with his horse : but I have been much 
pleased. When I was at Park Place I 
went to see sir H. Englefield's *, which 
Mr. C**** and lady M*** prefer, but 
I think very undeservedly, to Mr. South- 
cote's. It is not above a quarter as ex- 
tensive, and wants the river. There ia 
a pretty view of Reading seen under a 
rude arch, and the water is well dis- 
posed. The buildings are very insigni- 
ficant, and the house far from good. The 
town of Henley has been extremely dis- 
turbed with an engagement between the 
ghosts of miss Blandy and her father, 
which continued so violent, that some 
bold persons, to prevent farther blood- 
shed, broke in, and found it was two 
jackasses which had got into the kitchen. 
I felt strangely tempted to stay at 
Oxford, and survey it at my leisure; 
but, as I was alone, I had not courage. 
I passed by sir James Dashwood's f, a 
vast new house, situated so high that it 
seems to stand for the county, as well as 
himself. I did look over lord Jersey's J, 
which was built for a hunting-box, and 
is still little better. But now I am going 
to tell you how delightful a day I passed 
at Wroxton. Lord Guildford has made 
George Montagu so absolutely viceroy 
over it, that we saw it more agreeable 
than you can conceive ; roamed over the 
whole house, found every door open, saw 
not a creature, had an extreme good din- 
ner, wine, fruit, cofi'ee and tea, in the 
library, were served by fairies, tumbled 
over the books, said one or two talisma- 
nic words and the cascade played, and 
went home loaded with pine-apples and 
flowers. You will take me for monsieur 
de Coulanges, I describe eatables so 
feelingly ; but the manner in which we 
were served made the whole delicious. 
The house was built by a lord Downe, 
in the reign of James the First ; and, 
though there is a fine hall and a vast 
dining-room below, and as large a draw- 
ing-room above, it is neither good nor 
agreeable : one end of the front was 

* White Knights. f At High Wycombe. 
t Middleton. 



Sect. V. 



RECENT. 



741 



never finished, and might have a good 
apartment. The lihrary is added by this 
lord, and is a pleasant chamber. Except 
loads of old portraits, there is no tole- 
rable furniture. A whole length of the 
first earl of Downe is in the bath robes, 
and has a coif under the hat and feather. 
There is a charming picture of prince 
Henry, about twelve years old, drawing 
his sword to kill a stag, with a lord Har- 
rington ; a good portrait of sir Owen 
Hopton, 1590; your ;?fow5 grandmother, 
my lady Dacre, whicli I think like you ; 
some good Cornelius Johnsons ; a lord 
North, by Riley, good ; and an extreme 
fine portrait by him of the lord keeper ; 
I have never seen but few of the hand, 
but most of them have been equal to 
Lely and the best of sir Godfrey. There 
is, too, a curious portrait of sir Thomas 
Pope, the founder of Trinity college, 
Oxford, said to be by Holbein. The 
chapel is new, but in a pretty Gothic 
taste, with a very long windov/ of painted 
glass, very tolerable. The frieze is pen- 
dent, just in the manner 1 propose for 
the eating-room at Strawberry Hill. 
Except one scene, which is indeed no- 
ble, I cannot much commend the with- 
out doors. This scene consists of a 
beautiful lake, entirely shut in with 
wood : the head falls into a fine cascade, 
and that into a serpentine river, over 
which is a little Gothic seat like a round 
temple, lifted up by a shaggy mount. 
On an eminence in the park is an obe- 
lisk, erected to the honour and at the 
expense of *' optimus et munijicentis- 
simus,^'' the late prince of Wales, " in 
loci amosnitaiem et memoriam adventils 
ejus.'' There are several paltry Chinese 
buildings and bridges, which have the 
merit or demerit of being the progeni- 
tors of a very numerous race all over the 
kingdom : at least they were of the very 
first. In the church is a beautiful tomb 
of an earl and countess of Downe, and 
the tower is in a good plain Gothic style, 
and was once, they tell you, still more 
beautiful ; but Mr. Miller, who designed 
it, unluckily once in his life happened 
to think rather of beauty than of the 
water tables, and so it fell down the 
first winter. 

On Wednesday morning we went to 
see a sweet little chapel at Steane, built 
in 1620 by sir T. Crewe, speaker in the 
time of the first James and Charles. 
Here are the remains of the mansion 



house, but quite in ruins : the chapel is 
kept up by my lady Arran, the last of 
the race. There are seven or eight mo- 
numents. On one is this epitaph, which 
I thought pretty enough : — 

Conjux casta, parens felix, matrona pudica, 
Sara vivo, mundo Martha, Maria Deo. 

On another is the most affected inscrip- 
tion I ever saw, written by two brothers 
on their sister ; they say, This agreeable 
mortal translated her into immortality 
such a day : but I could not help laugh- 
ing at one quaint expression, to which 
time has given a droll sense ; She ivas a 
constant lover of the best. 

I have been here these two days, ex- 
tremely amused and charmed indeed. 
Wherever you stand, you see an Albano 
landscape. Half as many buildings I 
believe would be too many, but such a 
profusion gives inexpressible richness. 
You may imagine I have some private 
reflections entertaining enough, not very 
communicable to the company : the tem- 
ple of friendship, in which, among twenty 
memorandums of quarrels, is the bust of 
Mr. Pitt : Mr. James Grenville is now 
in the house, whom his uncle disinherited 
for his attachment to that very Pylades, 
Mr. Pitt. He broke with Mr. Pope, 
who is deified in the Elysian fields, be- 
fore the inscription for his head was 
finished. That of sir J. Barnard, which 
was bespoke by the name of a bust of 
my lord mayor, was, by a mistake of the 
sculptor, done for alderman Perry. The 
statue of the king, and that " honori, 
laudi, virtuti diva Carolina;," make one 
smile, when one sees the ceiling where 
Britannia rejects and hides the reign of 
king ^^■^^-. But I have no patience at 
building and planting a satire ! Such is 
the temple of modern virtue in ruins ! 
The Grecian temple is glorious : this I 
openly worship : in the heretical corner 
of my heart I adore tlie Gothic building, 
which, by some unusual inspiration, 
Gibbs has made pure, and beautiful, and 
venerable. The style has a propensity 
to the Venetian or mosque Gothic, and 
the great column near it makes the 
whole put one in mind of the place of 
St. Mark. The windows are through- 
out consecrated with painted glass ; most 
of it from the priory at Warwick, a pre- 
sent from that foolish -^^^ >^^-, who quar- 
relled Avith me (because his fatlier was a 
gardener) for asking him if lord Brook 



742 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV 



had planted much. — A-propos to painted 
glass. I forgot to tell you of a sweet 
house, which Mr. Montagu carried me to 
see, belonging to a Mr. Holman, a Ca- 
tholic, and called Warkworth. The si- 
tuation is pretty, the front charming, 
composed of two round and two square 
towers. The court within is incomplete 
on one side ; but above stairs is a vast 
gallery, with four bow windows and 
twelve other large ones, all filled with 
the arms of the old peers of England, 
with all their quarterings entire. You 
don't deserve, after deserting me, that 
I should tempt you to such a sight ; but 
this alone is worth while to carry you to 
Greatworth. 

Adieu, my dear sir ! I return to 
Strawberry to-morrow, and forgive you 
enough not to deprive myself of the sa- 
tisfaction of seeing you there, whenever 
you have nothing else to do. 

Yours ever. 



LETTER VIU. 

The Hon, Horace Walpole to Richard 
Bentley, Esq. 

Strawberry Hill, September 18, 1735. 

My dear sir. 
After an expectation of six weeks, I 
have received a letter from you, dated 
August 23d. Indeed I did not impute 
any neglect to you ; I knew it arose 
from the war : but Mr. ^*^ tells me 
the pacquets will now be more regular. 
Mr. *** tells me ! —What, has he been 
in town, or at Strawberry? — No ; but I 
have been at Southampton ; I was at 
the Vine ; and on the arrival of a few 
fine days, the first we liave had this 
summer, after a deluge, Mr. Chute per- 
suaded me to take a jaunt to Winchester 
and Netley Abbey, with the latter of 
which he is very justly enchanted. 

I was disappointed in Winchester : it 
is a paltry town, and small. King Charles 
the Second's house is the worst thing I 
ever saw of sir Christopher Wren, a 
mixture of a town hall and an hospital, 
not to mention the bad choice of the 
situation in such a country ; it is all ups 
that should be downs. I talk to you as 
supposing that you never have been at 
Winchester, though I suspect you have, 
for the entrance of the cathedral is the 
very idea of that of Malland, I like the 



smugness of the cathedral, and the pro- 
fusion of the most beautiful Gothic tombs. 
That of cardinal Beaufort is in a style 
more free, and of more taste, than any 
thing I have seen of the kind,. His figure 
confirms me in my opinion that I have 
struck out the true history of the picture 
that I bought of Robinson, and which I 
take for the marriage of Henry VI. Be- 
sides the monuments of the Saxon kings, 
of Lucius, William Rufus, his brother, 
&c., there are those of six such great or 
considerable men as Beaufort, William 
of Wickham, him of Wainfleet, the bi- 
shops Fox and Gardiner, and my lord 
treasurer Portland. How much power 
and ambition under half a dozen stones ! 
I own, I grow to look on tombs as last- 
ing mansions, instead of observing them 
for curious pieces of architecture ! — 
Going into Southampton, I passed Bevis 
Mount, where my lord Peterborough 

Hung his trophies o'er his garden gate ; 

but general Mordaunt was there, and we 
could not see it. We walked long by 
moonlight on the terrass along the beach 
— guess, if we talked of and wished for 
you ! The town is crowded ; sea-baths 
are established there too. But how shall 
I describe Netley to you ? I can only 
by telling you, that it is the spot in the 
world for which Mr. Chute and I wish. 
The ruins are vast, and retain fragments 
of beautiful fretted roofs, pendant in the 
air, with all variety of Gothic patterns 
of windows, wrapped round and round 
with ivy : many trees are sprouted up 
amongst the walls, and only want to be 
increased with cypresses ! A hill rises 
above the abbey, encircled with wood : 
the fort, in which we would build a 
tower for habitation, remains, with two 
small platforms. This little castle is 
buried from the abbey in a wood, in the 
very centre, on the edge of the hill : on 
each side breaks in the view of the 
Southampton sea, deep blue, glistering 
with silver and vessels ; on one side ter- 
minated by Southam})ion, on the other 
by Calshot castle ; and the Isle of Wight 
rising above the opposite hills. In short, 
they are not the ruins of Netley, but of 
Paradise. Oh ! the purple abbots, what 
a spot had they chosen to slumber in ! 
The scene is so beautifully tranquil, yet 
so lively, that they seem only to have 
retired into the world. 

I know nothing of the war, but that 



Sect. V 



RECENT. 



743 



we catch little French ships like craw- 
fish. They have taken one of ours, with 
governor *** going to ***. He is a 
very worthy young man, but so stiffened 
with sir *** 's old fustian, that I am 
persuaded he is at this minute in the 
citadel of Nantes, comparing himself to 
Regulus. 

Gray has lately been here. He has 
begun an ode, which, if he finishes 
equally, will, I think, inspirit all your 
drawing again. It is fomided on an old 
tradition of Edward I. putting to death 
the Welsh bards. Nothing but you, or 
Salvator Rosa, and Nicolo Poussin, can 
paint up to the expressive horror and 
dignity of it. Don't think I mean to 
flatter you ; all I would say is, that now 
the two latter are dead, you must of ne- 
cessity be Gray's painter. In order to 
keep your talent alive, 1 shall next week 
send you flake white, brushes, oil, and 
the enclosed directions from Mr. Miintz, 
who is still at the Vine, and whom, for 
want of you, we labour hard to form. I 
shall put up in the parcel two or three 
prints of my eagle, which, as you never 
would draw it, is very moderately per- 
formed ; and yet the drawing was much 
better than the engraving. I shall send 
you too a trifling snuff-box, only as a 
sample of the new manufacture at Bat- 
tersea, which is done with copper-plates. 
Mr. Chute is at the Vine, where I can- 
not say any works go on in proportion 
to my impatience. I have left him an 
inventionary of all I want to have done 
there ; but I believe it may be bound up 
with the century of projects of that fool- 
ish marquis of Worcester, who printed a 
catalogue of titles of things, which he 
gave no directions to execute, nor 1 be- 
lieve could. Adieu ! yours ever. 



LETTER IX. 

From the same to the sa?}ie. 

Went'AOrth Castlo, August. 

I ALWAYS dedicate my travels to you. 
My present expedition has been very 
amusing ; sights are thick sown in the 
counties of York and Nottingham : the 
former is more historic, and the great 
lords live at a prouder distance : in 
Nottinghamshire there is a very hep- 
tarchy of little kingdoms elbowing one 
another, and the barons of them want 



nothing but small armies to make In- 
roads into one another's parks, murder 
deer, and massacre park-keepers. But 
to come to particulars. The great road, 
as far as Stamford, is*" superb ; in any 
other country it would furnish medals, 
and immortalize any drowsy monarch in 
whose reign it was executed. It is con- 
tinued much farther, but is more rum- 
bling. I did not stop at Hatfield and 
Burleigh to see the palaces of my great- 
uncle ministers, having seen them be- 
fore. Bugden Palace surprises one pret- 
tily in a little village ; and the remains 
of Newark Castle, seated pleasantly, be- 
gan to open a vein of historic memory. 
I had only transient and distant views of 
lord Tyrconnel's at Belton, and of Bel- 
voir. The borders of Huntingdonshire 
have churches instead of milestones *, but 
the richness and extent of Yorkshire 
quite charmed me. Oh ! what quan-ies 
for working in Gothic ! Tliis place is 
one of the very few that I really like ; 
the situation, woods, views, and the im- 
provements are perfect in their kinds : 
nobody has a truer taste than lord Straf- 
ford. The house is a pompous front, 
screening an old house : it was built by 
the last lord, on a design of the Prussian 
architect Bott, who is mentioned in the 
King's Memoires de Brandenburg, and 
is not ugly. The one pair of stairs is 
entirely engrossed by a gallery of 180 
feet, on the plan of that in the Colonna 
Palace at Rome. It has nothing but 
four modern statues, and some bad por- 
traits ; but, on my proposal, is going to 
have books at each end. The hall is 
pretty, but low ; the drawing-room hand- 
some : there wants a good eating-room 
and staircase ; but I have formed a de- 
sign for both, and I believe they will be 
executed. That my plans should be 
obeyed when yours are not ! I shall 
bring you a ground plot for a Gothic 
building, which I have proposed that 
you should draw for a little wood, but 
in the manner of an ancient market- 
cross. Without doors all is pleasing : 
there is a beautiful (artificial) river, 
with a fine semicircular wood overlook- 
ing it, and the temple of Tivoli placed 
happily on a rising towards the end. 
Tliere are obelisks, columns, and other 
buildings, and, above all, a handsome 
castle, in the true style, on a rude moun- 
tain, with a court and towers ; in the 
castle yard a statue of the late lord, who 



744 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book iV. 



buUt It. Without the park is a lake on 
each side, buried in noble woods. Now 
contrast all this, and you may have some 
idea of lord Rockingham's. Imagine a 
most extensive and most beautiful mo- 
dern front erected before the great lord 
Strafford's old house, and this front al- 
most blocked up with hills, and every 
thing unfinished round it, nay, within it. 
The great apartment, which is magnifi- 
cent, is untouched ; the chimney-pieces 
lie in boxes unopened. The park is tra- 
versed by a common road, between two 
high hedges— not from necessity — oh ! 
no ; this lord loves nothing but horses, 
and the enclosures for them take place 
of every thing. The bowling-green be- 
hind the house contains no less than four 
obelisks, and looks like a Brobdingnag 
nine-pin alley : on a hill near, you would 
think you saw the York Buildings water- 
works invited into the country. There 
are temples in corn fields ; and, in the 
little wood, a window frame mounted on 
a bunch of laurel, and intended for an 
hermitage, in the inhabited part of the 
-house the chimney-pieces are like tombs ; 
and on that in the library is the figure of 
this lord's grandfather, in a nightgown 
of plaster and gold. Amidst all this litter 
and bad taste, I adored the fine Vandyck 
of lord Strafford and his secretary, and 
could not help reverencing his bed- 
chamber. With all his faults and arbi- 
trary behaviour, one must worship his 
spirit End eloquence : where one esteems 
but a single royalist, one need not fear 
being too partial. When 1 visited his 
tomb in the church (which is remarkably 
neat and pretty, and enriched with mo- 
numents), I was provoked to find a little 
mural cabinet, with his figure, three feet 
high, kneeling. Instead of a stern bust 
(and his head would furnish a nobler than 
Bernini's Brutus), one is peevish to see 
a plaything that might have been bought 
at Chenevix's. There is a tender in- 
scription to the second lord Strafford's 
wife, written by himself; but his genius 
was fitter to coo over his wife's memory, 
than to sacrifice to his father's. 

Well ! you have had enough of magni- 
ficence ; you shall repose in a desert. — 
Old Wortley Montague lives on the very 
spot where the dragon of Wantley did — 
only I believe the latter was much better 
lodged. You never saw such a wretched 
hovel, lean, unpainted, and half its na- 
kedness barely shaded with harateen, 



stretched till it cracks. Here the miser 
hoards health and money, his only two 
objects : he has chronicles in behalf of 
the air, and battens on Tokay, his single 
indulgence, as he has heard it is particu- 
larly salutary. But the savageness of 
the scene would charm your Alpine 
taste: it is tumbled with fragments of 
mountains, tha!t look ready laid for build- 
ing the v/orld. One scrambles over a 
huge terrass, on which mountain ashes 
and various trees spring out of the very 
rocks ; and at the brow is the den, but 
not spacious enough for such an inmate. 
However, I am persuaded it furnished 
Pope with this line, so exactly it answers 
to the picture : — 

On rifted rocks, the dragon's late abodes. 

I wanted to ask if Pope had not visited 
lady Mary Wortley here, during their in- 
timacy ; but could one put that question 
to Avidien himself. There remains an 
ancient odd inscription here, which has 
such a whimsical mixture of devotion 
and romanticness, that I must transcribe 
it:— 

" Preye for the soul of sir Thomas 
Wortley, knight of the body to the kings 
Edward IV., Richard III., Henry VII., 
Henry VIII., whose faults God pardon. 
He caused a lodge to be built on this 
crag in the midst of Wharncliff (the old 
orthography) to hear the harts bell, in 
the year of our Lord 1510." It was a 
chase, and what he meant to hear was 
the noise of the stags. 

During my residence here I have made 
two little excursions ; and I assure you 
it requires resolution ; the roads are in- 
sufferable. They mend them — I should 
call it spoil them — with large pieces of 
stone. At Pomfret I saw the remains of 
that memorable castle " where Rivers, 
Vaughan, and Grey lay shorter by the 
head ;" and on which Gray says — 

And thou, proud boy, from PoiiifVet's walls 

Shalt send 
A groan, and envy oft thy happy grandsire's 

end ! 

The ruins are vanishing, but well situ- 
ated ; there is a large demolished church, 
and a pretty market-house. We crossed 
a Gothic bridge, of eight arches, at Fer- 
rybridge, where there is a pretty view^ 
and went to a large old house of lord 
Huntingdon's at Ledstone, which has 
nothing remarkable but a lofty terrace, 
a whole length portrait of his grandfather 



Sbct. V 



R E C E N T. 



7^ 



in tapestry, and the having belonged to 
the great lord StraflFord. We saw that 
monument of part of poor sir John ***'s 
extravagance, his house and garden, 
which he left orders to make, without 
once looking at either plan. The house 
is a bastard Gothic, but of not near the 
extent I had heard. We lay at Leeds, 
a dingy large town ; and through very 
bad black roads (for the whole country 
is a colliery, or a quarry) we went to 
Kirkstall Abbey, where are vast Saxon 
ruins, in a most picturesque situation, 
on the banks of a river that falls in a 
cascade among rich meadows, hills, and 
woods. It belongs to lord Cardigan ; 
his father pulled down a large house 
here, lest it should interfere with the 
family seat, Deane. We returned through 
Wakefield, where is a pretty Gothic cha- 
pel on a bridge, erected by Edward IV, 
in memory of his father, who lived at 
Sandal Castle just by, and perished in 
the battle here. There is scarce any 
thing of the castle extant, but it com- 
manded a rich prospect. 

By permission from their graces of 
Norfolk, who are at Tunbridge, lord 
Straflford carried us to Worksop, where 
we passed two days. The house is huge, 
and one of the magnificent works of old 
Bess of Hardwicke, who guarded the 
queen of Scots here for some time, in a 
wretched little bed-chamber within her 
own lofty one : there is a tolerable little 
picture of Mary's needlework. The great 
apartment is vast and trist, the whole 
leanly furnished. The great gallery, of 
above two hundred feet, at the top of the 
house, is divided into a library, and into 
nothing. The chapel is decent. There 
is no prospect, and the barren face of the 
country is richly furred with evergreen 
plantations, under the direction of the 
late lord Petre. 

On our way we saw Kiveton, an ugly 
neglected seat of the duke of Leeds, with 
noble apartments, and several good por- 
traits. Oh ! portraits ! — I went to Wel- 
beck. It is impossible to describe the 
bales of Cavendishes, Harleys, Holleses, 
Veres, and Ogles ; every chamber is ta- 
pestried with them, nay, and with ten 
thousand other fat morsels ; all their 
histories inscribed ; all their arms, crests, 
devices sculptured on chimnies of various 
English marbles in ancient forms (and, 
to say truth, most of them ugly). Then 
such a Gothic haU, with pendant fret- 



work in imitation of the old, and with a 
chimney-piece extremely like mine in 
the library ! such water-colour pictures ! 
such historic fragments ! In short, such 
and so much of every thing 1 like, that 
my party thought they should never get 
me away again. There is Prior's por- 
trait, and the column and Varelst's flower 
on which he wrote ; and the authoress 
duchess of Newcastle in a theatric habit, 
which she generally wore, and, conse- 
quently, looking as mad as the present 
duchess ; and dukes of the same name, 
looking as foolish as the present duke ; 
and lady Mary Wortley, drawn as an 
authoress, with rather better pretew' 
sions ; and cabinets and glasses wains- 
coted with the Greendale oak, which was 
60 large, that an old steward wisely cut 
a way through it to make a triumphal 
passage for his lord and lady on their 
wedding, and only killed it ! But it is 
impossible to tell you half what there is. 
The poor woman, who is just dead, passed 
her whole widowhood, except in doing 
ten thousand right and just things, in 
collecting and monumenting the portraits 
and reliques of all the great families from 
which she descended, and which centred 
in her. The duke and duchess of Port- 
land are expected there to-morrow, and 
we saw dozens of cabinets and coffers, 
with the seals not yet taken off. What 
treasures to revel over ! The horseman 
duke's manege is converted into a lofty 
stable, and there is still a grove or two 
of magnificent oaks, that have escaped 
all these great families, though the last 
lord Oxford cut down above an hundred 
thousand pounds worth. The place has 
little pretty, distinct from all these reve- 
rend circumstances. 



LETTER X. 

The Hon. Horace Walpole to George 
Montagu, Esq. 

Arlington Street, November 13, 1760.. 
Even the honey-moon of a new reign 
don't produce events every day. There 
is nothing but the common saying of ad- 
dresses and kissing hands. The chief 
difficulty is settled ; lord Gower yields 
the mastership of the horse to lord 
Huntingdon, and removes to the great 
wardrobe, from whence sir Thomas Ro- 
binson was to have gone into Ellis's 



746 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book iV. 



place, but he is saved. The city, how- 
ever, have a mind to be out of humour ; 
a paper has been fixed on the Royal Ex- 
change, with these words, " No petti- 
coat government, no Scotch minister, no 
lord George Sackville ;" two hints totally 
unfounded, and the other scarce true. 
No petticoat ever governed less ; it is 
left at Leicester House ; lord George's 
breeches are as little concerned ; and, 
except lady Susan Stuart and sir Harry 
Erskine, nothing has yet been done for 
ahy Scots. For the king himself, he 
seems all good-nature, and wishing to 
satisfy every body ; all his speeches are 
obliging-. I saw him again yesterday, 
and was surprised to find the levee room 
had lost so entirely the air of the lion's 
den. This sovereign don't stand in one 
spot, with his eyes fixed royally on the 
ground, and dropping bits of German 
news ; he walks about and speaks to 
every body. I saw him afterwards on 
the throne, where he is graceful and gen- 
teel, sits with dignity, and reads his an- 
swers to addresses well : it was the 
Cambridge address, carried by the duke 
of Newcastle in his doctor's gown, and 
looking like the medecin malgre lui. He 
had been vehemently solicitous for at- 
tendance, for fear my lord Westmore- 
land, who vouchsafes himself to bring 
the address from Oxford, should out- 
number him. Lord Litchfield and seve- 
ral other Jacobites have kissed hands : 
George Selwyn says, " They go to St. 
James's, because now there are so many 
Stuarts there." 

Do you know I had the curiosity to 
go to the burying t'other night. I had 
never seen a royal funeral ; nay, I walked 
as a rag of quality, which I found would 
be, and so it was, the easiest way of see- 
ing it. It is absolutely a noble sight. 
The prince's chamber, hung with purple, 
and a quantity of silver lamps, the coffin 
under a canopy of purple velvet, and six 
vast chandeliers of silver on high stands, 
had a very good effect. The ambassador 
from Tripoli and his son were carried 
to see that chamber. The procession, 
through a line of foot-guards, every se- 
venth man bearing a torch, the horse- 
guards lining the outside, their officers 
Avith drawn sabres and crape sashes on 
horseback, the drums muffled, the fifes, 
bells tolling, and minute guns ; all this 
was very solemn. But tlie charm was 
the entrance of the abbey, where we were 



received by the dean and chapter in rich 
robes, the choir and almsmen bearing 
torches, the whole abbey so illuminated, 
that one saw it to greater advantage than 
by day ; the tombs, long aisles, and 
fretted roof all appearing distinctly, and 
with the happiest chiara scuro. There 
wanted nothing but incense, and little 
chapels here and there, with priests say- 
ing mass for the repose of the defunct ; 
yet one could not complain of its not be- 
ing catholic enough. I had been in dread 
of being coupled with some boy of ten 
years old ; but the heralds were not very 
accurate, and I walked with George 
Grenville, taller and older, to keep me 
in countenance. When we came to the 
chapel of Henry the Seventh, all solem- 
nity and decorum ceased ; no order was 
observed, people sat or stood where they 
could or would ; the yeomen of the guard 
were crying out for help, oppressed by 
the immense weight of the coffin ; the 
bishop read sadly, and blundered in the 
prayers ; the fine chapter, Man that is 
born of a woman, was chaunted, not read ; 
and the anthem, besides being immea- 
surably tedious, would have served as 
well for a nuptial. The real serious part 
was the figure of the duke of Cumber- 
land, heightened by a thousand melan- 
choly circumstances. He had a dark 
brown adonis, and a cloak of black cloth, 
with a train of five yards. Attending the 
funeral of a father could not be pleasant ; 
his leg extremely bad, yet forced to stand 
upon it near two hours ; his face bloated 
and distorted with his late paralytic 
stroke, which has afi'ected too one of his 
eyes, and placed over the mouth of the 
vault, into which, in all probability, he 
must himself so soon descend : think 
how unpleasant a situation ! He bore it 
all with a firm and unaffected counte- 
nance. This grave scene was fully con- 
trasted by the burlesque duke of New- 
castle. He fell into a fit of crying the 
moment he came into the chapel, and 
flung himself back in a stall, the arch- 
bishop hovering over him v/ith a smell- 
ing-bottle : but in two minutes his curi- 
osity got the better of his hypocrisy, and 
he ran about the chapel with his glass, to 
spy who was or was not there, spying 
with one hand, and mopping his eyes 
with the other. Then returned the fear 
of catching cold ; and the duke of Cum- 
berland, who was sinking with heat, felt 
himself weighed down, and turning round, 



Sect. V. 



RECENT. 



747 



found it was tlie duke of Newcastle 
standing upon liis train, to avoid the 
chill of the marble. It was very thea- 
tric to look down into the vault, where 
the coffin lay, attended by mourners with 
lights. Clavering, the groom of the bed- 
chamber, refused to sit up with the body, 
and was dismissed by the king's order. 

I have nothing more to tell you but a 
trifle, a very trifle. The king of Prussia 
has totally defeated marshal Daun. This, 
which would have been prodigious news 
a month ago, is nothing to-day ; it only 
takes its turn among the questions, 
" Who is to be groom of the bed-cham- 
ber ? What is sir T. Robinson to have ?" 
I have been to Leicester Fields to-day ; 
the crowd was immoderate ; I don't be- 
lieve it will continue so. Good night. 
Yours ever. 



LETTER XI. 

The Hon. Horace JValpole to George 
Montagu, Esq. 

Houghton, March 25, 1761. 
Here I am at Houghton ! and alone ! 
in this spot, where (except two hours 
Jast month) 1 have not been in sixteen 
years ! Think, what a crowd of reflec- 
tions ! No, Gray, and forty church- 
yards, could not ftirnish so many ; nay, 
I know one must feel them with greater 
IndiflFerence than I possess, to have pa- 
tience to put them into verse. Here I 
am, probably for the last time of my life, 
though not for the last time : every 
clock that strikes tells me I am an 
hour nearer to yonder church — that 
church, into which I have not yet had 
courage to enter, where lies that mother 
on whom I doated, and who doated on 
me ! There are the two rival mistresses 
of Houghton, neither of whom ever 
wished to enjoy it ! There, too, lies he 
who founded its greatness, to contribute 
to whose fall Europe was embroiled ; 
there he sleeps, in quiet and dignity, 
while his friend and his foe, rather his 
false ally and real enemy, Newcastle and 
Bath, are exhausting the dregs of their 
pitiful lives in squabbles and pamphlets. 
The surprise the pictures gave me is 
again renewed ; accustomed for many 
years to see nothing but wretched daubs 
and varnished copies at auctions, I look 
at these as enchantment. My own de- 



scription of them seems poor ; but shall 
I tell you truly, the majesty of Italian 
ideas almost sinks before the warm na- 
ture of Flemish colouring. Alas ! don't 
I grow old ? My young imagination was 
fired with Guido's ideas ; must they be 
plump and prominent as Abishag to warm 
me now ? Does great youth feel with 
poetic limbs, as well as see with poetic 
eyes ? In one respect I am very young, 
I cannot satiate myself with looking : an 
incident contributed to make me feel this 
more strongly. A party arrived, just as 
I did, to see the house, a man and three 
women in riding-dresses, and they rode 
post through the apartments. I could 
not hurry before them fast enough ; they 
were not so long in seeing for the first 
time, as I could have been in one room, 
to examine what I knew by heart. I re- 
member formerly being often diverted 
with this kind of seers ; they come, ask 
what such a room is called, in which sir 
Robert lay, write it down, admire a lob- 
ster or a cabbage in a market-piece, dis- 
pute whether the last room was green or 
purple, and then hurry to the inn for 
fear the fish should be over-dressed. 
How different my sensations ! not a pic- 
ture here but recals a history ; not one, 
but I remember in Downing Street or 
Chelsea, where queens and crowds ad- 
mired them, though seeing them as little 
as these travellers ! 

When I had drank tea, I strolled into 
the garden; they told me it was now 
called the pleasure-ground. What a dis- 
sonant idea of pleasure ! those groves, 
those allees, where I have passed so 
many charming moments, are now strip- 
ped up or overgrown — many fond paths 
I could not unravel, though with a very 
exact clew in my memory : I met two 
gamekeepers and a thousand hares ! In 
the days when all my soul was tuned to 
pleasure and vivacity (and you will think, 
perhaps, it is far from being out of tune 
yet), I hated Houghton and its solitude ; 
yet 1 loved this garden, as now, with 
many regrets, 1 love Houghton ; Hough- 
ton, I know not what to call it, a monu- 
ment of grandeur or ruin ! How I have 
wished this evening for lord Bute ! How 
I could preach to him ! For myself, 1 
do not Avant to be preached to ; I have 
long considered, how every Balbec must 
wait for the chance of a Mr. Wood. The 
servants wanted to lay me in the great 
apartment — what, to make me })aBS my 



74a 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



night as I have done my evening"! It 
were like proposing to Margaret Roper 
to be a duchess in the court that cut off 
her father's head, and imagining it would 
please her. I have chosen to sit in my 
father's little dressing-room, and am now 
by his scrutoire, where, in the height of 
his fortune, her used to receive the ac- 
counts of his farmers, and deceive him- 
self, or us, with the thoughts of his 
economy. How wise a man at once, 
and how weak ! For what has he built 
Houghton? for his grandson to annihi- 
late, or for his son to mourn over. If 
lord Burleigh could rise and view his re- 
presentative driving the Hatfield stage, 
he would feel as I feel now. Poor little 
Strawberry ! at least it will not be strip- 
ped to pieces by a descendant! You 
will find all these fine meditations dic- 
tated by pride, not by philosophy. Pray 
consider through how many mediums 
philosophy must pass, before it is puri- 
fied— 

" — How often must it weep, how often burn." 

My mind was extremely prepared for all 
this gloom, by parting with Mr. Conway 
yesterday morning ; moral reflections or 
common places are the livery one likes 
to wear, when one has just had a real 
misfortune. He is going to Germany : 
I was glad to dress myself up in transi- 
tory Houghton, in lieu of very sensible 
concern. To-morrow I shall be distracted 
with thoughts, at least images of very 
different complexion. I go to Lynn, and 
am to be elected on Friday. 1 shall re- 
turn hither on Saturday, again alone, to 
expect Burleighides on Sunday, whom I 
left at Newmarket. I must once in my 
life see him on his grandfather's throne. 

Epping, Monday night, thirty-first. 
No, I have not seen him ; he loitered on 
the road, and I was kept at Lynn till 
yesterday morning. It is plain I never 
knew for how many trades I was formed, 
when at this time of day I can begin 
electioneering, and succeed in my new 
vocation. Think of me, the subject of a 
mob, who was scarce ever before in a 
mob, addressing them in the town-hall, 
riding at the head of two thousand people 
through such a town as Lynn, dining with 
above two hundred of them, amid bum- 
pers, huzzas, songs, and tobacco, and 
finishing with country dancing at a ball 
and sixpenny whisk ! I have borne it 



all cheerfully; nay, have sat hours in 
conversation^ the thing upon earth that I 
hate, have been to hear misses play on 
the harpsichord, and to see an alderman's 
copies of Rubens and Carlo Marat. Yet 
to do the folks justice, they are sensible, 
and reasonable, and civilized ; their very 
language is polished since I lived among 
them. I attribute this to their more fre- 
quent intercourse with the world and the 
capital, by the help of good roads and post- 
chaises, which, if they have abridged the 
king's dominions, have at least tamed his 
subjects. Well, how comfortable it will 
be to-morrow, to see my parroquet, to 
play at loo, and not be obliged to talk 
seriously! The Heraclitus of the be- 
ginning of this letter will be overjoyed 
on finishing it to sign himself your old 
friend, Democritus. 

P. S. I forgot to tell you, that my an- 
cient aunt Hammond came over to Lynn 
to see me ; not from any affection, but 
curiosity. The first thing she said to 
me, though we have not met these six- 
teen years, was, " Child, you have done 
a thing to-day, that your father never 
did in all his life ; you sat as they car- 
ried you, he always stood the whole 
time." " Madam," said I, " when I 
am placed in a chair, I conclude I am 
to sit in it ; besides, as I cannot imitate 
my father in great things, I am not at 
all ambitious of mimicking him in little 
ones." I am sure she proposes to tell 
her remarks to my uncle Horace's ghost, 
the instant they meet. 



LETTER XIJ. 

The Hon, Horace Walpole to George 
Montagu, Esq. 

Arlington Street, May 5, 1761. 
We have lost a young genius, sir AV^illiam 
Williams ; an express from Belleisle, ar- 
rived this morning, brings nothing but 
his death. He was shot very unneces- 
sarily, riding too near a battery ; in 
sum, he is a sacrifice to his own rash- 
ness, and to ours. For what are we 
taking Belleisle? I rejoiced at the little 
loss we had on landing ; for the glory, I 
leave it to the common council. I am 
very willing to leave London to them 
too, and do pass half the week at Straw- 
berry, where my two passions, Ulaos 



Sect. V. 



RECENT. 



749 



and nightingales, are in full bloom. I 
spent Sunday as if it were Apollo's birth- 
day ; Gray and Mason were with me, 
and we listened to the nightingales till 
one o'clock in the morning. Gray has 
translated two noble incantations from 
the lord knows who, a Danish Gray, who 
lived the lord knows when. They are 
to be enchased in a history of English 
bards, which Mason and he are writing, 
but of which the former has not written 
a word yet, and of which the latter, if he 
rides Pegasus at his usual foot-pace, will 
finish the first page two years hence. 

But the true frantic (Estus resides at 
present with Mr. Hogarth; I went 
t'other morning to see a portrait he is 
painting of Mr. Fox. Hogarth told me 
he had promised, if Mr. Fox would sit 
as he liked, to make as good a picture 
as Vandyke or Rubens could. I was si- 
lent — " Why now," said he, " you think 
this very vain, but why should not one 
speak truth?" This truth was uttered 
in the face of his own Sigismonda, which 
is exactly a maudlin, tearing off the 
trinkets that her keeper had given her, 
to fling at his head. She has her father's 
picture in a bracelet on her arm, and 
her fingers are bloody with the heart, as 
if she had just bought a sheep's pluck in 
St. James's market. As I was going, 
Hogarth put on a very grave face, and 
said, " Mr. Walpole, I want to speak to 
you." I sat down, and said, I was 
ready to receive his commands. For 
shortness, I will mark this wonderful 
dialogue by initial letters. 

H, I am told you are going to enter- 
tain the town with something in our 
way. W. Not very soon, Mr. Hogarth. 
H. I wish you would let me have it, to cor- 
rect ; I should be very sorry to have you 
expose yourself to censure ; we painters 
must know more of those things than 
other people. W. Do you think no- 
body understands painting but painters ? 
H. Oh ! so far from it, there's Reynolds, 
who certainly has genius ; why, but 
t'other day he offered a hundred pounds 
for a picture that I would not hang in 
my cellar ; and indeed, to say truth, I 
have generally found, that persons who 
had studied painting least were the best 
judges of it. But what I particularly 
wished to say to you was about sir James 
Thornhill (you know he married sir 
James's daughter) : I would not have 
you say any thing agains t him ; there 



was a book published some time ago, 
abusing him, and it gave great offence. 
He was the first that attempted history 
in England, and, I assure you, some Ger- 
mans have said that he was a very great 
painter, W. My work will go no lower 
than the year one thousand seven hun- 
dred, and I really have not considered 
whether sir James ThornhiU will come 
within my plan or not ; if he does, I 
fear you and I shall not agree upon his 
merits. H. I wish you would let me 
correct it ; besides, I am writing some- 
thing of the same kind myself; I should 
be sorry we should clash. W. I believe it 
is not much known what my work is, very 
few persons have seen it. H. Why it is a 
critical history of painting, is not it ? W. 
No, it is an antiquarian history of it in 
England ; I bought Mr. Vertue's MSS. 
and, I believe, the work will not give much 
offence ; besides, if it does, I cannot help 
it : when I publish any thing, I give it 
to the world to think of it as they please. 
H. Oh ! if it is an antiquarian work, we 
shall not clash ; mine is a critical work ; 
1 don't know whether I shall ever pub- 
lish it. It is rather an apology for 
painters. I think it is owing to the 
good sense of the English that they have 
not painted better. W. My dear Mr. 
Hogarth, I must take my leave of you, 
you now grow too wild — and I left him. 
If I had staid, there remained nothing 
but for him to bite me. I give you my 
honour this conversation is literal, and, 
perhaps, as long as you have known 
Englishmen and painters, you never met 
with any thing so distracted. I had con- 
secrated a line to his genius (I mean, for 
wit) in my preface ; I shall not erase 
it ; but I hope nobody will ask me if he 
is not mad. Adieu ! yours ever. 



LETTER XIII. 

From the same to the same. 

Arlington Street, April 6, 1763. 
You will pity my distress when I tell 
you that lord Waldegrave has got the 
smaU-pox, and a bad sort. This day 
se'nnight, in the evening, I met him at 
Arthur's : he complained to me of the 
head-ache, and a sickness in the stomach. 
I said, " My dear lord, why don't you 
go home, and take James's powder, you 
will be well in the morning. " He thanked 



f50 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



me, said he was glatl I had put him In 
mind of it, and he would talte my advice. 
I sent in the morning ; my niece said he 
had taken the powder, and that James 
thought he had no fever, but that she 
found him very low. As he had no fever, 
I had no apprehension. At eight o'clock 
on Friday night I was told abruptly at 
Arthur's that Waldegrave had the small- 
pox. I was excessively shocked, not 
knowing if the powder was good or bad 
for it. I went instantly to the house ; 
at the door I was met by a servant of 
lady Ailesbury, sent to tell me that Mr. 
Conway was arrived. These two oppo- 
site strokes of terror and joy overcame 
me so much, that when I got to Mr. 
Conway's, I could not speak to him, but 
burst into a flood of tears. The next 
morning lord Waldegrave, hearing I was 
there, desired to speak to me alone. I 
should tell you, that the moment he 
knew it was the small-pox he signed 
his will. This has been the unvaried 
tenor of his behaviour, doing just what 
is wise and necessary, and nothing more. 
He told me he knew how great the chance 
was against his living through that dis- 
temper at his age. That, to be sure, he 
should like to have lived a few years 
Ipnger, but if he did not, he should sub- 
mit patiently. That all he desired was, 
that if he should fail, we would do our 
utmost to comfort his wife, who, he 
feared, was breeding, and who, he added, 
was the best woman in the world. I told 
him he could not doubt our attention to - 
her, but that at present all our attention 
was fixed on him. That the great dif- 
ference between having the sraall-pox 
young, or more advanced in years, con- 
sisted in the fear of the latter, but that, 
as I had so often heard him say, and 
now saw, that he had none of those fears, 
the danger of age was considerably les- 
sened. Dr. Wilmot saySj that if any 
thing saves him, it will be his tranquil- 
lity. To my comfort, I am told, that 
James's powder has probably been a ma- 
terial ingredient towards his recovery. 
In the mean time the universal anxiety 
about him is incredible. Dr. Barnard, 
the master of Eton, who is in town for 
the holidays, says, that, from his situa- 
ation, he is naturally invited to houses 
of all ranks and parties, and that the 
concern is general in all. I cannot say 
so much of my lord, and not do a little 
justice to my niece too. Her tender- 



ness, fondness, attention, and courage 
are surprising. She has no fears to be- 
come her, nor heroism for parade. I 
could not help saying to her, " There 
never was a nurse of your age had such 
attention." She replied, *' There never 
was a nurse of my age had such an ob- 
ject." It is this astonishes one, to see 
so much beauty sincerely devoted to a 
man so unlovely in his person ; but if 
Adonis was sick, she could not stir sel- 
domer out of his bed-chamber. The 
physicians seem to have little hopes, but, 
as their arguments are not near so strong 
as their alarms, 1 own I do not give it 
up, and yet I look on it in a very dan- 
gerous light. 

I know nothing of news and the world, 
for I go to Albemarle Street early in the 
morning, and don't come home tiU late 
at night. Young Mr. Pitt has been dy- 
ing of a fever in Bedfordshire. The 
bishop of Carlisle, whom I have ap-^ 
pointed visitor of Strawberry, is gone 
down to him. You will be much disap- 
pointed if you expect to find the gallery 
near finished. They threaten me with 
three months before the gilding can be 
begun. Twenty points are at a stand by 
my present confinement, and 1 have a 
melancholy prospect of being forced to 
carry my niece thither the next time l* 
go. The due de Nivernois, in return for 
a set of the Strawberry editions, has 
sent me four seasons, which I conclude 
he thought good, but they shall pass 
their whole round in London, for they 
have not even the merit of being badly 
old enough for Strawberry. Mr. Bent- 
ley's epistle to lord Melcomb has been 
published in a magazine. It has less 
wit by far than I expected from him, and 
to the full as bad English. The thoughts 
are old Strawberry phrases ; so are not 
the panegyrics. Here are six lines writ- 
ten extempore by lady Temple, on lady 
Mary Coke, easy and genteel, and almost 
true : — 

She sometimes laughs, but never loud : 
She's handsome too, but soiucwhat prond : 
At court she bears away the belle; 
She dresses fine, and figures well; 
Witli decency she's gay and airy ; 
Who can this be but lady Mary ? 

There have been tough doings in par- 
liament about the tax on cider : and in 
the western counties the discontent is so 
great, that if Mr. Wilkes will turn patriot 
hero, or patnot incendiary in earnest, 



Sect. V. 



RECENT. 



751 



and put himself at their head, he may 
ohtain a rope of martyrdom before the 
smiimer is over. Adieu ! I tell you my 
sorrows, because, if I escape them, I 
am sure nobody will rejoice more. 
Yours ever. 



LETTER XIV. 

The Hon. Horace Walpole to George 
Montagu, Esq, 

Arlington Street, Fridaj'^ night, late. 
Amidst all my own grief, and all the 
distress which 1 liave this moment left, 
I cannot forget you, who have so long 
been my steady and invariable friend. I 
cannot leave it to newspapers and cor- 
respondents to tell you my loss. Lord 
Waldegrave died to-day. Last night he 
had some glimmerings of hope. The 
most desponding of the faculty flattered 
us a little. He himself joked with the 
physicians, and expressed himself in this 
engaging manner, asking what day of 
the week it was ; they told him Thurs- 
day. " Sure," said he, " it is Friday." 
'* No, my lord, indeed it is Thursday." 
" Well," said he, " see what a rogue 
this distemper makes one ; I want to 
steal nothing but a day." By the help 
of opiates, with which, for two or three 
days, they had numbed his sufferings, 
he rested well. This morning he had no 
worse symptoms. I told lady Walde- 
grave, that as no material alteration was 
expected before Sunday, I would go to 
dine at Strawberry, and return in time 
to meet the physicians in the evening ; 
in truth, I was worn out with anxiety 
and attendance, and wanted an hour or 
two of fresh air. I left her at twelve, 
and had ordered dinner at three, that I 
might be back early. I had not risen 
from table, when I received an express 
from lady Betty Waldegrave, to tell me 
that a sadden change had happened, that 
they had given him James's powder, but 
that they feared it was too late, and that 
he probably would be dead before I could 
come to my niece, for whose sake she 
begged I would return immediately. It 
was, indeed, too late ! too late for every 
thing — late as it was given, the powder 
vomited him even in the agonies. Had 
I had power to direct, he should never 
have quitted James. But these are vain 
regrets ! vain to recollect how particu- 



larly kind he, who was kind to every 
body, was to me ! I found lady Walde- 
grave at my brother's ; she weeps with- 
out ceasing, and talks of his virtues and 
goodness to her in a manner that dis- 
tracts one. My brother bears this^mor- 
tification with more courage than 1 could 
have expected from his warm passions : 
but nothing struck me more than to see 
my rough savage Swiss, Louis, in tears, 
as he opened my chaise. I have a bitter 
scene to come ; to-morrow morning I 
carry poor lady Waldegrave to Straw- 
berry. Her fall is great, from that ado- 
ration and attention that he paid her, 
from that splendour of fortune, so much 
of which dies with him, and from that 
consideration, which rebounded to her 
from the great deference which the world 
had for his character. Visions, perhaps. 
Yet who could expect that they would 
have passed away even before that fleet- 
ing thing, her beauty ! 

If I had time or command enough of 
my thoughts, I could give you as long a 
detail of as unexpected a revolution in 
the political v/orld. To-day has been as 
fatal to a whole nation, I mean to the 
Scotch, as to our family. Lord Bute 
resigned this morning. His intention 
was not even suspected till Wednesday, 
nor at all known a very few days before. 
In short, there is nothing, more or less, 
than a panic ; a fortnight's opposition 
has demolished that scandalous but vast 
majority, which a fortnight had pur- 
chased, and in five months a plan of ab- 
solute power has been demolished by a 
panic. He pleads to the world bad 
health ; to his friends, more truly, that 
the nation was set at him. He pretends 
to intend retiring absolutely, and giving 
no umbrage. In the mean time he is 
packing up a sort of ministerial legacy, 
which cannot hold even till next session, 
and I should think would scarce take 
place at all. George Grenville is to be 
at the head of the treasury and chancellor 
of the exchequer, Charles Townshend to 
succeed him, and lord Shelburn Charles. 
Sir Francis Dash wood to have his barony 
of Despencer and the great wardrobe, in 
the room of lord Gower, who takes the 
privy seal, if the duke of Bedford takes 
the presidentship ; but there are many 
ifs in this arrangement ; the principal zf 
is, if they dare stand a tempest, which 
has so terrified the pilot. You ask what 
becomes of Mr. Fox ? Not at all pleased 



7^ 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



with this sudden determination, which 
has blown up so many of his projects, 
and left him time to heat no more, fur- 
naces, he goes to France by the way of 
the House of Lords, but keeps his place 
and his tools till something else happens. 
The confusion I suppose will be enor- 
mous, and the next act of the drama a 
quarrel among the opposition, who would 
be all powerful, if they could do what 
they cannot, hold together, and not quar- 
rel for the plunder. As I shall be at a 
distance for some days, I shall be able 
to send you no more particulars of this 
interlude ; but you will like a pun ray 
brother made when he was told of this 
explosion : " Then," said he, " they 
must turn the Jacks out of the drawing- 
room again, and again take them into 
the kitchen." Adieu ! what a world to 
set one's heart on ! Yours ever. 

LETTER XV. 

The Hon. Horace Walpole to George 
Montagu, Esq. 

Strawberry Hill, April 14, 1763. 
I HAVE received your two letters toge- 
ther, and foresaw that your friendly good 
heart would feel for us just as you do. 
The loss is irreparable, and my poor 
niece is sensible it is. She has such a 
veneration for her lord's memory, that 
if her sister and I make her cheerful for 
a moment, she accuses herself of it the 
next day to the bishop of Exeter *, as if 
he was her confessor, and that she had 
committed a crime. She cried for two 
days to such a degree, that if she had 
been a fountain it must have stopped. 
Till yesterday she scarce eat enough to 
keep her alive, and looks accordingly ; 
but at her age she must be comforted : 
her esteem will last, but her spirits will 
return in spite of herself. Her lord has 
made her sole executrix, and added what 
little douceurs he could to her jointure, 
which is but a thousand pounds a-year, 
the estate being but three-and-twenty 
hundred. The little girls will have about 
eight thousand pounds a-piece ; for the 
teller's place was so great during the war, 
that, notwithstanding his temper was a 
sluice of generosity, he had saved thirty 
thousand pounds since his marriage. 
Her sisters have been here with us the 

* The bishop of Exeter was married to a 
sister of lady Waldegrave. 



whole time. Lady Huntingtower is all 
mildness and tenderness ; and by dint of 
attention I have not displeased the other. 
Lord Huntingtower has been here once ; 
the bishop most of the time : he is very 
reasonable and good natured, and has 
been of great assistance and comfort to 
me in this melancholy office, which is to 
last here till Monday or Tuesday. "We 
have got the eldest little girl too, lady 
Laura, who is just old enough to be 
amusing ; and last night my nephew ar- 
rived here from Portugal. It was a ter- 
rible meeting at first, but, as he is very 
soldierly and lively, he got into spirits, 
and diverted us much with his relations 
of the war and the country. He confirms 
all we have heard of the villany, pol- 
troonery, and ignorance of the Portu- 
guese, and of their aversion to the Eng- 
lish ; but I could perceive, even through 
his relation, that our flippancies and con- 
tempt of them must have given a good 
deal of play to their antipathy. 

You are admirably kind, as you always 
are, in inviting me to Greatworth, and 
proposing Bath ; but, besides its being 
impossible for me to take any journey 
just at present, I am really very well in 
health, and the tranquillity and air of 
Strawberry have done much good. The 
hurry of London, where I shall be glad 
to be just now, will dissipate the gloom 
that this unhappy loss has occasioned ; 
though a deep loss I shall always think 
it. The time passes tolerably here ; I 
have my painters and gilders, and con- 
stant packets of news from town, besides 
a thousand letters of condolence to an- 
swer ; for both my niece and I have re- 
ceived innumerable testimonies of the 
regard that was felt for lord Waldegrave. 
I have heard of but one man who ought 
to have known his worth that has shewn 
no concern ; but I suppose his childish 
mind is too much occupied with the loss 
of his last governor ! I have given up 
my own room to my niece, and have be- 
taken myself to the Holbein chamber, 
where I am retired from the rest of the 
family when I choose it, and nearer to 
overlook my workmen. The chapel is 
quite finished, except the carpet. The 
sable mass of the altar gives it a very 
sober air ; for, notwithstanding the so- 
lemnity of the painted windows, it had a 
gaudiness that was a little profane. 

I can know no news here but by re- 
bound ; and yet, though they are to re- 



SfiCT. V. 



RECENT. 



75S 



bound again to you, they will be as fresh 
as any you can have at Greatworth. A 
kind of administration is botched up for 
the present, and even gave itself an air 
of that fierceness with which tlie winter 
set out. Lord Hardwicke was told, that 
his sons must vote with the court, or 
be turned out ; he replied, as he meant 
to have them in place, he chose they 
should be removed now. It looks ill for 
the court when he is sturdy. They wished 
too to have had Pitt, if they could have 
had him without consequences ; but they 
don't find any recruits repair to their 
standard. They brag that they should 
have had lord Waldegrave ; a most no- 
torious falsehood, as he had refused every 
oflfer they could invent the day before he 
was taken ill. The duke of Cumberland 
orders his servants to say, that, so far 
from joining them, he believes, if lord 
Waldegrave could have been foretold of 
his death, he would have preferred it to 
an union with Bute and Fox. The for- 
mer's was a decisive panic ; so sudden, 
that it is said lord Egremont was sent to 
break his resolution of retiring to the 
king. The other, whose journey to 
France does not indicate much less ap- 
prehension, affects to walk in the streets 
at the most public hours, to mark his 
not trembling. In the mean time the 
two chiefs have paid their bravos mag- 
nificently : no less than fifty-two thou- 
sand pounds a-year are granted in re- 
version ! Young Martin, who is older 
than I am, is named my successor ; but 
I intend he shall wait some years : if 
they had a mind to serve me, they could 
not have selected a fitter tool to set my 
character in a fair light by the compari- 
son. Lord Bute's son has the reversion 
of an auditor of the imprest ; this is all 
he has done ostensibly for his family, 
but the great things bestowed on the 
most insignificant objects, make me sus- 
pect some private compacts. Yet I may 
wrong him, but I do not mean it. Lord 
Granby has refused Ireland, and the 
Northumberlands are to transport their 
magnificence thither. I lament that you 
made so little of that voyage ; but is this 
the season of unrewarded merit ? One 
should blush to be preferred within the 
same year. Do but think that Calcraft 
is to be an Irish lord ! Fox's millions, 
or Calcraft's tythes of millions, cannot 
purchase a grain of your virtue or cha- 
racter. Adieu ! yours most truly. 



LETTER XVI. 

From the same to the same. 

Arlington Street, April 22, 1763. 
I HAVE two letters from you, and sliall 
take care to execute the commission in 
the second. The first diverted me much. 

1 brought my poor niece from Straw- 
berry on Monday. As executrix, her 
presence was quite necessary, and she 
has never refused to do any thing rea- 
sonable that has been desired of her. 
But the house and the business have 
shocked her terribly ; she still eats no- 
thing, sleeps worse than she did, and 
looks dreadfully ; 1 begin to think she 
will miscarry. She said to me t'other 
day, " They tell me, that if my lord had 
lived, he might have done great service 
to his country at this juncture, by the 
respect all parties had for him. This is 
very fine ; but as he did not live to do 
those services, it will never be mentioned 
in history !" I thought this solicitude 
for his honour charming. But he will 
be known by history ; he has left a 
small volume of memoirs, that are a 
chef-cToeuvre. He twice shewed them 
to me, but I kept his secret faithfully ; 
notv it is for his glory to divulge it. 

I am glad you are going to Dr. Lewis. 
After an Irish voyage I do not wonder 
you want careening. I have often preach- 
ed~ to you — nay, and lived to you too ; 
but my sermons were flung away and 
my example. 

This ridiculous administration is patch- 
ed up for the present ; the detail is de- 
lightful, but that I shall reserve for 
Strawberry-tide. Lord Bath has com- 
plained to Fanshaw of lord Pulteney's * 
extravagance, and added, "if he had 
lived he would have spent my whole 
estate." This almost comes up to sir 
Robert Brown, who, when his eldest 
daughter was given over, but still alive, 
on that uncertainty sent for an under- 
taker, and bargained for her funeral, in 
hopes of having it cheaper, as it was 
possible she might recover. Lord Bath 
has purchased the Hatton vault in West- 
minster Abbey, squeezed his v/ife, son, 
and daughter into it, reserved room for 
himself, and has set the rest to sale. 
Come ; all this is not far short of sir 
Robert Brown. 

* Son of the earl of Bath. 

2€ 



754 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Hook IV. 



To my great satisfaction, the new lord 
Holland kas not taken the least friendly, 
or even formal notice of me, on lord 
Walde^rave's death. It dispenses me 
from the least farther connection with 
him, and saves explanations, which al- 
ways entertain the world more than 
satisfy. 

Dr. Cumberland is an L'ish bishop ; 
I hope, before the summer is over, that 
some beam from your cousin's portion of 
the triumvirate may light on poor Bent- 
ley. If he wishes it till next winter, he 
will be forced to try still new sunshine. 
I have taken Mrs. Pritchard's house for 
lady Waldegrave : I offered her to live 
with me at Strav/berry ; but, with her 
usual good sense, she declined it, as she 
thought the children would be trouble- 
some. 

Charles Townshend's episode in this 
revolution passes belief, though he does 
not tell it himself. If I had a son born, 
and an old fairy were to appear and offer 
to endow him with her choicest gifts, I 
should cry out, " Powerful Goody, give 
him any thing but parts !" Adieu ! 
yours ever. 



LETTER XVII. 

The Hon. Horace Walpole to the Hon. 
H. S. Conway. 

Strawberry Hill, May 1, 1763. 
I FEEL happy at hearing your happiness ; 
but, my dear Harry, your vision is much 
indebted to your long absence, which 

Makes bleak rocks and barren mountains smile. 

I mean no offence to Park Place ; but 
the bitterness of the weather makes m.e 
wonder how you can find the country 
tolerable now. This is a May-day for 
the latitude of Siberia ! The milkmaids 
should be wrapped in the motherly com- 
forts of a swan- skin petticoat. In short, 
such hard words have passed between 
me and the north wind to-day, that, ac- 
cording to the language of the times, I 
was very near abusing it for coming from 
Scotland, and to imputing it to lord Bute. 
I don't know whether I should not have 
written a North Briton against it, if the 
printers were not all sent to Newgate, 
and Mr. Wilkes to the Tower — ay, to 
the Tower, tout de hon. The new mi^ 
nistry are trying to make up for their 



ridtculous insignificance by acowp cf eclat. 
As I came hither yesterday, I do not 
know whether the particulars I have 
heard are genuine ; but in the Tower he 
certainly is, taken up by lord Halifax's 
warrant for treason : vide the North 
Briton of Saturday was se'nnight. It is 
said he refused to obey the warrant, of 
which he asked and got a copy from the 
two messengers, telling them he did not 
mean to make his escape, but sending to 
demand his habeas corpus, which was re- 
fused. He then went to lord Halifax, 
and thence to the Tower ; declaring they 
should get nothing out of him but what 
they knew. All his papers have been 
seized. Lord chief justice Pratt, I am 
told, finds great fault with the wording 
of the warrant. 

I don't know how to execute your 
commission for books of architecture, 
nor care to put you to expense, which I 
know will not answer. I have been 
consulting my neighbour, young Mr. 
Thomas Pitt, my present architect : we 
have all books of that sort here, but can- 
not think of one which will help you to 
a cottage or a green-house. For the 
former you should send me your idea, 
your dimensions ; for the latter, don't 
you rebuild your old one, though in an- 
other place? A pretty green-house I 
never saw ; nor, without immoderate 
expense, can it well be an agreeable ob- 
ject. Mr. Pitt thinks a mere portico 
without a pediment, and windows re- 
movable in summer, would be the best 
plan you could have. If so, don't you 
remember something of that kind, which 
you liked, at sir Charles Cotterel's at 
Rousham ? But a fine green-house must 
be on a more exalted plan. In short, 
you must be more particular, before I 
can be at all so. 

I called at Hammersmith yesterday 
about lady Ailesbury's tubs ; one of them 
is nearly finished, but they will not both 
be completed these ten days. Shall they 
be sent to you by water? Good night to 
her ladyship and you, and the infanta, 
whose progress in waxen statuary I hope 
advances so fast, that by next winter she 
may rival Rackstrow's old man. Do you 
know, that, though apprised of what I 
was going to see, it deceived me, and 
made such impression on my mind, 
that, thinking on it as I came home in 
my chariot, and seeing a woman sted- 
fastly at work in a window in Pall Mall, 



Sect. V, 



RECENT. 



it made me start to see her move. 
Adieu ! yours ever. 

Arlington Street, Monday night. 

The mighty commitment set out with a 
blunder ; the warrant directed the printer 
and all concerned (unnamed) to betaken 
up. Consequently Wilkes had his habeas 
<jorpus of course, and was committed 
a^^ain; moved for another in the com- 
mon pleas, and is to appear there to- 
morrow morning. Lord Temple being, 
by another strain of power, refused ad- 
mittance to him, said, " I thought this 
was the Tower, but find it is the Bas- 
tille." They found among Vv'ilkes's pa- 
pers an unpublished North Briton, de- 
signed for last Saturday. It contained 
advice to the king n«t to go to St. Paul's 
on the thanksgiving, but to have a snug 
one in his own chapel ; and to let lord 
George Sackville carry the sword. There 
was a dialogue in it, too, between Fox 
and Calcraft ; the former says to the 
latter, " I did not think you would have 
served me so, Jemmy Twitcher." 

LETTER XVII L 

From the same to the same. 

Arlington Street, May 6, very iate, 1763. 

The complexion of the times is a little 
altered since the beginning of this last 
winter. Prerogative, that gave itself 
such airs in November, and would speak 
to nothing but a Tory, has had a rap this 
morning that will do it some good, un- 
less it is weak enough to do itself more 
harm. The judges of the common pleas 
have unanimously dismissed Wilkes from 
his imprisonment, as a breach of privi- 
lege ; his offence not being a breach of 
the peace, only tending to it. The people 
are in transports ; and it will require all 
the vanity and confidence of those able 
ministers, lord S**^" and Mr. C***, to 
keep up the spirits of the court. 

I must change this tone, to tell you of 
the most dismal calamity that ever hap- 
pened. Lady Molesworth's house, in 
Upper Brook Street, w'as burned to the 
ground between four and five this morn- 
ing. She herself, two of her daughters, 
her brother, and six servants, perished. 
Two other of the young ladies jumped 
cut of the two pair of stairs and garret 
windows : one broke her thigh, the other 
(the eldest of all) broke her's too, and 



has had it cut off. The fifth daughter is 
much burnt. The French governess 
leaped from the garret, and was dashed 
to pieces. Dr. Molesworth and his wife, 
who were there on a visit, escaped ; the 
wife by jumping from the two pair of 
stairs, and saving herself by a rail ; he 
by hanging by his hands till a second 
ladder was brought, after a first had 
proved too short. Nobody knows how 
or where the fire began ; the catastrophe 
is shocking beyond what one ever heard : 
and poor lady Molesworth, whose cha- 
racter and conduct were the most ami- 
able in the world, is universally lamented. 
Your good hearts wail feel this in the 
most lively manner. 

1 go early to Strawberry to-morrow, 
giving up the new opera, madame de 
Boufflers, and Mr. Wilkes, and all the 
present topics. Wilkes, whose case has 
taken its place by the side of the seven 
bishops, calls himself the eighth — not 
quite improperly, when one remembers 
that sir Jonathan Trelawney, who swore 
like a trooper, was one of those con- 
fessors. 

There is a good letter in the Gazet- 
teer on the other side, pretending to be 
written by lord Temple, and advising 
Wilkes to cut his throat, like lord E^**, 
as it would be of infinite service to their 
cause. There are published, too, three 
volumes of lady iMary Wortley's letters, 
which I believe are genuine, and are not 
unentertaining. But have you read Tom 
Hervey's letter to the late king ? That 
beats everything for madness, horrid in- 
decency, and folly, and yet has some 
charming and striking passages. 

I have advised Mrs. H'^** to inform 
against Jack, as writing in the North 
Briton ; he w^ill then be shut up in the 
Tower, and may be shewn for old Nero*. 
Adieu ! yours ever. 

LETTER XIX. 

The Hon. Horace Walpole to George 
Montagu, Esq. 

Stamford, Saturday night, July 23, 1763 

" Thus far our arms have with success 
been crowned," bating a few mishaps, 
which will attend long marches like ours. 
We have conquered as many towns as 
Louis Quatorze in the campaign of 
seventy-two ; that is, seen them, for he 
• An old lion there, so called. 

3C2 



756 



E J. E G A N T EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



did little more, and into the bargain he 
had much better roads, and a drier sum- 
mer. It has rained perpetually till to- 
day, and made us experience the rich soil 
of Northamptonshire, which is a clay- 
pudding, stuck full of villages. After 
we parted with you on Thursday, we saw 
Castle Ashby* and Easton Mauduitf- 
The first is most magnificently triste, 
and has all the formality of the Comp- 
tons. 1 should admire it if I could see 
out of it, or any thing in it, but there is 
scarce any furniture, and the bad little 
frames of glass exclude all objects. 
Easton is miserable enough ; there are 
many modern portraits, and one I was 
glad to see of the duchess of Shrews- 
bury. We lay at Wellingborough — pray 
never lie there — the beastliest inn upon 
earth is there ! We were carried into a 
vast bed-chamber, which I suppose is 
the clubroOm, for it stunk of tobacco 
like a justice of peace. I desired some 
boiling water for tea ; they brought me 
a sugar dish of hot water in a pewter 
plate. Yesterday morning we went to 
Boughton, where we were scarce landed, 
before the Cardigans, in a coach and three 
chaises, arrived with a cold dinner in 
their pockets, on their way to Deane ; 
for, as it is in dispute, they never reside 
at Boughton. This was most unlucky, 
that we should pitch on the only hour in 
the year in which they are there. I was 
so disconcerted, and so afraid of falling 
foul of the countess and her caprices, 
that I hurried from chamber to chamber, 
and scarce knew what I saw, but that 
the house is in the grand old French 
style, that gods and goddesses lived over 
my head in every room, and that there 
was nothing but pedigrees all around me 
and under my feet, for there is literally 
a coat of arms at the end of every step of 
the stairs : did the duke mean to pun, and 
intend this for the descent of the Mon- 
tagus ? Well, we hurried away, and got 
to Drayton an hour before dinner. Oh ! 
the dear old place ! you would be trans- 
ported with it. In the first place, it 
stands in as ugly a hole as Boughton : 
well I that is not its beauty. The front 
is a brave strong castle wall, embattled 
and loop-holed for defence. Passing 
the great gate^ you come to a sumptuous 
but narrow modem court, behind which 
rises the old mansion, all towers and 

"^ A seat of the earl of Northampton, 
f A seat of the earl of Sussex. 



turrets. The house is excellent ; has a 
vast hall, ditto dining room, king's cham- 
ber, trunk gallery at the top of the house, 
handsome chapel, and seven or eight dis- 
tinct apartments, besides closets and con- 
veniences without end. Then it is covered 
with portraits, crammed with old china, 
furnished richly, and not a rag in it un- 
der forty, fifty, or a thousand years old ; 
but not a bed or chair that has lost a 
tooth, or got a grey hair, so well are they 
preserved. I rummaged it from head to 
foot, examined every spangled bed, and 
enamelled pair of bellows, for such there 
are : in short, I do not believe the old 
mansion was ever better pleased with an 
inhabitant, since the days of Walter de 
Drayton, except when it has received its 
divine old mistress. If one could honour 
her more than one did before, it would 
be to see with what religion she keeps 
up the old dwelling and customs, as well 
as old servants, who, you may imagine, 
do not love her less than other people do. 
The garden is just as sir John Germain 
brought itfrom Holland ; pyramidal yews, 
treillages, and square cradle walks, with 
windows clipped in them. Nobody was 
there but Mr. Beauclerc, and lady Cathe- 
rine, and two parsons : the two first suf- 
fered us to ransack and do as we would, 
and the two last assisted us, informed us, 
and carried us to every tomb in the 
neighbourhood. I have got every cir- 
cumstance by heart, and was pleased be- 
yond my expectation, both with the place 
and the comfortable way of seeing it. 
We staid here till after dinner to-day, 
and sawFotheringhay in our way hither. 
The castle is totally ruined. The mount, 
on which the keep stood, two door cases, 
and a piece of the moat, are all the re- 
mains. Near it is a front and two pro- 
jections of an ancient house, which, by 
the arms about it, I suppose was part of 
the palace of Richard and Cicely, duke 
and duchess of York. There are two 
pretty tombs for them and their uncle 
duke of York in the church, erected by 
order of queen Elizabeth. The church 
has been very fine, but is now intolerably 
shabby ; yet many large saints remain in 
the windows, two entire, and all the heads 
well painted. You may imagine we were 
civil enough to the queen of Scots, to feel 
a feel of pity for her, while we stood on 
the very spot where she was put to 
death : my companion, I believe, who 
is a better royalist than I am, felt a little 



Sect, V. 



RECENT. 



757 



more. There, I have obeyed you. To- 
morrow we see Burleigh and Peterbo- 
rough, and lie at Ely; on Monday I 
hope to be in town, and on Tuesday I 
hope much more to be in the gallery at 
Strawberry Hill, and to find the gilders 
laying on the last leaf of gold. Good 
night ! Yours ever. 



LETTER XX. 

The Hon. Horace Walpole to George 
Montagu^ Esq, 

Hockerill, Monday night, July 25, Vol. 2d. 

1 CONTINUE. You must know we were 
drowned on Saturday night. It rained, 
as it did at Greatworth on Wednesday, 
all night and all next morning, so we 
could not look even at the outside of 
Burleigh, but we saw the inside plea- 
santly ; for lord Exeter, whom I had 
prepared for our intentions, came to us, 
and made every door and every lock fly 
open, even of his magazines, yet un- 
ranged. He is going through the house 
by degrees, furnishing a room every 
year, and has already made several most 
sumptuous. One is a little tired of Carlo 
Maratti and Lucca Jordano, yet still 
these are treasures. The china and japan 
are of the finest ; miniatures in plenty, 
and a shrine full of crystal vases, fiUi- 
gree, enamel, jewels, and the trinkets of 
taste, that have belonged to many a noble 
dame. In return for his civilities, I made 
my lord Exeter a present of a glorious 
cabinet, whose drawers and sides are all 
painted by Rubens. This present, you 
must know, is his own, but he knew no- 
thing of the hand or the value. Just so 
I have given lady Betty Germain a very 
fine portrait, that I discovered at Dray- 
ton in the woodhouse. 

I was not much pleased with Peter- 
borough ; the front is adorable, but the 
inside has no more beauty than consists 
in vastness. By the way, I have a pen 
and ink that will not form a letter. We 
were now sent to Huntingdon in our way 
to Ely, as we found it impracticable, 
from the rains and floods, to cross the 
country thither. We landed in the 
heart of the assizes, and almost in the 
middle of the races, both which, to the 
astonishment of the virtuosi,^ we eagerly 
quitted this morning. We were hence 
sent south to Cambridge, still on bur 



way northward to Ely, but when we got 
to Cambridge we were forced to abandon 
all thoughts of Ely, there being nothing 
but lamentable stories of inundations 
and escapes. However, I made myself 
amends with the University, which I 
have not seen these four-and-twenty 
years, and which revived many youthful 
scenes, which, merely from their being 
youthful, are forty times pleasanter than 
any other ideas. You know I always 
long to live at Oxford : I felt that I 
could like to live even at Cambridge 
again. The colleges are much cleaned 
and improved since my days, and the 
trees and groves more venerable ; but 
the town is tumbling about their ears. 
We surprised Gray with our appearance, 
dined and drank tea with him, and are 
come hither, within sight of land. I 
always find it worth my while to make 
journies, for the joy I have in getting 
home again. A second adieu ! 

LETTER XXI. 

The Hon. Horace IValpole to the Hon, 
H. S. Conway, 

Strawberry Hill, Saturday night, 
eight o'clock, April 21, 1764. 

I WRITE to you with a very bad head- 
ach ; I have passed a night, for which 
*** and the duke of *** shall pass 
many an uneasy one. Notwithstanding 
I heard from every body I met, that 
your regiment, as well as bedchamber, 
were taken away, I would not believe it, 
till last night the duchess of Grafton told 
me, that the night before the duchess of 
■^ "^ * * * said to her, " xlre not you very 
sorry for poor Mr. Conway ? He has 
lost every thing ■^■." When the witch of 
Endor pities, one knows she has raised 
the devil. 

I am come hither alone, to put my 
thoughts into some order, and to avoid 
shewing the first sallies of my resent- 
ment, which I know you would disap- 
prove ; nor does it become your friend 
to rail. My anger shall be a little more 
manly, and the plan of my revenge a little 
deeper laid than in peevish bons-tnots. 
You shall judge of my indignation by its. 
duration. 

* Mr. Conv/ay had been dismissed from ail 
his appointments, for having voted aaainst the 
legality of general warrants, in the case of 
Wilkes. 



758 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV 



In the mean time, let me beg you, in 
the most earnest and most sincere of all 
professions, to suifer me to make your 
loss as light as it is in my power to make 
it : I have six thousand pounds in the 
funds : accept all, or what part you want. 
Do not imagine I will be put off with a 
refusal. The retrenchment of my ex- 
penses, which I shall from this hour 
commence, will convince you that I 
mean to replace your fortune as far as I 
can. When I thought you did not want 
it, 1 had made another disposition. You 
have ever been the dearest person to me 
in the world. You have shewn that you 
deserve to be so. Yjou suffer for your 
spotless integrity. Can I hesitate a 
moment to shew, that there is at least one 
man who knows how to value you? The 
new will, which I am going to make, 
will be a testimonial of my own sense of 
virtue. 

One circumstance has heightened my 
resentment. If it was not an accident, 
it deserves to heighten it. The very day 
on which your dismission was notified, 
I received an ordet fi-om the Treasury 
for the payment of what money was due 
to me there. Is it possible that they 
could mean to make any distinction be- 
tween us? Have I separated myself 
from you ? Is there that spot on earth, 
where I can be suspected of having paid 
court? Have I even left my name 
at a minister's door since you took your 
part ? If they have dared to hint this, 
the pen that is now writing to you will 
bitterly undeceive them. 

I am impatient to see the letters you 
have received, and the answers you have 
sent. Do you come to town ? If you 
do not, I will come to you to-morrow 
se'nnight, that is, the 29th. I give no 
advice on any thing, because you are 
cooler than I am — not so cool, I hope, 
as to be insensible to this outrage, this 
villainy, this injustice ! You owe it to 
your country to labour the extermination 
of such ministers ! 

I am so bad a hypocrite, that I am 
afraid of shewing how deeply 1 feel this. 
Yet last night I received the account 
from the duchess of Grafton with more 
temper than you believe me capable of : 
but the agitation of the night disordered 
me so much, that lord John Cavendish, 
who was with me two hours this morn- 
ing, does not, I believe, take me for a 
hero. As there are some, who I know 



would enjoy my mortification, and who 
probably designed 1 should feel my share 
of it, i wish to command myself — but 
that struggle shall be added to their bilL 
I saw nobody else before I came away 
but Legge, who sent for me, and wrote 
the enclosed for you. He would have 
said more, both to you and lady Ailes- 
bury, but I would not let him, as he is so 
ill : however, he thinks himself that he 
shall live. I hope he will. I would not 
lose a shadow that can haunt these mi- 
nisters. 

I feel for lady Aileshury, because I 
know she feels just as I do — and it is 
not a pleasant sensation. I will say no 
more, though I could write volumes^ 
Adieu ! yours, as 1 ever have been, and 
ever will be. 



LETTER XXII. 

The Hon, Horace Walpole to the Hon. 
H. S. Conway.. 

Arlington Street, April 24, 1764. 
I REJOICE that you feel your loss* so 
little : that you act with dignity and pro- 
priety does not surprise me. To have 
you behave in character and with cha- 
racter, is my first of all wishes ; for then 
it will not be in the power of man to 
make you unhappy. Ask yourself — Is 
there a man in England with whom you 
would change character ? Is there a man 
in England who would not change Avith 
you ? Then think how little they have 
taken away. 

For me, I shall certainly conduct my- 
self as you prescribe. Your friend shall 
say and do nothing unworthy of your 
friend. You govern me in every thing 
but one ; I mean the disposition I have 
told you I shall make. Nothing can 
alter that but a great change in your 
fortune. In another point you partly 
misunderstood me. That I shall explain 
hereafter. 

I shall certainly meet you here on 
Sunday, and very cheerfully. We may 
laugh at a world, in which nothing of us 
will remain long but our characters. 
Adieu ! the dear family ! Yours eter- 
nally. 

* Of his employments. 



Sect. V. 



RECENT. 



759 



LErrER XXIIl. 

Fro7H the same to the same. 

Strawberry Hill, Oct. 13, 1764. 

LoKD John Cavendish has heen so kind 
as to send me word of the duke of De- 
vonshire's legacy to you. You cannot 
doubt of the great joy this gives me ; 
and yet it serves to aggravate the loss of 
so worthy a man ! And when I feel it 
thus, I am sensible how much more it 
will add to your concern, instead of di- 
minishing it. Yet do not wholly reflect 
on your misfortune. You might despise 
the acquisition of five thousand pounds 
simply ; but when that sum is a public 
testimonial to your virtue, and bequeathed 
by a man so virtuous, it is a million. 
Measure it with the riches of those who 
have basely injured you, and it is still 
more ! Why, it is glory, it is conscious 
innocence, it is satisfaction — it is afflu- 
ence without guilt — Oh ! the comfort- 
able sound ! It is a good name in the 
history of these corrupt days. There it 
will exist, when the wealth of your and 
their country's enemies will be Avasted, 
or will be an indelible blemish on their 
descendants. 

My heart is full, and yet I will say no 
more. My best loves to all your opu- 
lent family. Who says virtue is not re- 
warded in this world ? It is rewarded 
by virtue, and it is persecuted by the 
bad. Can greater honour be paid to it? 
Yours ever. 



LETTER XXIV. 

The Hon. Horace Walpole to George 
Montagu, Esq. 

yirlingtoii Street, Dec. 16, 1764 
As I have not read in the papers that you 
died lately at Great worth, in Northamp- 
tonshire, nor have met with any Mon- 
tagu or Trevor in mourning, I conclude 
you are living. I send this, however, to 
inquire ; and, if you should happen to be 
departed, hope your executor will be so 
kind as to burn it. Though you do not 
seem to have the same curiosity about 
ray existence, you may gather, from my 
hand-writing, that I am still in being ; 
which being, perhaps, full as much as 
you want to know of me, I wiU trouble 
you with no farther particularrs about 



myself — nay, nor about any body else ; 
your curiosity seeming to be pretty much 
the same about all the world. News 
there are certainly none ; nobody is even 
dead, as the bishop of Carlisle told me 
to-day, which I repeat to you in general, 
though I apprehend in his own mind he 
meant no possessor of a better bishopric. 
If you like to know the state of the 
town, here it is. In the first place, it is 
very empty ; in the next, there are more 
diversions than the week will hold. A 
charming Italian opera, with no dances 
and no company, at least on Tuesdays ; 
to supply which defect, the subscribers 
are to have a ball and supper; a plan, 
that, in my humble opinion, will fill the 
Tuesdays and empty the Saturdays. At 
both playhouses are woeful English ope- 
ras, which, however, fill better than the 
Italian, patriotism being entirely con- 
fined to our ears ; how long the sages of 
the law may leave us those, I cannot 
say. Mrs. Cornelis, apprehending the 
future assembly at Almack's, has en- 
larged her vast room, and hung it with 
blue satin, and another with yellow satin, 
but Almack's room, which is to be ninety 
feet long, proposes to swallow up both 
hers, as easily as Moses's rod gobbled 
down those of the magicians. Well, but 
there are more joys ; a dinner and as- 
sembly every Tuesday at the Austrian 
minister's ; ditto on Thursdays at the 
Spaniard's ; ditto on Wednesdays and 
Sundays at the French ambassador's ; 
besides madame de Welderen's on Wed- 
nesdays, lady Harrington's Sundays, and 
occasional private mobs at my lady 
Northumberland's. Then for the morn- 
ings, there are levees and drawing-rooms 
without end. Not to mention the mac- 
caroni club, which has quite absorbed 
Arthur's, for you know old fools will 
hobble after young ones. Of all these 
pleasures, I prescribe myself a very small 
pittance, my dark corner in my own box 
at the opera, and now and then an am- 
bassador, to keep my French going till 
my journey to Paris. Politics are gone 
to sleep, like a paroli at Pharaoh, though 
there is the finest tract lately published 
that ever was written, called an Inquiry 
into the Doctrine of Libels. It would 
warm your old Algernon blood ; but, for 
what any body cares, might as well have 
been written about the wars of York and 
Lancaster. The thing most in fashion 
is my edition of lord Herbert's life; 



7«0 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



people are mad after it, 1 believe because 
only two hundred were printed ; and, by 
the numbers that admire it, I am con- 
vinced, that, if I had kept his lordship's 
counsel, very few would have found out 
the absurdity of it. The caution with 
which I hinted at its extravagance, has 
passed with several for approbation, and 
drawn on theirs. This is nothing new 
to me ; it is when one laughs out at their 
idols that one angers people. I do not 
wonder now that sir Philip Sidney was the 
darling hero, Avhen lord Herbert, who 
followed him so close, and trod in his 
steps, is at this time of day within an 
ace of rivalling him. I wish I had let 
him ; it was contradicting one of my own 
maxims, which I hold to be very just, 
that it is idle to endeavour to cure the 
world of any folly, unless we could cure 
it of being foolish. 

Tell me whether I am likely to see 
you before I go to Paris, which will be 
early in February. I hate you for being 
so indifferent about me. I live in the 
world, and j'^et love nothing; care a 
straw for nothing, but two or three old 
friends, that 1 have loved these thirty 
years. You have buried yourself with 
half a dozen parsons and squires, and yet 
never cast a thought upon those you have 
always lived with. You come to town 
for two months, grow tired in six weeks, 
hurry away, and then one hears no more 
of you till next winter. I don't want you 
to like the world, I like it no more than 
you ; but I stay awhile in it, because 
v/hile one sees it one laughs at it, but 
when one gives it up one grows angry 
with it ; and I hold it much wiser to 
laugh than to be out of humour. You 
cannot imagine how much ill blood this 
perseverance has cured me of : I used to 
say to myself, *' Lord ! this person is so 
bad, that person is so bad, I hate them." 
I have now found out that they are all 
pretty much alike, and I hate nobody. 
Having never found you out, but for in- 
tegrity and sincerity, 1 am much dis- 
posed to persist in a friendship with 
you ; but if I am to be at all the pains 
of keeping it up, 1 shall imitate my 
neighbours (1 dont mean those at next 
door, but, in the scripture sense of neigh- 
bour, any body), and say, " That is a 
very good man, but I don't care a far- 
thing for him." Till 1 have taken my 
final resolution on that head, I am yours 
jnost CDrdially, 



LETTER XXV. 

The Hon. Horace Walpole to the Rev, 
Mr. Cole. 

Strawberry Hill, March 9, 1765. 

Dear sir, 
I HAD time to write but a short note with 
the Castle of Otranto, as your messen- 
ger called on me at four o'clock, as I 
was going to dine abroad. Your par- 
tiality to me and Strawberry have, I 
hope, inclined you to excuse the wild- 
ness of the story. You will even have 
found some traits to put you in mind of 
this place. When you read of the pic- 
ture quitting its pannel, did not you re- 
collect the portrait of lord Falkland, all 
in white, in my gallery? Shall I even 
confess to you, what was the origin of 
this romance? I waked one morning, 
in the beginning of last June, from a 
dream, of which, all I could recover 
was, that I had thought myself in an an- 
cient castle (a very natural dream for a 
head filled like mine with Gothic story), 
and that on the uppermost bannister of 
a great staircase I saw a gigantic hand 
in armour. In the evening 1 sat down, 
and began to write, without knowing in 
the least what I intended to say or re- 
late. The work grew on my hands, and 
I grew fond of it — add, that I was very 
glad to think of any thing rather than 
politics. In short, I was so engrossed 
with my tale, which I completed in less 
than two months, that one evening I 
wrote from the time I had drunk my 
tea, about six o'clock, till half an hour 
after one in the morning, when my hand 
and fingers were so weary, that I could 
not hold the pen to finish the sentence, 
but left Matilda and Isabella talking, in 
the middle of a paragraph. You will 
laugh at my earnestness ; but if I have 
amused you, by retracing with any fide- 
lity the manners of ancient days, I am 
content, and give you leave to think me 
as idle as you please. 

You are, as you have long been to 
me, exceedingly kind, and I should, 
with great satisfaction, embrace your 
offer of visiting the solitude of Blechely, 
though my cold is in a manner gone, and 
my cough quite, if I was at liberty : but 
as I am preparing for my fresh journey, 
and have forty businesses upon my hands, 
and can only now and then purloin a day, 
or half a day, to come hither. You know 



Sect. V, 



RECENT. 



7«I 



I am not cordially disposed to your 
French journey, which is much more 
serious, as it is to be much more lasting-. 
However, though I naay suffer by your 
absence, I would not dissuade what may 
suit your inclination and circumstances. 
One thing, however, has struck me, 
which I must mention, though it would 
depend on a circumstance that would 
give me the most real concern. It was 
suggested to me by that real fondness I 
have for your MSS, for your kindness 
about which 1 feel the utmost gratitude. 
You would not, I think, leave them be- 
hind you ; and are you aware of the 
danger you would run, if you settled en- 
tirely in France ? Do you know, that the 
king of France is heir to all strangers 
who die in his dominions, by what they 
call the Dro27 d^AubaineF Sometimes, 
by great interest and favour, persons 
have obtained a remission of this right 
in their lifetime : and yet that, even that, 
has not secured their effects from being 
embezzled. Old lady Sandwich had ob- 
tained this remission, and yet, though 
she left every thing to the present lord, 
her grandson, a man for whose rank one 
should have thought they would have had 
regard, the king's officers forced them- 
selves into her house, after her death, 
and plundered. You see, if you go, I 
shall expect to have your MSS deposited 
with me. Seriously, you must leave 
them in safe custody behind you. 

Lord Essex's trial is printed with the 
state trials. In return for your obliging 
offer, I can acquaint you with a delight- 
ful publication of this winter, A Collec- 
tion of Old Ballads and Poetry, in three 
volumes, many from Pepys's Collection 
at Cambridge. There were three such 
published between thirty and forty years 
ago, but very carelessly, and wanting 
many in this set : indeed there were 
others, of a looser sort, which the pre- 
sent editor, who is a clergyman, thought 
it decent to omit. 

When you go into Cheshire, and upon 
your ramble, may I trouble you with a 
commission ? but about which you must 
promise me not to go a step out of your 
way. Mr. Bateman has got a cloister 
at Old Windsor, furnished with ancient 
wooden chairs, most of them triangular, 
but all of various patterns, and carved 
and turned in the most uncouth and 
whimsical forms. He picked them up 
one by one, for two, three, five, or six 



shillings a piece from different farm 
houses in Herefordshire. I have long 
envied and coveted them. There may 
be such in poor cottages in so neigh- 
bouring a county as Cheshire. I should 
not grudge any expense for purchase or 
carriage ; and should be glad even (rf a 
couple such for my cloister here. Whea 
you are copying inscriptions in a church- 
yard in any village, think of me, and 
step into the first cottage you see — but 
don't take further trouble than that, 

I long to know what your bundle of 
MSS from Cheshire contains. 

My bower is determined, but not at 
all what it is to be. Though I write ro- 
mances, I cannot tell how to build all 
that belongs to them. Madame Danois, 
in the Fairy Tales, used to tapestry them 
vf\\h. jonquils 'y but as that furniture will 
not last above a fortnight in the year, I 
shall prefer something more huckaback. I 
have decided that the outside shall be of 
treillage, which, however, I shall not 
commence, till I have again seen some of 
old Louis's old fashioned galanteries at 
Versailles. Rosamond's bower you, and 
I, and Tom Hearne know, was a laby- 
rinth : but, as my territory will admit of 
a very short clew, I lay aside all thoughts 
of a mazy habitation ; though a bower is 
very different from an arbour, and must 
have more chambers than one. In short, 
I both know, and don't know, what it 
should be. I am almost afraid I must 
go and read Spenser, and wade through 
his allegories and drawling stanzas, to 
get at a picture. But, good night ! you 
see how one gossips, when one is alone, 
and at quiet on one's own dunghill! 
Well, it may be trifling ; yet it is such 
trifling as ambition never is happy enough 
to know. Ambition orders palaces ; but 
it is content that chats for a page or two 
over a bower. Yours ever. 

LETTER XXVI. 

The Hon. Horace Walpole to George 
Montagu, Esq. 

Strawberry Hill, July 28, 1765. 
The less one is disposed, if one has any 
sense, to talk of one's self to people that 
inquire only out of compliment, and do 
not listen to the answer, the more satis- 
faction one feels in indulging a self-com- 
placency, by sighing to those that really 
sympathise with our griefs. Do not 



7m 



ELEGANT E P 1 S 1 L E S. 



Book IV. 



think it is pain that makes me give this 
low-spirited air to my letter. No, it is 
the prospect of what is to come, not the 
sensation of what is passing", that affects 
me. The loss of youth is melancholy 
enough ; but to enter into old age, 
through the gate of infirmity, most dis- 
heartening. My health and spirits made 
me take but slight notice of the transi- 
tion ; and, under the persuasion of tem- 
perance being a talisman, I marched 
boldly on towards the descent of the 
hill, knowing I must fall at last, but 
not suspecting that I should stumble by 
the way. This confession explains the 
mortification I feel. A month's confine- 
ment, to one who never kept his bed a 
day, is a stinging lesson, and has hum- 
bled my insolence to almost indifference. 
Judge then how little I interest myself 
about public events. I know nothing of 
them since I came hither, where I had 
not only the disappointment of not grow- 
ing better, but a bad return in one of my 
feet, so that I am still Avrapped up and 
upon a couch. It was the more unlucky, 
as lord Hei'tford is come to England for 
a very few days. He has offered to come 
to me, but as I then should see him only 
for some minutes, I propose being car- 
ried to town to-morrow. It will be so 
long before I can expect to be able to 
travel, that my French journey will cer- 
tainly not take place so soon as I in- 
tended, and if lord Hertford goes to 
Ireland, I shall be still more fluctuating; 
for though the duke and duchess of 
Richmond will replace them at Paris, 
and are as eager to have me with them, I 
have had so many more years heaped upon 
me within this month, that I have not 
the conscience to trouble young people, 
when I can no longer be as juvenile as 
they are. Indeed I shall think myself 
decrepit, till I can again saunter into the 
garden in my slippers and without my 
hat in all weathers, a point I am deter- 
mined to regain, if possible, for even 
this experience cannot make me resign 
my temperance and my hardiness. I 
am tired of the world, its politics, its 
pursuits, and its pleasures, but it- will 
cost me some struggles before I submit 
to be tender and careful. Can I ever 
stoop to the regimen of old age ? I do 
not wish to dress up a withered person, 
nor drag it about to public places ; but 
to sit in one's room, clothed warmly, ex- 
pecting visits from folks I don't wish to 



see, and tended and flattered by relations 
impatient for one's death ! let the gout 
do its worst, as expeditiously as it can ; 
it would be more welcome in my stomach 
than in my limbs. I am not made to bear 
a course of nonsense and advice, but 
must play the fool in my own way to the 
last, alone with all my heart, if I cannot 
be with the very few I wish to see ; but 
to depend for comfort on others, who 
would be no comfort to me, this surely 
is not a state to be preferred to death ; 
and nobody can have truly enjoyed the 
advantages of youth, health, and spirits, 
who is content to exist without the two 
last, which alone bear any resemblance 
to the first. 

You see how difl&cult it is to conquer 
my proud spirit : low and weak as I am , 
I think my resolution and perseverance 
will get the better, and that I shall still 
be a gay shadow ; at least I will impose 
any severity upon myself rather than 
humour the gout, and sink into that in- 
dulgence with which most people treat 
it. Bodily liberty is as dear to me as 
mental, and I would as soon flatter any 
other tyrant as the gout, my whiggism 
extending as much to my health as to my 
principles, and being as willing to part 
with life, when 1 cannot preserve it, as 
your uncle Algernon when his freedom 
was at stake. Adieu ! yours ever. 



LETTER XXVII. 

The Hon. Horace Walpole to George 
Montagu, Esq, 

Saturday, Aug, 31, 1763, Strawberry Hill, 
I THOUGHT it would happen so ; that I 
should not see you before I left England ! 
Indeed, I may as well give you quite up, 
for every year reduces our intercourse. 
I am prepared, because it must happen, 
if I live, to see my friends drop off; but 
my mind was not turned to see them en- 
tirely separated from me while they live. 
This is very uncomfortable, but so are 
many things ! Well, I will go and try 
to forget you all. All ! God knows the 
all that I have left to forget is small 
enough ; but the warm heart, that gave 
me affections, is not so easily laid aside. 
If I could divest myself of that, I should 
not, I think, find much cause for friend- 
ship remaining ; you, against whom I 
have no complaint, but that you satisfy 



Sbct. V. 



RECENT. 



763 



yourself with loving me without any de- 
sire of seeing me, are one of the very 
last that I wish to preserve ; but I will 
say no more on a subject that my heart 
is too full of. 

I shall set out on Monday se'nnight, 
and force myself to believe that I am 
glad to go, and yet this will be my chief 
joy, for I promise myself little pleasure 
in arriving. Can you think me boy 
enough to be fond of a new world at my 
time of life ? If I did not hate the world 
I know, I should not seek another. My 
greatest amusement will be in reviving 
old ideas. The memory of what made 
Impressions on one's youth is ten times 
dearer than any new pleasure can be. I 
shall probably write to you often, for I 
am not disposed to communicate myself 
to any thing that I have not known these 
thirty years. My mind is such a com- 
pound, from the vast variety that I have 
seen, acted, pursued, that it would cost 
me too much pains to be intelligible to 
young persons, if I had a mind to open 
myself to them. They certainly do not 
desire I should. Yt)u like my gossip- 
ping to you, though you so seldom gossip 
ivith me. The trifles that amuse my 
mind, are the only points I value now. 
I have seen the vanity of every thing se- 
rious, and the falsehood of every thing 
that pretended to be serious. I go to 
see French plays and buy French china, 
not to know their ministers, to look into 
their government, or think of the inte- 
rests of nations — in short, unlike most 
people that are growing old, I am con- 
vinced that nothing is charming but what 
appeared important in one's youth, which 
afterwards passes for follies. Oh ! but 
those follies were sincere ; if the pur- 
suits of age are so, they are sincere alone 
to self-interest. Thus I think, and have 
no other care but not to think aloud. I 
would not have respectable youth think 
me an old fool. For the old knaves, 
they may suppose me one of their num- 
ber, if they please ; I shall not be so — 
but neither the one nor the other shall 
know what I am. I have done with them 
all, shall amuse myself as well as I can, 
and think as little as I can ; a pretty 
hard task for an active mind. 

Direct your letters to Arlington Street, 
whence Favre will take care to convey 
them to me. I leave him to manage all 
my aflfairs, and take no soul but Louis. 
I am glad I don't know your Mrs. Anne ; 



her partiality would make me love her j 
and it is entirely incompatible with my 
present system to leave even a postern 
door open to any feeling, which would 
steal in, if I did not double bolt every 
avenue. 

If you send me any parcel to Arling- 
ton Street, before Monday se'nnight, I 
will take great care of it. Many Eng- 
lish books I conclude are to be bought at 
Paris. I am sure Richardson's works 
are, for they have stupified the whole 
French nation : I will not answer for our 
best authors. You may send me your 
list, and if I do not find them I can send 
you word, and you may convey them ta 
me by Favre's means, who will know of 
messengers, &c. coming to Paris. 

I have fixed no precise time for my 
absence. My wish is to like it enough to 
stay till February, which may happen, 
if I can support the first launching into 
new society. 1 know four or five very 
agreeable and sensible people there, as 
the Guerchys, madame de Mirepoix, 
madame de Boufiiers, and lady Mary 
Chabot. These intimately, besides the 
due de Nivernois, and several others 
that have been here. Then the Ricbmonds 
will follow me in a fortnight or three 
weeks, and their house will be a sort of 
home. I actually go into it at first, till 
I can suit myself with an apartment, but 
I shall take care to quit it before they 
come, for, though they are in a manner 
my children, I do not intend to adopt the 
rest of my countrymen ; nor, when I 
quit the best company here, to live in 
the worst there ; such are young travel- 
ling boys, and, what is still worse, old 
travelling boys, governors. 

Adieu ! remember you have defrauded 
me of this summer ; I will be amply re- 
paid the next, so make your arrange- 
ments accordingly. Yours ever. 



LETTER XXVIIl. 

From the same to the same. 

Paris, Nov. 21, 1765. 
You must not be surprised when my let- 
ters arrive long after their date. I write 
tliem at my leisure, and send them when 
I find any Englishmen going to London, 
that 1 may not be kept in check, if they 
were to pass through both French and 
English pouts. 



764 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



Your letter to madame Roland, and 
the books for her, will set out very se- 
curely in a day or two. My bookseller 
here happens to beof Rheims, and knows 
madame Roland, comme deux gouttes 
d'eau. This, perhaps, is not a well- 
placed simile, but the French always use 
one, and when they are once established, 
and one knows the tune, it does not sig- 
nify sixpence for the sense. 

My gout and my stick have entirely 
left me. I totter still, it is true, but I 
trust shall be able to whisk about at 
Strawberry as well almost as ever. When 
that hour strikes, to be sure I shall not 
be very sorry. The sameness of the life 
here is worse than any thing but English 
politics and the House of Commons. In- 
deed I have a mind still to see more 
people here, more sights, and more of 
the Dumenil. The dauphin, who is not 
dead yet, detains the whole court at 
Fontainbleau, whither I dare not ven- 
ture, as the situation is very damp, and 
the lodgings abominable. Sights, too, I 
have scarce seen any yet, and I must sa- 
tisfy my curiosity ; for hither, I think, 
1 shall never come again. No, let us sit 
down quietly and comfortably, and enjoy 
our coming old age. Oh ! if you are in 
earnest, and will transplant yourself to 
Roehampton, how happy I shall be ! 
You know, if you believe an experience 
of above thirty years, that you are one 
of the very, very few, for whom I really 
care a straw. You know how long I 
have been vexed at seeing so little of 
you. What has one to do, when one 
grows tired of the world, as we both do, 
but to draw nearer and nearer, and gently 
waste the remains of life with the friends 
with whom one began it? Young and 
happy people will have no regard for us 
and our old stories ; and they are in the 
right : but we shall not tire one another ; 
we shall laugh together, when nobody is 
by to laugh at us, and we may think our- 
selves young enough when we see nobody 
younger. Roehampton is a delightful 
spot, at once cheerful and retired. You 
will amble in your chaise about Rich- 
mond Park : we shall see one another 
as often as we like ; 1 shall frequently 
peep at London, and bring you tales of 
it, and we shall sometimes touch a card 
with the Clive, and laugh our fill ; for I 
must tell you, I desire to die when I 
have nobody left to laugh with me. I 
have never yet seen or heard any thing 



serious, that was not ridiculous. Jesuits, 
methodists, philosophers, politicians, the 
hypocrite Rousseau, the scoffer Voltaire, 
the encyclopedists, the Humes, the Lyt- 
tletons, the Grenvilles, the atheist tyrant 
of Prussia, and the mountebank of his- 
tory, Mr. Pitt, all are to me but im- 
postors in their various ways. Fame 
or interest are their objects ; and after 
all their parade, I think a ploughman 
who sows, reads his almanack, and be- 
lieves the stars but so many farthing 
candles, created to prevent his falling 
into a ditch as he goes home at night, a 
wiser and more rational being, and I am 
sure an honester, than any of them. 
Oh ! I am sick of visions and systems, 
that shove one another aside, and come 
over again, like the figures in a moving 
picture. Rabelais brightens up to me 
as I see more of the world : he treated 
it as it deserved, laughed at it all, and, 
as I judge from myself, ceased to hate 
it ; for I find hatred an unjust prefer- 
ence. Adieu ! yours ever. 



LETTER XXIX. 

The Hon. Horace Walpole to Mr. Gray. 

Paris, Jan. 25, 1766. 
I AM much indebted to you for your 
kind letter and advice : and though it is 
late to thank you for it, it is at least a 
stronger proof that I do not forget it. 
However, I am a little obstinate, as you 
know, on the chapter of health, and have 
persisted, through this Siberian winter, 
in not adding a grain to my clothes, and 
in going open breasted, without an under 
waistcoat. In short, though I like ex- 
tremely to live, it must be in my own way, 
as long as I can : it is not youth I court, 
but liberty ; and I think making one's 
self tender is issuing a general warrant 
against one's own person. I suppose I 
shall submit to confinement when I can- 
not help it ; but I am indifi'erent enough 
to life not to care if it ends soon after 
my prison begins. 

I have not delayed so long to answer 
your letter from not thinking* of it, or 
from want of matter, but from want of 
time. 1 am constantly occupied, en- 
gaged, amused, till I cannot bring a 
hundredth part of what I have to say 
into the compass of a letter. You will 
lose nothing by this : you know my 



Sbct. V. 



RECENT. 



765 



volubility, when I am full of new sub- 
jects ; and I have at least many hours of 
conversation for you at my return. One 
does not learn a whole nation in four or 
five months ; but, for the time, few, I 
believe, have seen, studied, or got so 
much acquainted with the French as I 
have. 

By what I said of their religious, or 
rather irreligious opinions, you must 
not conclude their people of quality 
atheists — at least not the men. Hap- 
pily for them, poor souls ! they are not 
capable of going so far into thinking. 
They assent to a great deal because it is 
the fashion, and because they don't know 
how to contradict. They are ashamed 
to defend the Roman catholic religion, 
because it is quite exploded ; but I am 
convinced they believe it in their hearts. 
They hate the parliaments and the phi- 
losophers, and are rejoiced that they 
may still idolize royalty. At present, 
too, they are a little triumphant : the 
court has shown a little spirit, and the 
parliaments much less : but as the due 
de Choiseul, who is very fluttering, un- 
settled, and inclined to the philosophers, 
has made a compromise with the parlia- 
ment of Bretagne, the parliaments might 
venture out again, if, as I fancy will be 
the case, they are not glad to drop a 
cause, of which they began to be a little 
weary of the inconveniences^ 

The generality of the men, and more 
than the generality, are dull and empty. 
They have taken up gravity, thinking 
it was philosophy and English, and so 
have acquired nothing in the room of 
their natural levity and cheerfulness. 
However, as their high opinion of their 
own country remains, for which they 
can no longer assign any reason, they 
are contemptuous and reserved, instead 
of being ridiculously, consequently par- 
donably, impertinent. I have wondered, 
knowing my o\\ti countrymen, that we 
had attained such a superiority. 1 won- 
der no longer, and have a little more re- 
spect for English heads than I had. 

The women do not seem of the same 
country : if they are less gay than they 
were they are more informed, enough to 
make them very conversable. I know 
six> or seven with very superior under- 
standings ; some of them with wit, or 
with softness, or very good sense. 

Madame GeoflFrin, of whom you have 
heard much, is an extraordinary woman, 



with more common sense than I almost 
ever met with. Great quickness in dis- 
covering characters, penetration in going 
to the bottom of them, and a pencil that 
never fails in a likeness — seldom a fa- 
vourable one. She exacts and preserves, 
spite of her birth and their nonsensical 
prejudices about nobility, great court 
and attention. This she acquires by a 
thousand little arts and offices of friend- 
ship ; and by a freedom and severity, 
which seems to be her sole end of draw- 
ing a concourse to her ; for she insists 
on scolding those she inveigles to her. 
She has little taste and less knowledge, 
but protects artisans and authors, and 
courts a few people to have the credit of 
serving her dependents. She was bred 
under the famous madame Tencin, who 
advised her never to refuse any man ; 
for, said her mistress, though nine in 
ten should not care a farthingfor you, 
the tenth may live to be an useful friend. 
She did not adopt or reject the whole 
plan, but fully retained the purport of 
the maxim. In short, she is an epitome 
of empire, subsisting by rewards and 
punishments. Her great enemy, ma- 
dame du DeflFand, was for a short time 
mistress of the regent, is now very old 
and stone blind, but retains all her viva- 
city, wit, memory, judgment, passions, 
and agreeableness. She goes to operas, 
plays, suppers, and Versailles ; gives 
suppers twice a week ; has every thing 
new read to her ; makes new songs and 
epigrams, aye, admirably, and remem- 
bers every one that has been made these 
fourscore years. She corresponds with 
Voltaire, dictates charming letters to 
him, contradicts him, is no bigot to him 
or any body, and laughs both at the 
clergy and the philosophers. In a dis- 
pute, into which she easily falls, she is 
very warm, and yet scarce ever in the 
wrong : her judgment on every subject 
is as just as possible ; on every point of 
conduct as wrong as possible ; for she 
is all love and hatred, passionate for her 
friends to enthusiasm, still anxious to be 
loved (I don't mean by lovers), and a 
vehement enemy, but openly. As she 
can have no amusement but conversa- 
tion, the least solitude and ennui are in- 
supportable to her, and put her into the 
power of several worthless people, who 
eat her suppers when they can eat no- 
body's of higher rank ; wink to one an- 
other and laugh at her ; hate her beeaus« 



m 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



slje has forty times more parts — and 
venture to hate her because she is not 
rich. She has an old friend, whom I must 
mention, a monsieur Pondevelle, author 
of the Fat puni, and the Complaisant, 
and of those pretty novels the Comte de 
Cominge, the Siege of Calais, and les 
Malheur s de F Amour. Would not you 
expect this old man to be very agree- 
able ? He can be so, but seldom is : 
yet he has another very diflferent and 
very amusing talent, the art of parody, 
and is unique in his kind. He composes 
tales to the tunes of long dances : for 
instance, he has adapted the Regent's 
Daphnis and Chloe to one, and made it 
ten times more indecent; but is so old, 
and sings it so well, that it is permitted 
in all companies. He has succeeded 
still better in les caracteres de la danse, 
to which he has adapted words that ex- 
press all the characters of love. With 
all this, he has not the least idea of 
cheerfulness in conversation : seldom 
speaks but on grave subjects, and not 
often on them ; is a humourist, very su- 
percilious, and wrapt up in admiration 
of his own country, as the only judge of 
his merit. His air and look are cold and 
forbidding ; but ask him to sing, or 
praise his works, his eyes and smiles 
open and brighten up. In short, I can 
shew him to you : the self-applauding 
:poet in Hogarth's Rake's Progress, the 
second print, is so like his very features 
and very wig, that you would know him 
by it, if you came hither — for he certainly 
will not go to you. 

Madame de Mirepoix's understanding 
is excellent of the useful kind, and can 
be so, when she pleases, of the agreeable 
kind. She has read, but seldom shews 
it, and has perfect taste. Her manner 
is cold, but very civil ; and she conceals 
even the blood of Lorrain, without ever 
forgetting it. Nobody in France knows 
the world better, and nobody is person- 
ally so well with the king. She is false, 
ai'tful, and insinuating beyond measure, 
when it is her interest, but indolent and 
a coward. She never had any passion 
but gaming, and always loses. For ever 
paying court, the sole produce of a life 
of art is to get money from the king to 
carry on a course of paying debts, or 
contracting new ones, which she dis- 
charges as fast as she is able. She ad- 
vertised devotion to get made dame du 
palais to the queen ; and the very next 



day this princess of Lorrain was seen 
riding backwards with madame Pompa- 
dour in the latter's coach. When the 
king was stabbed and heartily fright- 
ened, the mistress took a panic too, and 
consulted d'Argenson, whether she had 
not best make off in time. He hated 
her, and said, " By all means." Ma- 
dame de Mirepoix advised her to stay. 
The king recovered his spirits, d'Argen- 
son was banished, and la marechale in- 
herited part of the mistress's credit. — 
I must interrupt my history of illus- 
trious women with an anecdote of mon- 
sieur de Maurepas, with whom I am 
much acquainted, and who has one of 
the few heads that approach to good 
ones, and who, luckily for us, was dis- 
graced, and the marine dropped, because 
it was his favourite object and province. 
He employed Pondevelle to make a song 
on the Pompadour : it was clever and 
bitter, and did not spare even majesty. 
This was Maurepas absurd enough to 
sing at supper at Versailles. Banish- 
ment ensued ; and, lest he should ever 
be restored, the mistress persuaded the 
king that he had poisoned her predeces- 
sor, madame de Chateauroux. Maurepas 
is very agreeable, and exceedingly cheer- 
ful ; yet I have seen a transient silent 
cloud when politics are talked of. 

Madame de Boufilers, who was in 
England, is a sgavante, mistress of the 
prince of Conti, and very desirous of 
being his wife. She is two women, the 
upper and the lower. I need not tell 
you that the lower is gallant, and still 
has pretensions. The upper is very sen- 
sible too, and has a measured eloquence, 
that is just and pleasing ; but all is 
spoiled by an unrelaxed attention to ap- 
plause. You would think she was al- 
ways sitting for her pifjtuf e to her bio- 
grapher. 

Madame de Rochfort is different from 
all the rest. Her understanding is just 
and delicate ; with a finesse of wit, that 
is the result of reflection. Her manner 
is soft and feminine, and, though a sga- 
vante, without any declared pretensions. 
She is the decent friend of monsieur de 
Nivernois, for you must not believe a 
syllable of what you read in their novels. 
* * -x- ^ * * •^ 

The due de Nivernois has parts, and 
writes at the top of the mediocre, but, 
as madame Geoffrin says, is manque 
par tout ; guerrier manque, amha&md^ur 



Sect. V. 



RECENT. 



76: 



vhanque, liomme d'affaires manque^ and 
auteur manque — ^no, he is not homme de 
naissance manque. He would think freely, 
but has some ambition of being governor 
to the dauphin, and is more afraid of his 
wife and daughter, who are ecclesiastic 
fagots. The former out-chatters the 
duke of Newcastle ; and the latter, ma- 
dame de Gisors, exhausts Mr. Pitt's elo- 
quence in defence of the archbishop of 
Paris. Monsieur de Nivernois lives in 
a small circle of dependent admirers, and 
madame de Rochfort is high priestess for 
a small salary of credit. 

The duchess of Choiseul, the only 
young one of these heroines, is not very 
pretty, but has fine eyes, and is a little 
model in waxwork, which not being al- 
lowed to speak for some time as inca- 
pable, has a hesitation and modesty, the 
latter of which the court has not cured, 
and the former of which is atoned for by 
the most interesting sound of voice, and 
forgotten in the most elegant turn and 
propriety of expression. Oh ! it is the 
gentlest, amiable, civil, little creature 
that ever came out of a fairy t^g ! So 
just in its phrases and thoughts, so at- 
tentive and good-natured! Every body 
loves it but its husband, who prefers her 
own sister, the duchesse de Grammont, 
an Amazonian, fierce, haughty dame, 
who loves and hates arbitrarily, and is 
detested. Madame de Choiseul, pas- 
sionately fond of her husband, was the 
martyr of this union, but at last submit- 
ted with a good grace ; has gained a 
little credit with him, and is still be- 
lieved to idolize him. But I doubt it — 
she takes too much pains to profess it. 

I cannot finish my list without adding 
a much more common character, but 
more complete in its kind than any of 
the foregoing, the marechale de Luxem- 
bourg. She has been very handsome, 
very abandoned, and very mischievous. 
Her beauty is gone, her lovers are gone, 
and she thinks the devil is coming. This 
dejection has softened her into being 
rather agreeable, for she has wit and 
good-breeding; but you would swear, 
by the restlessness of her person, and 
the horrors she cannot conceal, that she 
had signed the compact, and expected 
to be called upon in a week for the per- 
formance. 

T could add many pictures, but none 
so remarkable. In those I send you, 
there is not a feature bestowed gratis or 



exaggerated. For the beauties, of which 
there are a few considerable, as mes- 
dames de Brionne, de Monaco, et d'Eg- 
mont, they have not yet lost their cha- 
racters, nor got any. 

You must not attribute my intimacy 
with Paris to curiosity alone. An ac- 
cident unlocked the doors for me. The 
passe-par-tout, called the fashion, has 
made them fly open — and what do you 
think was that fashion? — I myself. Yes, 
like queen Elinor in the ballad, I sunk at 
Charing Cross, and have risen in the 
Fauxbourg St. Germain. A plaisanterie 
on Rousseau, whose arrival here in his 
way to you brought me acquainted with 
many anecdotes conformable to the idea 
I had conceived of him, got about, was 
liked much more than it deserved, spread 
like wildfire, and made me the subject 
of conversation. Rousseau's devotees 
were offended. Madame de Boufflers, 
with a tone of sentiment, and the accents 
of lamenting humanity, abused me hear- 
tily, and then complained to myself with 
the utmost softness. I acted contrition, 
but had liked to have spoiled all, by 
growing dreadfully tired of a second lec- 
ture from the prince of Conti, who took 
up the ball, and made himself the hero 
of a history wherein he had nothing to 
do. I listened, did not understand half 
he said (nor he neither), forgot the rest, 
said Yes when I should have said No, 
yawned when I should have smiled, and 
was very penitent when I should have 
rejoiced at my pardon. Madame de 
Boufflers was more distressed, for he 
owned twenty times more than I had 
said : she frowned, and made him signs : 
but she had wound up his clack, and 
there was no stopping it. The moment 
she grew angry, the lord of the house 
grew charmed, and it has been my fault 
if I am not at the head of a numerous 
sect : but when T left a triumphant party 
in England, I did not come hither to be 
at the head of a fashion. However, I 
have been sent for about like an African 
prince or a learned canary bird, and was, 
in particular, carried by force to the 
princess of Talmond, the queen's cousin, 
who lives in a charitable apartment in 
the Luxembourg, and was sitting on a 
small bed hung with saints and Sobi- 
eskis, in a corner of one of those vast 
chambers, by two blinking tapers. I 
stumbled over a cat, a footstool, and a 
chamber-pot, in my journey to her pre- 



768 



ELEGANT EPISTLES, 



Book IV. 



^ence. She could trot find a syllable to 
say to me, and the visit ended with her 
begging a lap-dog. Thank the Lord ! 
though this is the first month, it is the 
last week, of my reign ; and I shall re- 
sign my crown with great satisfaction 
to a houiliie of chesnuts, which is just 
invented, and whose annals will be illus- 
trated by so many indigestions, that 
Paris will not want any thing else these 
three weeks. I will enclose the fatal 
letter after I have finished this enormous 
one ; to which I will only add, that no- 
thing has interrupted my Sevign^ re- 
searches but the frost. The abb^ de 
Malesherbes has given me full power to 
ransack Livry. I did not tell you, that 
by great accident, when I thought on 
nothing less, I stumbled on an original 
picture of the comte de Grammont. — 
Adieu ! You are generally in London 
in March ; I shall be there by the end 
«f it. Yours ever. 



LETTER XXX. 

The Hon. Horace Walpole to Mr. Gray, 

Arlington Street, Feb. 18, 17C8. 
You have sent me a long and very oblig- 
ing letter, and yet I am extremely out 
of humour with you. I saw Poems by 
Mr. Gray advertised: I called directly 
at Dodsley's, to know if this was to be 
more than a new edition. He was not at 
home himself, but his foreman told me he 
thought there were some new pieces, and 
notes to the whole. It was very unkind, 
not only to go out of town without men- 
tioning them to me, without shewing 
them to me, but not to say a word of 
them in this letter. Do you think I am 
indifferent, or not curious, about what 
you write? 1 have ceased to ask you, 
because you have so long refused to shew 
me any thing. You could not suppose I 
thought that you never write. No ; but 
I concluded you did not intend, at least 
yet, to publish what you had written. As 
you did intend it, I might have expected 
a month's preference. You will do me 
the justice to own, that I had always ra- 
ther have seen your writings than have 
shewn you mine, which you know are the 
most hasty trifles in the world, and 
which, though I may be fond of the subject 
when fresh, I constantly forget in a very 
short time after they are published. This 
would sound like affectation to others, but 



will not to you. It would be affected, 
even to you, to say I am indifferent to 
fame. I certainly am not, but I am in- 
different to almost any thing I have done 
to acquire it. The greater part are mere 
compilations ; and no wonder they are, 
as you say, incorrect, when they are 
commonly written with people in the 
room, as Richard and the Noble Authors 
were. But I doubt there is a more in- 
trinsic fault in them ; which is, that 1 
cannot correct them. If I write tole- 
rably, it must be at once ; I can neither 
mend nor add. The articles of lord 
Capel and lord Peterborough, in the se- 
cond edition of the Noble Authors, cost 
me more trouble than all the rest toge- 
ther : and you may perceive, that the 
worst part of Richard, in point of ease 
and style, is what relates to the papers 
you gave me on Jane Shore, because it 
was tacked on so long afterwards, and 
when my impetus was chilled. If, some 
time or other, you will take the trouble 
of pointing out the inaccuracies of it, I 
shall be much obliged to you : at present 
I shaU meddle no more with it. It has 
taken its fate ; nor did I mean to com- 
plain. I found it was condemned indeed 
beforehand, which was what I alluded 
to. Since publication (as has happened 
to me before) the success has gone be- 
yond my expectation. 

Not only at Cambridge, but here, 
there have been people wise enough to 
think me too free with the king of Prus- 
sia ! A newspaper has talked of my 
known inveteracy to him. Truly, I love 
him as well as I do most kings. The 
greater offence is my reflection on lord 
Clarendon. It is forgotten that I had 
overpraised him before. Pray turn to 
the new State Papers, from which, it is 
said, he composed his history. You 
will find they are the papers from which 
he did not compose his history. And 
yet I admire my lord Clarendon more 
than these pretended admirers do. But 
I do not intend to justify myself. I can 
as little satisfy those who complain that 
I do not let them know what really did 
happen. If this inquiry can ferret out 
any truth, I shall be glad. I have picked 
up a few more circumstances. I now 
want to know what Perkin Warbeck's 
proclamation was, which Speed, in his 
history, says is preserved by bishop Les- 
lie. If you look in Speed, perhaps you 
will be able to assist me. 



Sect. V. 



RECENT. 



769 



The duke of Richmond and lord Lyt- 
telton agree with you, that I have not 
disculpated Richard of the murder of 
Henry VI. I own to you, it is the 
crime of which, in my own mind, I be- 
lieve him most guiltless. Had I thought 
he committed it, I should never have 
taken the trouble to apologize for the 
rest. I am not at all positive or obsti- 
nate on your other objections, nor know 
exactly what I believe on many points of 
this story. And I am so sincere, that, 
except a few notes hereafter, I shall 
leave the matter to be settled or dis- 
cussed by others. An you have written 
much too little, I have written a great 
deal too much, and think only of finish- 
ing the two or three other things 1 have 
begun ; and of those, nothing but the 
last volume of Painters is designed for 
the present public. What has one to 
do, when turned fifty, but really think 
i}i finishing ? 

I am much obliged and flattered by 
Mr. Mason's approbation, and particu- 
larly by having had almost the same 
thought with him. I said, " People need 
not be angry at my excusing Richard ; I 
have not diminished their fund of hatred ; 
I have only transferred it from Richard 
to Henry." Well, but I have found you 
close v/ith Mason. — No doubt, cry prat- 
ing I, something' will come out*. — Oh ! 
no— leave us, both of you, to Annabellas 
and Epistles to Ferney, that give Vol- 
taire an account of his own tragedies ; to 
Macarony fables, that are more unintelli- 
gible than Pilpay's are in the original ; 
to Mr. Thornton's hurdy-gm-dy poetry ; 
and to Mr. **>^*, who has imitated him- 
self worse than any fop in a magazine 
would have done. In trufch, if you 
should abandon us, I could not wonder. 
When Garrick's prologues and epilogues, 
his own Cymons and farces, and the co- 
medies of the fools that pay court to him, 
are the delight of the age, it does not 
deserve any thing better. 

Pray read the new account of Corsica. 
What relates to Paoli will amuse you 
much. There is a deal about the island 
and its divisions, that one does not care 
a straw for. Tlie author, Boswell, is a 
strange being, and, like ****, has a 

* « I found him close with Swift."—" In- 
deed!" — " No doubt," 
Cries prating Balbus, " something will come 
out." 

Papers Epistle to Arhuthnot. 



rage of knowing any body that ever was 
talked of. He forced himself upon me 
at Paris, in spite of ray teeth and my 
doors, and I see has given a foolish 
account of all he could pick up from 
me about king Theodore. He then 
took an antipathy to me oa Rousseau's 
account, abused me in the newspapers, 
and exhorted Rousseau to do so too ; 
but, as he came to see me no more, I 
forgave all the rest. 1 see he now is a 
little sick of Rousseau himself, but I 
hope it will not cure liim of his anger to 
rae. However, his book will, I am sure, 
entertain you. 

I will add but a word or two more. I 
am criticised for the expression tinker up 
in the preface. Is this one of those that 
you object to? I own I think such a 
low expression, placed to ridicule an ab- 
surd instance of w^ise folly, very forcible. 
Replace it with an elevated word or 
phrase, and, to my conception, it be- 
comes as flat as possible. 

George Selwyn says 1 may, if I please, 
write historic doubts on the present duke 
of G**^* too. Indeed they would be 
doubts, for 1 know nothing certainly. 

Will you be so kind as to look into 
Leslie de rebus Scotormn, and see if 
Perkin's proclamation is there, and if 
there, how authenticated. You will find 
in Speed my reason for asking this. 

I have v/ritten in such a hurry 1 be- 
lieve you ^vill scarce be able to read my 
letter : and as I have just been writing 
French, perhaps the sense may not be 
clearer tlian the writing. Adieu ! yours 
ever. 



LETTER XXXI. 

The Hon. Horace Walpole to George 
Montagu, Esq. 

Strawberry Hill, June ]3, 1768. 
No, I cannot be so false as to say I am 
glad you are pleased with your situation. 
You are so apt to take root, that it re- 
quires ten years to dig you out again 
when you once begin to settle. As you 
go pitching your tent up and down, I 
wish you were still more a Tartar, and 
shifted your quarters perpetually. Yes, 
I will come and see you ; but tell me 
first, when do your duke and duchess 
travel to the north ? 1 know he is a 
very amiable lad, and I do not know that 
3 D 



770 



E LEGAN T E PI STLES. 



Book IV. 



she is not as amiable a laddess, but I had 
rather see their house comfortably, when 
they are not there. 

i perceive the deluge fell upon you, 
before it reached us. It began here but 
on Monday last, and then rained near 
eight and forty hours without intermis- 
sion. My poor hay has not a dry thread 
to its back. I have had a fire these three 
days. In short, every summer one lives 
in a state of mutiny and murmur, and I 
have found the reason : it is because we 
will affect to have a summer, and we 
have no title to any such thing". Our 
poets learnt their trade of the Romans, 
and so adopted the terms of their mas- 
ters. They talk of shady groves, purl- 
ing streams, and cooling breezes, and 
we get sore throats and agues with 
attempting to realize these visions. Mas- 
ter Damon writes a song, and invites 
miss Chloe to enjoy the cool of the 
evening, and the deuce a bit have we of 
any such thing as a cool evening. 
Zephyr is a north-east wind, that makes 
Damon button up to the chin, and pinches 
Chloe's nose till it is red and blue; 
and then they cry, this is a bad summer, 
as if we ever had any other. The best 
sun we have is made of Newcastle coal, 
and I am determined never to reckon 
upon any other. We ruin ourselves with 
inviting over foreign trees, and make 
our houses clamber up hills to look at 
prospects. How our ancestors would 
laugh at us, who knew there was no 
being comfortable, unless you had a 
high hill before your nose, and a thick 
warm wood at your back ! Taste is too 
freezing a commodity for us, and depend 
upon it will go out of fashion again. 

There is indeed a natural warmth in 
this country, which, as you say, I am 
very glad not enjoy any longer ; I mean 
the hot house in St. Stephen's chapel. 
My own sagacity makes me very vain, 
though there was very little merit in it. 
I had seen so much of all parties, that 
I had little esteem left for any ; it is 
most indifferent to me who is in or who 
is out, or which is set in the pillory, Mr. 
Wilkes or my lord Mansfield. I see the 
country going to ruin, and no man with 
brains enough to save it. That is mor- 
tifying ; but what signifies who has the 
undoing it ? I seldom suffer myself to 
think on this subject : my patriotism 
could do no good, and my philosophy 
can make me be at peace. 



I am sorry you are likely to lose your 
poor cousin lady Hinchinbrook ; I heard 
a very bad account of her when 1 was 
last in town. Your letter to madame 
Roland shall be taken care of ; but as 
your are so scrupulous of making me 
pay postage, I must remember not to 
overcharge you, as I can frank my idle 
letters no longer ; therefore, good night ! 
Yours ever. 

P. S. I was in town last week, and 
found Mr. Chute still confined. He 
had a return in his shoulder, but I think 
it more rheumatism than gout. 



LETTER XXXII. 

The Honourable Horace Walpole to 
Monsieur de Voltaire. 



Strawbenv Hill, June 21, 1768. 



Sir, 



You read English with so much more 
facility than I can write French, that I 
hope you will excuse my making use of 
my own tongue to thank you for the ho- 
nour of your letter. If I employed your 
language, my ignorance in it might be- 
tray me into expressions that would not 
do justice to the sentiments I feel at be- 
ing so distinguished. 

It is true, sir, I have ventured to con- 
test the history of Richard the Third, as 
it has been delivered to us : and I shall 
obey your commands, and send it to you, 
though with fear and trembling; for 
though I have given it to the world, as 
it is called, yet, as you have justly ob- 
served, that world is comprised within a 
very small circle of readers, and un- 
doubtedly I could not expect that you 
would do me the honour of being one of 
the number. Nor do I fear you, sir, 
only as the first genius in Europe, who 
have illustrated every science ; I have a 
more intimate dependence on you than 
you suspect. Without knowing it, you 
have been my master ; and perhaps the 
sole merit that may be found in my writ- 
ings is owing to my having studied yours : 
so far, sir, am I from living in that state 
of barbarism and ignorance with which 
you tax me when you say que vous m'etes 
peut-etre inconnu. I was not a stranger 
to jour reputation very many years ago, 
but remember to have then thought you 
honoured our house by dining with my 



Sect. V. 



RECENT. 



7/1 



mother, ihougli I was at school, and had 
not the. happiness of seeing- you : and yet 
my father was in a situation that might 
have dazzled eyes older than mine. The 
plain name of that father, and the pride 
of having had so excellent a father, to 
whose virtues truth at last does justice, 
is all I have to boast. I am a very pri- 
vate man, distinguished by neither dig- 
nities nor titles, which I have never 
done any thing to deserve ; but as I am 
certain that titles alone would not have 
procured me the honour of your notice, 
I am content without them. 

But, sir, if I can tell you nothing good 
of myself, I can at least tell you some- 
thing bad ; and, after the obligation you 
have conferred on me by your letter, I 
should blush if you heard it from any 
body but myself. I had rather incur 
your indignation than deceive you. Some 
time ago 1 took the liberty to find fault 
in print with the criticisms you had made 
on our Shakespeare. This freedom, and 
no wonder, never came to your know- 
ledge. It was in a preface to a trifling 
romance, much unworthy of your regard, 
but which I shall send you, because I 
cannot accept even the honour of your 
correspondence, without making you 
judge whether I deserve it. I might re- 
tract, I might beg your pardon ; but 
having said nothing but what I thought, 
nothing illiberal or unbecoming a gen- 
tleman, it would be treating you with 
ingratitude and impertinence, to suppose 
that you would either be offended with 
my remarks, or pleased with my recant- 
ation. You are as much above wanting 
flattery, as I am above offering it to you. 
You would despise me, and I should de- 
spise myself — a sacrifice I cannot make, 
sir, even to you. 

Though it is impossible not to know 
^oUy sir, 1 must confess my ignorance on 
the other part of your letter, I know 
nothing of the history of monsieur de 
Genonville, nor can tell whether it is 
true or false, as this is the first time I 
ever heard of it. But I will take care 
to inform myself as well as I can, and, if 
you allow me to trouble you again, will 
send you the exact account, as far as I 
can obtain it. I love my country, but I 
do not love any of my countrymen that 
have been capable, if they have been so, 
of a foul assassination. I should have 
made this inquiry directly, and informed 
you of the result of it in this letter, had 



I been in London ; but the respect I owe 
you, sir, and my impatience to thank you 
for so unexpected a mark of your favour, 
made me choose not to delay my grati- 
tude for a single post. I have the ho- 
nour to be, sir, your most obliged and 
most obedient humble servant. 



LETTER XXXilL 

From the same to the same. 

Strawberry Hill, July 27, 1768. 
One can never, sir, be sorry to have 
been in the wrong, when one's errors 
are pointed out to one in so obliging 
and masterly a manner. Whatever opi- 
nion I m.ay have of Shakespeare, i 
should think him to blame, if he could 
have seen the letter you have done me 
the honour to write to me, and yet not 
conform to the rules you have there laid 
down. When he lived, there had not 
been a Voltaire both to give law^s to the 
stage, and to show on what good sense 
those laws were founded. Your art, 
sir, goes still farther : for you have sup- 
ported your arguments, without having 
recourse to the best authority, your own 
works. It was my interest perhaps to 
defend barbarism and irregularity. A 
great genius is in the right, on the con- 
trary, to show that when correctness, 
nay when perfection is demanded, he 
can still shine, and be himself, whatever 
fetters are imposed on him. But I will 
say no more on this head; for I am 
neither so unpolished as to tell you to 
your face how much I admire you./ nor, 
though I have taken the liberty to vindi- 
cate Shakespeare against your criti- 
cisms, am I vain enough to think myself 
an adversary v.^orthy of you. I am 
much more proud of receiving laws from 
you than of contesting them. It was 
bold in me to dispute with you even be- 
fore I had the honour of your acquaint- 
ance ; it would be ungrateful now, when 
you have not only taken notice of me, 
but forgiven me. The admirable letter 
you have been so good as to send me, is 
a proof that you are one of those truly 
great and rare men, who know at once 
how to conquer and to pardon. 

I have made all the inquiry I could 

into the story of M. de Jumonville ; and 

though your and our accounts disagree, 

I own I do not think, sir, that the 

3D2 



772 



ELEGANT E P I S i L E S. 



Book IV 



strongest evidence is in our favour. 1 am 
told we allow he was killed by a party 
of our men, going to the Ohio. Your 
countrymen say, he was going with a flag 
of truce. The commanding officer of our 
party said M. de Jumonville was going 
with hostile intentions ; and that very 
hostile orders were found after his death 
in his pocket. Unless that officer had 
proved that he had previous intelligence 
of those orders, I doubt he will not be 
justified by finding them afterwards ; 
for 1. am not at all disposed to believe 
that he had the foreknowledge of your 
hermit, who pitched the old woman's 
nephew into the river, because ce Jeune 
homme auroit assassine sa tunte dans 
un an. 

I am grieved that such disputes 
should ever subsist between two nations, 
who have every thing in themselves to 
create happiness, and who may find 
enough in each other to love and ad- 
mire. It is your benevolence, sir, and 
your zeal for softening the manners of 
mankind ; it is the doctrine of peace 
and amity which you preach, that have 
raised my esteem for you even more 
than the brightness of your genius. 
France may claim you in the latter light, 
but all nations have a right to call you 
their countryman du cote du coeur. It 
is on the strength of that connection 
that I beg you, sir, to accept the ho- 
mage of, sir, your most obedient humble 
servant. 

LETTER XXXIV. 

The Honourable Horace Walpole to the 
Honourable H. S. Conway. 

Strawberry Hill, Sept. 27, 1774. 
1 SHOULD be very ungrateful indeed if I 
thought of complaining of you, who are 
goodness itself to me : and when I did 
not receive letters from you, I concluded 
it happened from your eccentric posi- 
tions. I am amazed, that, hurried as 
you have been, and your eyes and 
thoughts crowded with objects, you have 
been able to find time to write me so 
many and such long letters, over and 
above all those to lady Ailesbury, your 
daughter, brother, and other friends. 
Bven lord Strafford brags of your fre- 
quent remembrance. That your super- 
abundance of royal beams would dazzle 
you, I never suspected. Even I enjoy 



for you the distinctions you have re- 
ceived — though I should hate such 
things for myself, as they are particularly 
troublesome to me, and I am particularly 
awkward under them ; and as 1 abhor 
the king of Prussia, and, if I passed 
through Berlin, should have no joy like 
avoiding him — like one of our country- 
men, who changed horses at Paris, and 
asked what the name of that town was ? 
All the other civilities you have received 
I am perfectly happy in. The Germans 
are certainly a civil, well-meaning people, 
and I believe one of the least corrupted 
nations in Europe. T don't think them 
very agreeable ; but who do I think are 
so ? A great many French women, 
some English men, and a few English 
v/omen — exceedingly few Frenchmen. 
Italian women are the grossest, vulgarest 
of the sex. If an Italian man has a 

grain of sense, he is a buffoon So 

much for Europe. 

I have already told you, and feo must 
lady Ailesbury, that my courage fails 
me, ^nd I dare not meet you at Paris. 
As the period is arrived when the gout 
used to come, it is never a moment 
out of my head. Such a suffering, such 
a helpless condition as I was in for five 
months and a half two years ago, makes 
me tremble from head to foot. I should 
die at once if seized in a French inn ; 
or what, if possible, would be worse, at 
Paris, where I must admit every body. 
I, who you know can hardly bear to see 
even you when I am ill, and who shut 
up myself here, and would not let lord 
and lady Hertford come near me — I, 
who have my room washed though in 
bed, how could I bear French dirt? 
In short, 1, who am so capricious, and 
whom you are pleased to call a philo- 
sopher, I suppose because I have given 
up every thing but my own will — how 
could I keep my temper, who have 
no way of keeping my temper but by 
keeping it out of every body's way ! 
No, I must give up the satisfaction of 
being with you at Paris. I have just 
learnt to give up my pleasures, but I 
cannot give up my pains, which such 
selfish people as I, who have suffered 
much, grow to compose into a system, 
that they are partial to because it is 
their own. I must make myself amends 
when you return : you will be more 
stationary, 1 hope, for the future ; and 
if I live I shall have intervals of health. 



Sect. V. 



R E C E N T. 



773 



In lieu of me you will have a charm- 
ing succedaiieum, lady ******. Her 
father, who is more a hero than I, is 
packing- up his decrepit bones, and goes 
too. I wish she may not have him to 
nurse, instead of diverting herself. 

The present state oi your country is, 
that it is drowned and dead drunk ; all 
water without and wine within. Oppo- 
sition for the Qext elections everywhere, 
even in Scotland ; not from party, but 
as laying out money to advantage. In 
the head quarters, indeed, party is not 
out of the question : the day after to- 
morrow will be a great bustle in the 
city for a lord mayor *, and all the winter 
in Westminster, where lord ^lahon and 
Humphrey Cotes oppose the court. 
Lady * * * * is saving her money at 
Ludlow and Powis castles by keeping 
open house day and night against sir 
V/atkin Williams, and fears she shall be 
kept there till the general election. It 
has rained this whole month, and we 
have got another inundation. The 
Thames is as broad as your Danube, 
and all my meadows are under water. 
Lady Browne and I, coming last Sunday 
night from lady Blandford's, were in a 
piteous plight. The ferry-boat was 
turned round by the current, and carried 
to Isleworth. Then we ran against the 
piers of our new bridge, and the horses 
were frightened. Luckily my cicisbea 
was a catholic, and screamed to so 
many saints, that some of them at the 
nearest alehouse came and saved us, or 
I should have had no more gout, or 
what I dreaded I should ; for I con- 
cluded we should be carried ashore 
somewhere, and be forced to wade 
through the mud up to my middle. So 
you see one may wrap one's self up 
in flannel and be in danger, without 
visiting all the armies on the face of the 
globe, and putting the immortality of 
one's chaise to the proof. 

I am ashamed of sending you but 
three sides of smaller paper in answer 
to seven large — but what can I do ? 
I see nothing, know nothing, do nothing. 
My castle is finished, I have nothing 
new to read, 1 am tired of writing, I 
have no new or old bit for my printer. 
I have only black hoods around me ; or, 
if T go to town, the family party in 
Grosvenor Street. One trait will give 

* When Mr. Wilkes was elected. 



you a sample of how 1 pass my time, 
and made me laugh, as it put me in 
mind of you, at least it was a fit of 
absence, much more likely to have hap- 
pened to you than to me. I was play- 
ing at eighteenpenny tredriile with the 
duchess of Newcastle and lady Browne, 
and certainly not much interested in the 
game. I cannot recollect nor conceive 
what I was thinking of, but I pushed 
the cards very gravely to the duchess, 
and said, " Doctor, you are to deal." 
You may guess at their astonishm.ent, 
and how much it made us all laugh. I 
wish it may makoyou smile a moment^ 
or that I had any thing better to send 
you. Adieu most affectionately. Yours 
ever. 



LETTER XXXV. 

From the same to the same. 

Strawberry Hill, Sept. 28, 1774. 
Lady Ailesbury brings you this, which 
is not a letter, but a paper of directions, 
and the counterpfirt of what I have 
written ^to madame du Delfand. I beg 
of you seriously to take a great deal of 
notice of this dear old friend of mine. 
She will perhaps expect more attention 
from i/ou, as my friend, and as it is her 
own nature a little, than will be quite 
convenient to you : but you have an 
infinite deal of patience and good nature, 
and will excuse it. I w^as afraid of her 
importuning lady Ailesbury, who has a 
vast deal to see and do, and therefore I 
have prepared mad. du D. and told her 
lady Ailesbury loves amusements, and 
that, having never been at Paris before, 
she must not confine her : so you must 
pay for both — and it will answer : and 
I do not, I o^vn, ask this only for ma- 
dame du Deffand's sake, but for my 
own, and a little for yours. Since the 
late king's death she has not dared to. 
write to me freely, and 1 want to know 
the present state of France exactly, both 
to satisfy my own curiosity, and for her 
sake, as 1 wish to learn whether her 
pension, &c is in any danger from the 
present ministry, some of whom are not 
her friends. She can tell you a great 
deal if she will — by that I don't mean 
that she is reserved, or partial to her 
own country against ours — quite the 
contrary ; she loves me better than all 



774 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



France together — but she hates poli- 
tics ; ind therefore, to make her talk 
on it, you must tell her it is to satisfy 
me, and that I want to know whether 
she is well at court, wliether she has 
any fears from the government, parti- 
cularly from Maurepas and Nivernois ; 
and that I am eager to have monsieur 
de Choiseul and ma grandvinnian the 
duchess restored to power. If yoo take 
it oo this foot easily, she will talk to 
you with the utmost frankness and with 
amazing' cleverness. I have told her 
you are strangely absent, and that, if 
she does not repeat it over and over, 
you will forget every syllable : so I 
have prepared her to joke and be quite 
familiar with you at once. She knows 
more of personal characters, and paints 
them better than any body : but let this 
be between yourselves, for I would not 
have a living soul suspect that I get any 
intelligence from her, v/hich would hurt 
her ; and therefore I beg you not to let 
any human being know of this letter, 
nor of your conversations with her, nei- 
ther English uor French. 

Mad. du Deffand hates les philosophes, 
so you must give them up to hes. She 
and madame Geoffrin are no friends : 
so, if you go thither, don't tell her of it. 
Indeed you would be sick of that house, 
whither all the pretended beaux esprits 
and faux sgavants go, and where they 
are very impertinent and dogmatic. 

Let me give you one other caution, 
which I shall give lady Ailesbury too. 
Take care of your papers at Paris, and 
have a very strong lock to your porte- 
feuille. In the hotels garnis they have 
double keys to every lock, and examine 
■every drawer and paper of the English 
that they can get at. They will pilfer 
too whatever they can. I was robbed 
of half my clothes there the first time, 
and they wanted to hang poor Louis to 
save the people of the house, who had 
stolen the things. 

Here is another thing I must say. 
Madame, du Deffand has kept a great 
many of my letters, and, as she is 
YQYj old, I am in pain about them. 
I have written to her to beg she will 
deliver them up to you to bring- 
back to .me, and I trust she will. If 
she does, be so good to take great care 
of them. If she does not mention them, 
tell her just before you come away, that 
I begged you to bring tlunn ; and if she 



hesitates, convince her how it would 
hurt me to have letters written in very 
bad French, and mentioning several 
people, both French and English, fall 
into bad hands and perhaps be printed. 

Let me desire you to read this letter 
more than once, that you may not forget 
my requests, v/hich are very important 
to me ; and I must give you one 
other caution, without which all would 
be useless. There is at Paris a made- 
moiselle de i'Espinasse, a pretended bel 
e^^jrit, who was formerly an humble 
companion of madame du Deffand ; and 
betrayed her and used her very ill. I 
beg of you not to let any body carry you 
thither. It would disoblige my friend 
of all things in the world, and she would 
never tell you a syllable ; and I own it 
would hurt me, who have such infinite 
obligations to her, that I should be very 
unhappy, if a particular friend of mine 
showed her this disregard. She has 
done every thing upon earth to please 
and serve me, and I owe it to her to be 
earnest about this attention. Pray do 
not mention it ; it might look simple in 
me, and yet I owe it to her, as I know 
it would hurt her : and at her age, with 
her misfortunes, and with infinite obli- 
gations on my side, can I do too much 
to show my gratitude, or prevent her 
any new mortification? I dwell upon 
it, because she has some enemies so 
spiteful, that they try to carry all Eng- 
lish to mademoiselle de I'Espinasse. 

I wish the duchess of Choiseul may 
come to Paris while you are there ; but 
1 fear she will not : you would like her 
of all things. She has more sense and 
more virtues than almost any human 
being. If you choose to see any of the 
scavanis, let me recommend monsieur 
Buffon. He has not only much more 
sense than any of them, but is an ex- 
cellent old man, humane, gentle, well- 
bred, and with none of the arrogant 
pertness of all the rest. If he is at 
Paris, you will see a good deal of the 
comte de Broglie at madame du Def- 
fand's. lie is not a genius of the first 
water, but lively and sometimes agree- 
able. The court, I fear, will be at Fon- 
tainbieau, which will prevent your see- 
ing many, unless you go thither. Adieu \ 
at Paris ! I leave the rest of my paper 
for England, if I happen to have any 
thing particular to tell you. 



Sb«t. V. 



R E C £ N T. 



775 



LETTER XXXVI. 

The Hon. Horace Watpole to Dr. Gem*, 

xirlington Slreet, April 4, 1776. 
It is but fair, wheii one quits one^s 
party, to give notice to those one aban- 
dons ; at least modern patriots, who often 
imbibe their principles of honour at 
Newmarket, use that civility. You and 
I, dear sir, have often agreed in our po- 
litical notions ; and you, I fear, will die 
without changing your opinion. For ray 
part, I must confess I am totally altered ; 
and, instead of being a warm partisan of 
liberty, now admire nothing but despot- 
ism. You will naturally ask what place 
I have gotten, or what bribe I have 
taken? Those are the criterions of po- 
litical changes in England ; but, as my 
conversion is of foreign extraction, I 
shall not be the richer for it. In one 
word, it is the relation du lit de justice y 
that has operated the miracle. When 
two ministers % are found so humane, so 
virtuous, so excellent, as to study no- 
thing but the welfare and deliverance of 
the people ; when a king listens to such 
excellent men ; and when a parliament, 
from the basest, most interested motives, 
interposes to intercept the blessing, must 
I not change my opinions, and admire 
arbitrary power ? Or can I retain my 
sentiments, without varying the object? 
Yes, sir, I am shocked at the conduct 
of the parliament — one v/ould think it 
was an English one ! I am scandalized 
at the speeches of t\\Q. avocat general^, 
who ^ets up the odious interests of the 
nobility and clergy against the cries and 
groans of the poor, and who employs his 
wicked eloquence to tempt the good 
young monarch, by personal views, to 
sacrifice the mass of his subjects to the 
privileges of the few. But why do I 
call it eloquence ? The fumes of inte- 
rest had so clouded his rhetoric, that he 
falls into a downright Iricism. He tells 
the king, that the intended tax on the 
proprietors of land will affect the pro- 
perty, not only of the rich but of the 

* An Engiish physician long settled at Pa- 
ris, no less esteemed for his professional 
knowledge than for his kind attention to the 
poor, who applied to him for medical assist- 
ance. 

'\- The first lit de justice held by Louis XVI. 

X Messrs. de Malesherbes and Turgot. 

§ Monsieur de Seguier. 



poor. 1 should be glad to know what is 
the property of the poor? Have the 
poor landed estates? Are those who 
have landed estates the poor ? Are the 
poor, that will suffer by the tax, the 
wTetched labourers, who are dragged 
from their famishing families to work on 
the roads ? But it is wicked eloquence 
when it finds a reason, or gives a reason 
for continuing the abuse. The advo- 
cate tells the king, those abuses are 
presque consacres par rancitiinete. In- 
deed he says all that can be said for 
nobility, it is conmcree par i'ancierw.ete; 
and thus the length of the pedigree of 
abuses renders them respectable ! 

His arguments are as contemptible 
when he tries to dazzle the king by the 
great names of Henry Quatre and Sully, 
of Louis XIV and Colbert, two couple 
v/hom nothing but a mercenary orator 
would iiave classed together. Nor, were 
all four equally venerable, would it prove 
any thing. Even good kings and good 
ministers, if such have been, may have 
erred ; nay, may have done the best they 
could. They would not have been good 
if they wished their errors should be 
preserved the longer they had lasted. 

In^i^rt, sir, I think this resistance 
of the parliament to the adorable re- 
formation planned by Messrs. de Turgot 
and Malesherbes, is more phlegmatically 
scandalous than the wildest tyranny of 
despotism. I forget v/hat the nation 
was, that refused liberty when it was 
offered. This opposition to so noble a 
work is worse. A whole people may 
refuse its own happiness ; but these pro- 
fligate magistrates resist happiness for 
■others, for millions, for posterity! Nay, 
do they not half vindicate Maupeou, Avho 
crushed them? And you, dear sir, will 
you now chide my apostasy ? Have I 
not cleared myself to your eyes ? I do 
not see a shadow of sound logic in all 
monsieur Seguier's speeches, but in his 
proposing that the soldiers should work 
on the roads, and that passengers should 
contribute to their fabric; though, as 
France is not so luxuriously mad as Eng- 
land, I do not believe passengers could 
support the expense of tlie roads. That 
argument, therefore, is like another that 
the avocat proposes to the king, and 
which, he modestly owns, he believes 
wotild be impracticable. 

I beg your pardon, sir, for giving you 
this long trouble ; but I could not help 



776 



ELEGANT EPISTLES/ 



Book IV 



venting myself, when shocked to find 
such renegade conduct in a parliament, 
that I was rejoiced had been restored. 
Poor human kind ! is it always to breed 
serpents from its own bowels ? In one 
country it chooses its representatives, 
and they sell it and themselves — in 
others it exalts despots — in another it 
resists the despot when he consults the 

good of his people ! Can we v/onder 

mankind is wretched, when men are 
such beings ? Parliaments run wild with 
loyalty, when America is to be enslaved 
or butchered. They rebel, when their 
country is to be set free! — 1 am not 
surprised at the idea of the devil being 
always at our elbows. They who in- 
vented him, no doubt could not conceive 
how men could be so atrocious to one 
another, without the intervention of a 
fiend. Don't you think, if he had 
never been heard of before, that he 
would have been invented on the late 
partition of Poland ! Adieu, dear sir ! 

Yours most sincerely. 



LETTER XXX VIL 

The Honourable Horace Walpole to the 
Rev. Mr. Cole, 

Strawberry Hill, June 3, 1778. 
I WILL not dispute with you, dear sir, 
on patriots and politics. One point is 
past controversy, that the ministers 
have ruined this country ; and if the 
church of England's satisfied with being 
reconciled to the church of Rome, and 
thinks it a compensation for the loss of 
America, and all credit in Europe, she 
is as silly an old woman as any granny 
in an almshouse. France is very glad 
Ave are grown such fools, and soon saw 
that the presbyterian Dr. Franklin had 
more sense than our ministers together. 
She has got over all her prejudices, has 
expelled the Jesuits, and made the pro- 
tessant Swiss, Necker, her comptroller 
general. It is a little woeful, that we 
are relapsing into the nonsense the rest 
of Europe is shaking off ; and it is the 
more deplorable, as we know by re- 
peated experience, that this country has 
always been disgraced by Tory adminis- 
trations. The rubric is the only gainer 
by them in a few roartyrs. 

1 do not know yet what is settled 
about the spofc of lord Chatham's inter- 



ment. I am no more an enthusiast to 
his memory than you. I knew his faults 
and his defects — yet one fact cannot 
only not be controverted, but I doubt 
more remarkable every day. I mean, 
that under him we attained not only our 
highest elevation, but the most solid 
authority in Europe. When the names 
of Marlborough and Chatham are still 
pronounced with awe in France, our 
little cavils make a puny sound. Na- 
tions that are beaten cannot be mis- 
taken. I have been looking out for 
your friend a set of my heads of painters, 
and find I want six or seven. I think 
I have some odd ones in town ; if I have 
not, I will have deficiences supplied from 
the plates, though I fear they will not 
be good, as so many have been takeii 
off. I should be very ungrateful for all 
your kindnesses, if I neglected any op- 
portunity of obliging you, dear sir. 
Indeed our old and unalterable friend- 
ship is creditable to us both, and very 
uncommon between two persons who 
differ so much in their opinions relative 
to church and state, I believe the rea- 
son is, that we are both sincere, and 
never meant to take advantage of our 
principles, which 1 allow is too common 
on both sides, and I own too fairly more 
common on my side of the question than 
on yours. There is a reason too for 
that : the honours and emoluments are 
in the gift of the crown : the nation 
has no separate treasury to reward its 
friends. 

If Mr. Tyrrwhit has opened his eyes 
to Chatterton's forgeries, there is an in- 
stance of conviction against strong pre- 
judice ! I have drawn up an account 
of my transaction with that marvellous 
young man ; you shall see it one day or 
other, but I do not intend to print it. 
I have taken a thorough dislike to being 
an author ; and if it would not look like 
begging you to compliment me, by con- 
tradicting me, I would tell you, what I 
am most seriously convinced of, that I 
find what small share of parts I had, 
grovv^n dulled — and when I pei'ceive it 
myself, I may well believe that others 
would not be less sharpsighted. It 
is very natural; mine were spirits rather 
than parts ; and as time has abated the 
one, it must surely destroy their resem- 
blance to tile other ; pray don't say a 
syllable in re|)iy on this head, or I shall 
have done exactly what I said 1 would 



Sect. V. 



RECENT. 



777 



not do. Besides, as you have always 
been too partial to me, I am on my 
guard ; and when 1 will not expose my- 
self to my enemies, I must not listen 
to the prejudices of my friends ; and as 
nobody is more partial to me than you, 
there is nobody I must trust less in 
that respect. Yours most sincerely. 



LETTER XXXVIII. 

From the same to the same. 

Strawberry Hill, June 10, 1778. 
1 A]vi as impatient and in as much hurry 
as you was, dear sir, to clear myself 
from the slightest intention of censuring 
your politics. I know the sincerity and 
disinterested goodness of your heart/, 
and when I must be convinced how little 
certain we are all of what is truth, it 
would be very presumptuous to condemn 
the opinions of any good man, and still 
less an old and unalterable friend, as 
I have ever found you. The destruction 
that violent arbitrary principles have 
drawn on this blinded country has moved 
my indignation. We never were a great 
and happy country till the Revolution. 
The system of these days tended to 
overturn and has overturned that esta- 
blishment, and brought on the disgraces 
that ever attended the foolish and wicked 
councils of the house of Stuart. If man 
is a rational being, he has a right to 
make use of his reason, and to enjoy his 
liberty. We, we alone almost had a 
constitution that every other nation upon 
earth envied or ought to envy. This is 
all I contend for. 1 will give you up 
whatever descriptions of men you please ; 
that is, the leaders of parties, not the 
principles. These cannot change, those 
generally do, when power falls into the 
hands of them or their party, because 
men are corruptible, which truth is not. 
But the more the leaders of a party 
dedicated to liberty are apt to change, the 
more I adore the principle, because it 
shows that extent of power is not to be 
trusted even with those that are the 
most sensible of the value of liberty. 
Man is a domineering animal; and it 
has not only been my principle, but my 
practice too, to quit every body at the 
gate of the palace. I trust we shall not 
much diifer on these outlines, but we 
will bid adieu to the subject : it is never 



an agreeable one to those Who do nofc 
mean to make a trade of it. 

**-)«• -x- * * * 



LETTER XXXIX. 

The Hon Horace Walpole, to the Earl 
of Strafford. 

Strawberry Hill, June 12, 1780. 

My dear lord. 
If the late events had been within the 
common proportion of news, I would 
have tried to entertain your lordship 
with an account of them ; but they were 
far beyond that size, and could only 
create horror and indignation. Religion 
has often been the cloak of injustice, 
outrage, and villany : in our late tu- 
mults, it scarce kept on its mask a mo- 
ment; its persecution was downright 
robbery ; and it was so drunk, that it 
killed its banditti faster than they could 
plunder. The tumults have been carried 
on in so violent and scandalous a man- 
ner, that I trust they will have no copies. 
When prisons are levelled to the ground, 
when the bank is aimed at, and refor- 
mation is attempted by conflagrations, 
the savages of Canada are the only fit 
allies of lord George Gordon and his 
crew. The Tower is much too dignified 
a prison for him — but he had left no other. 

I came out of town on Friday, having 
seen a good deal of the shocking ti-ans- 
actions of Wednesday night — in fact it 
was difficult to be in London and not 
see, or think some part of it in flames. 
I saw those of the King's Bench, New 
Prison, and those on the three sides of 
the Fleet Market, which united into one 
blaze. The town and parks are now 
one camp — the next disagreeable sight 
to the capital being in ashes. It will 
still not have been a fatal tragedy, if it 
brings the nation one and all to their 
senses. It will still be not quite an un- 
hajipy country, if we reflect that the 
old constitution, exactly as it was in the 
last reign, was the most desirable of any 
in the universe. It made us then the 
first people in Europe — we have a vast 
deal of ground to recover — -but can we 
take a better path than that which king 
William pointed out to us ? I mean the 
system he left us at the revolution. I 
am averse to all changes of it — it fitted 
us just as it was. 

For some time even individuals roust 



778 



ELEGANT EPISTLES, 



Book IV. 



be upon their j^uard. Our new and now 
imprisoned apostle has delivered so many 
congenial Saint Peters from jail, that 
one hears of nothing but robberies on 
the highway. Your lordship's sister, 
lady Browne, and I have been at Twick- 
enham Park this evening, and kept to- 
gether, and had a horseman at our re- 
turn. Baron d'Aguilar was shot at in 
that very lane on Thursday night. A 
troop of the fugitives had rendezvoused in 
Combe Wood, and were dislodged thence 
yesterday by the light horse. 

I do not know a syllable but what re- 
lates to these disturbances. The news- 
papers have neglected few truths. Lies, 
without their natural propensity to false- 
hoods, they could not avoid, for every 
minute produces some, at least exagger- 
ations. We were threatened with swarms 
of good protestants a bruler from all 
quarters, and report sent various detach- 
ments from the metropolis on similar 
errands ; but thank God they have been 
but reports. Oh, when shall we have 
peace and tranquillity ! I hope your 
lordship and lady Strafford will at least 
enjoy the latter in your charming woods. 
I have long doubted which of our pas- 
sions is the strongest — perhaps every 
one of them is equally strong in some 
person or other — but I have no doubt 
but ambition is the most detestable, and 
the most inexcusable ; for its mischiefs 
are by far the most extensive, and its 
enjoyments by no means proportioned to 
its anxieties. The latter, I believe, is 
the case of most passions ; but then all 
but ambition cost little pain to any but 
the possessor. An ambitious man must 
be divested of all feeling but for himself. 
The torment of others is his high road 
to happiness. Were the transmigration 
of souls true, and accompanied by con- 
sciousness, how delighted would Alex- 
ander or Crcesus be to find themselves 
on four legs, and divested of a wish to 
conquer new worlds, or to heap up all 
the wealth of this ! Adieu, my dear 
lord. 



LETTER XL. 

The Hon. Horace JValpole to the Rev. 

Mr. Cole. 

Berkeley Square, May 4, 1781. 
I SHALi/ not only be ready to shew 



Strawberry Hill, at any time he chooses, 
to Dr. Farmer, as your friend ; but to 
be honoured with his acquaintance ; 
though I am very shy now of contracting 
new. I have great respect for his cha- 
racter and abilities, and judicious taste ; 
and am very clear, that he has elucidated 
Shakspeare in a more reasonable and 
satisfactory manner than any of his af- 
fected commentators, who only compli- 
mented him with learning that he had 
not, in order to display their own. 

Pray give me timely notice whenever 
I am likely to see Dr. Farmer, that I 
may not be out of the way, when I can 
have an opportunity of shewing attention 
to a friend of yours, and pay a small 
part of your gratitude to him. There 
shall be a bed at his service ; for you 
know Strawberry cannot be seen in a 
moment ; nor are Englishmen so Hants 
as to get acquainted in the time they are 
walking through a house. 

But now, my good sir, how could you 
suffer your prejudiced partiality to me 
to run away with you so extravagantly 
as to call me one of the greatest charac- 
ters of the age ? You are too honest to 
flatter, too much a hermit to be inte- 
rested, and I am too powerless and in- 
significant to be an object of court, were 
you capable of paying it from mercenary 
views. I know, then, that it could pro- 
ceed from nothing but the warmth of 
your heart. But if you are blind to- 
wards me, I am not so to myself. I 
know not how others feel on such occa- 
sions ; but if any one happens to praise 
me, all my faults rush into my face, and 
make me turn my eyes inward and out- 
ward with horror. What am I, but a 
poor old skeleton tottering towards the 
'grave, and conscious of ten thousand 
weaknesses, follies, and worse ! And 
for talents, what are mine, but trifling 
and superficial ; and, compared with 
those of men of real genius, most dimi- 
nutive. Mine a great character ! Mercy 
on me ! I am a composition of Anthony 
Wood and madame Danois, and I know 
not what trumpery writers. This is the 
least I can say to refute your panegyric, 
which I shall burn presently ; for I will 
not have such an encomiastic letter found 
in my possession, lest I should seem to 
have been pleased with it. 1 enjoin you, 
as a penance, not to contradict one tittle 
I have said here ; for I am not begging 
more compliments, and shall take it 



Sect. V 



RECENT. 



77» 



seriously ill if you ever pay me another. 
We have been friends above forty years ; 
1 am satisfied of your sincerity and af- 
fection ; but does it become us, at past 
threescore each, to be saying fine things 
to one another ? Consider how soon we 
shall both be nothing ! 

I assure you, with great truth, I am 
at this present very sick of my little va- 
pour of fame. My tragedy has wandered 
into the hands of some banditti book- 
sellers, and I am forced to ])ublish it 
myself to prevent piracy. All I can do 
is to condemn it mvself ; and that I 
shall. 

I am reading Mr. Pennant's new 
Welch tour : he has pleased me by mak- 
ing very handsome mention of you. But 
I will not do what I have been blaming. 

My poor dear madame du Deffand's 
little dog is arrived. She made me pro- 
mise to take care of it the last time I 
saw her ; that I will most religiously, 
and make it as happy as is possible. I 
have not much curiosity to see your 
Cambridge Raphael, but great desire to 
see you, and will certainly this summer 
accept your invitation, which I take 
much kinder than your great character, 
though both flowed from the same friend- 
ship. Mine for you is exactly what it 
has been ever since you knew (and few 
men can boast so uninterrupted a friend- 
ship as yours and that of), &c. 

P. S. 1 have seen the Monthly 
Review. 



LETTER XLI. 

The Hon. Horace Walpole to the Earl of 
Strafford. 

Berkeley Square, Nov. 27, 1781. 

Each fresh mark of your lordship's kind- 
ness and friendship calls on me for thanks 
and an answer : every other reason would 
enjom me silence. I not only grow so 
old, but the symptoms of age increase 
so fast, that, as they advise me to keep 
out of the world, that retirement makes 
me less fit to be informing or entertain- 
ing. The philosophers who have sported 
on the verge of the tomb, or they who 
have affected to sport in the same situa- 
tion, both tacitly implied that it was not 
out of their thoughts : and however dear 
what we are going to leave may be, all 



that is not particularly dear must cease 
to interest us much. If those reflections 
blend themselves with our gayest 
thoughts, must not their hue grow more 
dusty when public misfortunes and dis- 
graces cast a general shade ? The age, 
it is true, soon emerges out of every 
gloom, and wantons as before. But 
does not that levity imprint a still deeper 
melancholy on those who do think ? 
Have any of our calamities corrected 
us ? Are we not revelling on the brink 
of the precipice? Does administration 
grow more sage, or desire that we should 
grow more sober? Are these themes 
for letters, my dear lord ? Can one re- 
peat common news with indifference, 
while our shame is writing for future 
history by the pens of all our numerous 
enemies ? When did England see two 
whole armies lay down their arms, and 
surrender themselves prisoners ? Can 
venal addresses efface such stigmas, that 
will be recorded in every country in 
Europe ? Or will such disgraces have 
no consequences ? Is not America lost 
to us ? Shall we offer up more human 
victims to the demon of obstinacy ? and 
shall we tax ourselves deeper to furnish 
out the sacrifice ? These are thoughts I 
cannot stifle at the moment that enforces 
them ; and though I do not doubt but 
the same spirit of dissipation, that has 
swallowed up all our principles, will 
reign again in three days with its wonted 
sovereignty, I had rather be silent than 
vent my indignation. Yet I cannot talk, 
for I cannot think, on any other subject. 
It was not six days ago, that in the 
height of four raging wars I saw in the 
papers an account of the opera, and of 
the dresses of the company ; and thence 
the town, and thence of course the whole 
nation, were informed, that Mr. F***** 
had very little powder in his hair. Would 
not one think that our newspapers were 
penned by boys just come from school, 
for the information of their sisters and 
cousins? Had we had Gazettes and 
Morning Posts in those days, would they 
have been filled with such tittle-tattle 
after the battle of xlgincourfc, or in the 
more resembling weeks after the battle 
of Naseby ? Did the French trifle equally 
even during the ridiculous war of the 
Fronde? If tfliey were as impertinent 
then, at least they had wit in their levity. 
We are monkeys in conduct, and as 
clumsy as bears when we try to gambol. 



780 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



Oh, my lord! I have no patience with 
my country, and shall leave it without 
regret ! Can we be proud when all 
Europe scorns us ? It was wont to envy 
us, sometimes to hate us, but never de- 
spised us before. James the First was 
contemptible, but he did not lose an 
America I His eldest grandson sold us, 
his younger lost us — but we kept our- 
selves. Now we have run to meet the 
ruin — and it is coming! 

I beg your lordship's pardon if I have 
said too much, but I do not believe I 
have. You have never sold yourself, 
and, therefore, have not been accessary 
to our destruction. You must be happy 
novo not to have a son, who would live 
to grovel in the dregs of England. Your 
lordship has long been so wise as to se- 
cede from the follies of your countrymen. 
May you and lady StraflTord long enjoy 
the tranquillity that has been your option 
even in better days ! and may you amuse 
yourself without giving loose to such re- 
flections as have overflowed in this letter 
from your devoted humble servant. 



LETTER XLII. 

The Hon. Horace Walpole to the Earl of 
Strafford, 

Strawberry Hill, Aug. 1, 17S3. 
It would be great happiness indeed to 
me, my dear lord, if such nothings as 
my letters could contribute to any part 
of your lordship's ; but as your own 
partiality bestows their chief merit on 
them, you see they owe more to your 
friendship than to the writer. It is not 
my interest to depreciate them ; much 
less to undermine the foundation of their 
sole worth. Yet it would be dishonest 
not to warn your lordship, that if my 
letters have had any intrinsic recom- 
mendation, they must lose of it every 
day. Years aild frequent returns of 
gout have made a ruin of me. Dulness, 
in the form of indolence, grows upon me. 
I am inactive, lifeless, and so indifferent 
to most things, that I neither inquire 
after nor remember any topics that 
might enliven my letters. Nothing is so 
insipid as my way of passing my time. 
But I need not specify what my letters 
speak : they can have no spirit left, and 
would be perfectly inanimate, if attach- 
ment and gratitude to your lordship were 



as liable to be extinguished by old age 
as our more amusing qualities. I make 
no new connections ; but cherish those 
that remain with all the warmth of youth 
and the piety of grey hairs. 

The weather here has been, and is, 
with very few intervals, sultry to this 
moment. I think it has been of service 
to me ; though by overheating myself I 
had a few days of lameness. The har- 
vest is half over already all round us, 
and so pure, that not a poppy or corn- 
flower is to be seen. Every field seems 
to have been weeded, like B ^ * ^ * *'s 
bowling-green. If Ceres, Avho is at 
least as old as many of our fashionable 
ladies, loves tricking herself out in 
flowers as they do, she must be morti- 
fied ; and with more reason, for she 
looks well always Avith top-knots of ul- 
tramarine and vermilion, which modern 
goddesses do not for half so long ab 
they think they do. As Providence 
showers so many blessings on us, I 
wish the peace may confirm them. Ne- 
cessary I am sure it was ; and when it 
cannot restore us, where should we have 
been had the war continued? Of our 
situation and prospect I confess my opi- 
nion is melancholy ; not from present 
politics but from past. We flung away 
the most brilliant position ; I doubt for 
a long season. With politics I have to- 
tally done. I wish the present ministers 
may last, for I think better of their 
principles than of those of their oppo- 
nents (with a few salvos on both sides), 
and so I do of their abilities. But it 
would be folly in me to concern myself 
about new generations : how little a way 
can I see of their progress ! 

I am rather surprised at the new 
countess of *****. How could a 
woman be ambitious of resembling Pro- 
metheus, to be pawed, and clawed, and 
gnawed by a vulture ? 1 beg your earl- 
dom's pardon, but I could not conceive 
that a coronet was so very tempting ! 

Lady Browne is quite recovered — 
unless she relapses from what we suffer 
at Twickenham Park, from a lord 
N * * * *, an old seaman, who is come 
to Richmond on a visit to the duke of 
Montrose. I think the poor man must 
be out of his senses — at least he talks 
us out of ours. It is the most incessant 
and incoherent rhapsody that ever was 
heard. He sits by the card-table, and 
pours on Mrs. N ^ * * * all that ever 



Sect. V 



RECENT. 



781 



happened in his voyages or his memory. 
He details the ship's allowance, and 
talks to her as if she were his first mate. 
Then in t]ie mornings he carries his 
daughter to town to see St. Paul's, and 
the Tower, and Westminster Abbey ; 
and at night disgorges all he has seen ; 
till we don't know the ace of spades 
from queen Elizabeth's pocket pistol in 
the armoury. Mercy on us ! and mercy 
on your lordship too ! Why should you 
be stunned with that alarum? Have 
you had your earthquake, my lord ? 
Many have had theirs. I assure you I 
have had mine. Above a week ago, 
when broad awake, the doors of the 
cabinet by my bedside rattled, without 
a breath of wind. I imagined somebody 
was walking on the leads, or had broken 
into the room under me. It was between 
four and five in the morning. I rang 
my bell. Before my servant could come 
it happened again, and was exactly like 
the horizontal tremor I felt from the 
earthquake some years ago. As I had 
rung once, it is plain I was awake. I 
rang again, but heard nothing more. I 
am quite persuaded there was some com- 
motion ; nor is it surprising, that the 
dreadful eruptions of fire on the coasts 
of Italy and Sicily should have occasioned 
some alteration, that has extended faintly 
hither, and contributed to the heats and 
mists that have been so extraordinary. 
George Montagu said of our last earth- 
quake, that it was so tame you might 
have stroked it. It is comfortable to 
live where one can reason on them with- 
out dreading them. What satisfaction 
should you have in having erected such 
a monument of your taste, my lord, as 
Wentworth Castle, if you did not know 
but it might be overturned in a moment 
and crush you? Sir William Hamilton 
is expected ; he has been groping in all 
these devastations. Of all vocations I 
would not be a professpr of earthquakes. 
I prefer studies that are couleur de rose; 
nor would ever think of calamities, if I 
can do nothing to relieve them. Yet 
this is a weakness of mind that I do not 
defend. They are more respectable, who 
can behold philosophically the great the- 
atre of events — or rather this little the- 
atre of ours ! In some ampler sphere, 
they may look on the catastrophe of 
Messina as we do on kicking to pieces 
an ant-hiU. 

Bless me ! what a farrago is my let- 



ter! It is like the extracts of books in 
a monthly magazine — I had no right to 
censure poor lord N * * * *'s ramblings. 
Lady Strafford will think he has infected 
me. Good night, my dear lord and lady. 
Your ever devoted. 



LETTER XLIII. 

The Hon. Horace Walpole to Mr. Pink- 
er tern*. 

March, J 7, 1785. 
I AM much obliged to you, sir, for the 
many civil and kind expressions in your 
letter, and for the friendly information 
you give me. Partiality, I fear, dictated 
the former ; but the last I can only 
ascribe to the goodness of your heart. 

I have published nothing of any size 
but the pieces you mention, and one or 
two small tracts, now out of print and 
forgotten. The rest have been prefaces 
to some of my Strawberry editions, and 
to a few other publications, and some 
fugitive pieces, which I reprinted seve- 
ral years ago in a small volume, and 
which shall be at your service with the 
Catalogue of Noble Authors. 

With regard to the bookseller who has 
taken the trouble to collect my writings 
(amongst which I do not doubt but he 
will generously bestow on me many that 
I did not write, according to the lauda- 
ble practice of such compilers), and who 
also intends to write my life, to which, 
as ] never did any thing worth the notice 
of the public, he must likewise be a 
volunteer contributor, it would be vain 
for me to endeavour to prevent such a 
design. Whoever has been so unadvised 
as to throw himself on the public, must 
pay such a tax in a pamphlet or a maga- 
zine when he dies ; but happily the in- 
sects that prey on carrion are still more 
short-lived than the carcasses were from 
which they draw temporary nutriment. 
Those momentary abortions live but a 
day, and are thrust aside like embryos. 
Literary characters, when not illustrious, 
are known only to a few literary men, 
and, amidst the world of books, few 
readers can come to my share. Print- 
ing, that secures existence (in libraries) 
to indifferent authors of any bulk, is like 

* The author of an Essay on Medals, and 
the History of Scotland from the A(;cession of 
the House of Stuart to that of Mary, &c, &c. 



782 



E L E G A N T E P I S T L E S. 



Book IV. 



those cases of Egyptian mummies which 
in catacombs preserve bodies of one 
knows not whom, and which are scrib- 
bled over with characters that nobody 
attempts to read, till nobody under- 
stands the language in Avhich they were 
written. 

I believe, therefore, it will be most 
wise to swim for a moment on the pass- 
ing current, secure that it will soon 
hurry me into the ocean where all things 
are forgotten. To appoint a biographer 
is to bespeak a panegyric ; and 1 doubt 
whether they who collect their works for 
the public, and, like me, are conscious 
of no intrinsic worth, do not beg man- 
kind to accept of talents (whatever they 
were) in lieu of virtues. To anticipate 
spurious publications by a comprehensive 
and authentic one, is almost as great an 
evil. It is giving a body to scattered 
atoms ; and such an act, in one's old 
age, is declaring a fondness for the in- 
discretions of youth, or for trifles of an 
age, which, though more mature, is only 
the less excusable. It is most true, sir, 
that so far from being prejudiced in fa- 
vour of my own writings, I am persuaded 
that, had I thought early as I think now, 
I should never have appeared as an au- 
thor. Age, frequent illness, and pain, 
have given me many hours of reflection 
in the intervals of the latter, which, be- 
sides shewing me the inutility of all our 
little views, have suggested an observa- 
tion that I love to encourage in myself, 
from the rationality of it. I have learnt 
and have practised the mortifying- task 
of comparing myself with great authors, 
and that comparison has annihilated all 
the flattery that self-love could suggest. 
I know how trifling my own writings 
are, and how far below the standard that 
constitutes excellence ; for the shades 
that distinguish the degrees of medio- 
crity, they are not worth discrimination ; 
and he must be humble, or easily satis- 
fied, who can be content to glimmer for 
a moment a little more than his brethren 
glow-worms. Mine therefore, you find, 
sir, is not humility, but pride. When 
young, I wished for fame ; not examin- 
ing whether I was capable of attaining 
it, nor considering in what light fame 
was desirable. There are two sorts of 
honest fame— that attendant on the truly 
great, and that better kind which is due 
to the good. I fear I did not aim at the 
latter, nor discovered that 1 could never 



compass the former. Having neglected 
the best road, and having, instead of the 
other, strolled into a narrow path that 
led to no goal worth seeking, I see the 
idleness of my journey, and hold it more 
graceful to abandon my wanderings to 
chance or oblivion, than to mark solici- 
tude for trifles, which I think so myself. 

1 beg your pardon for talking so much 
about myself; but an answer was due to 
the unmerited attention you have paid to 
my writings. I turn with more pleasure 
to speak on yours. Forgive me if I 
shall blame you, whether you either 
abandon your intention*, or are too im^ 
patient to finish it. Your preface proves 
that you are capable of treating the sub- 
ject ably ; but allow me to repeat, that 
it is a kind of subject that ought not to 
be executed impetuously. A mere reca- 
pitulation of authenticated facts would 
be dry. A more enlarged plan would 
demand acquaintance with the charac- 
ters of the actors, and with the probable 
sources of measures. The age is accus- 
tomed to details and anecdotes ; and the 
age immediately preceding his own is 
less known to any man than the history 
of any other period. You are young 
enough, sir, to collect information on 
many particulars that will occur in your 
progress, from living actors, at least from 
their contemporaries ; and great as your 
ardour may be, you will find yourself de- 
layed by the want of materials and by 
further necessary inquiries. As you have 
variety of talents, why should you not 
exercise them on works that will admit 
of more rapidity, and, at the same time, 
at leisure moments, commence, digest, 
and enrich your plan, by collecting new 
matter for it ? 

In one word, I have too much zeal for 
your credit, not to dissuade precipitation 
in a work of the kind you meditate. 
That I speak sincerely and without flat- 
tery, you are sure, as accident, not de- 
sign, made you acquainted with my ad- 
miration of your tract on medals. If I 
wish to delay your history, it must be 
that it may appear with more advan- 
tages ; and I must speak disinterestedly, 
as my age will not allow me to hope to 
see it, if not finished soon. I should not 
forgive myself if I turned you from pro- 
secution of your work ; but as I am sure 
my writings can have given you no opi- 

* Of writing a History of the Reign af 
George II. 



Sect. V. 



R E C E N T. 



7S3 



nion of my having sound and deep judg"- 
ment, pray foliow your own, and allow 
no merit but that of sincerity and zeal to 
the sentiments of your obliged and obe- 
dient humble servant. 



LETTER XLIV. 

The Hon. Horace Walpole to the Earl 
of Strafford. 

Strawberry Hill, An.u;ust 29, 1786. 

Since I received the honour of your lord- 
ship's last, I have been at Park Place for 
a few days. Lord and lady Frederick 
Campbell and Mrs. Darner were there. 
We went on the Thames to see the new 
bridge at Henley, and Mrs. Damer's co- 
lossal masks. There is not a sight in 
the island more worthy of being visited. 
The bridge is as perfect as if bridges 
were natural productions, and as beauti- 
ful as if it had been built for Wentworth 
Castle ; and the masks as if the Romans 
had left them here. We saw them in a 
fortunate moment ; for the rest of the 
time was very cold and uncomfortable, 
and the evenings as chill as many we 
have had lately. In short, I am come 
to think that the beginning of an old 
ditty, which passes for a collection of 
blunders, was really an old English 
pastoral, it is so descriptive of our cli- 
mate : — 

Three children sliding on the ice, 
All on a summer's day 

I have been overwhelmed more than 
ever by visitants to my house. Yester- 
day I had couiit Oghinski, who was a 
pretender to the crown of Poland at the 
last election, and has been stripped of 
mostof avast estate. He had on a ring 
of the new king of Prussia, or 1 should 
have wished him joy on the death of one 
of the plunderers of his country. 

It has long been my opinion, that the 
out-pensioners of Bedlam are so nume- 
rous, that the shortest and cheapest way 
would be to confine in Moorfields the 
few that remain in their senses, who 
would then be safe ; and let the rest go 
at large. They are the out-pensioners 
who are for destroying poor dogs ! The 
whole canine race never did half so much 
mischief as lord George Gordon ; nor 
even worry hares, but when hallooed on 
by men. As it is a persecution of ani- 
mals, I do not love hunting ; and what 



old writers mention as a commendation 
makes me hate it the more, its being an 
image of war. Mercy on us ! that de- 
struction of any species should be a 
sport or a merit ! What cruel, unre- 
flecting imps we are ! Every body is 
unwilling to die, yet sacrifices the lives 
of others to momentary pastime, or to 
the still emptier vapour, fame ! A hero 
or a sportsman who wishes for longer 
life is desirous of prolonging devastation. 
We shall be crammed, I suppose, with 
panegyrics and epitaphs on the king 
of Prussia. 1 am content that he can 
now have an epitaph. But, alas! the 
emperor will write one for him probably 
in blood! and, while he shuts up con- 
vents for the sake of population, will be 
stuffing hospitals with maimed soldiers, 
besides making thousands of widows ! 
I have just been reading a new pub- 
lished history of the colleges in Oxford, 
by Anthony Wood, and there found a 
feature in a character that always of- 
fended me, that of archbishop Chicheley, 
who prompted Henry V. to the invasion 
of France, to divert him from squeezing 
the overgrown clergy. When that priest 
meditated founding All Souls, and " con- 
sulted his friends (who seem to have been 
honest men) what great matter of piety 
he had best perform to God in his old 
age, he was advised by them to build an 
hospital for the wounded and sick sol- 
diers, that daily returned from the wars 
then had in France ;" — J doubt his grace's 
friends thought as I do of his artifice — 
" but," continues the historian, " dislik- 
ing those motions, and valuing the welfare 
of the deceased more than the wounded 
and diseased, he resolved with himself 
to promote his design, which was, to 
have masses said for the king, queen, 
and himself, &c. while living, and for 
their souls when dead." And that mum- 
mery the old foolish rogue thought more 
efficacious than ointments and medicines 
for the wretches he had made ! And of 
the chaplains and clerks he instituted in 
that dormitory, one was to teach gram- 
mar, and another, prick-song. How 
history makes one shudder and laugh by 
turns ! But I fear I have wearied your 
lordship with my idle declamation, and 
you will repent having commanded me 
to send you more letters ; and I can only 
plead that I am your (perhaps too) obe- 
dient humble servant. 



784 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



LETFER XLV. 

The Hon. Horace Walpoleto Lady Craven. 

Berkeley Square, Dec. 11, 1788. 
It is agreeable to your ladyship's usual 
pfoodness to honour me with another let- 
ter — and I may say to your equity too, 
after I had proved to monsieur Mercier, 
by the list of dates of my letters, that it 
was not mine but the post's fault, that 
you did not receive one that I had the 
honour of writing" to you above a year 
ago. Not, madam, that I could wonder 
if you had the prudence to drop a corre- 
spondence with an old superannuated 
man, who, conscious of his decay, has 
had the decency of not troubling with 
his dotages persons of not near your 
ladyship's youth and vivacity. I have 
long been of opinion that few persons 
know when to die ; I am not so English 
as to mean when to dispatch themselves 
— no, but when to go out of the world. 
I have usually applied this opinion to 
those who have made a considerable 
figure, and consequently it was not adapt- 
ed to myself. Yet even we cyphers ought 
not to fatigue the public scene when we 
are become lumber. Thus, being quite 
out of the question, I will explain my 
maxim, which is the more wholesome, 
the higher it is addressed. My opinion, 
then, is, that when any personage has 
shewn as much as is possible in his or 
her best walk (and, not to repeat both 
genders every minute, I will use the 
male as the common of the two), he 
should take up his Strulbrugism, and be 
heard of no more. Instances will be 
still more explanatory. Voltaire ought 
to have pretended to die after Alzire, 
Mahomet, and Semiramis, and not to 
have produced his wretched last pieces. 
Lord Chatham should have closed his 
political career with his immortal war. 
And how weak was Garrick, when he had 
quitted the stage, to limp after the tatters 
of fame, by writing and reading pitiful 
poems, and even by sitting to read plays 
which he had acted with such fire and 
energy? We have another example in 
Mr. Anstey ; who, if he had a friend upon 
earth, would have been obliged to him 
for being knocked on the head the mo- 
ment he had published the first edition of 
the Bath Guide ; for even in the second 
he had exhausted his whole stock of in- 
spiration, and has never written any thing 



tolerable since. When such unequal au- 
thors print their works together, one 
may apply hi a new light the old hacked 
simile of Mezentius, who tied together 
the living and the dead. 

We have just received the works of 
an author, from whom 1 find I am to re- 
ceive much less entertainment than I 
expected, because I shall have much less 
to read tlian I intended. His memoirs, 
I am told, are almost wholly military, 
which, therefore, T shall not read ; and 
his poetry, I am sure, I shall not look 
at, because I should understand it. What 
I saw of it formerly convinced me, that 
he would not have been a poet, even if 
he had written in his own language ; 
and, though I do not understand Ger- 
man, I am told it is a fine language ; 
and 1 can easily believe that any tongue 
(not excepting our old barbarous Saxon, 
which, a bit of an antiquary as 1 am, I 
abhor) is more harmonious than French. 
It was curious absurdity, therefore, to 
pitch on the most unpoetic language in 
Europe, the most barren, and the most 
clogged with difficulties. I have heard 
Russian and Polish sung, and both 
sounded musical ; but to abandon one's 
own tongue, and not adopt Italian, that 
is even sweeter, and softer, and more 
copious than the Latin, was a want of 
taste that I should think could not be 
applauded even by a Frenchman born in 
Provence. But what a language is the 
French, which measures verses by feet 
that never are to be pronounced, which 
is the case wherever the mute e is 
found ! What poverty of various sounds 
for rhyme, when, lest similar cadences 
should too often occur, their mechanic 
bards are obliged to marry masculine 
and feminine terminations as alternately 
as the black and white squares of a 
chess-board ! Nay, will you believe me, 
madam? — yes, you will; for you may 
convince your own eyes, that a scene of 
Zaire begins with three of the most nasal 
adverbs that ever snorted together in a 
breath. Enjin, done, deformais, are the 
culprits in question. Enfin done, need 
I tell your ladyship, that the author I 
alluded to at the beginning of this long 
tirade is the late king of Prussia. 

I am conscious that I have taken a 
little liberty when I excommunicate a 
tongue in which your ladyship has con- 
descended to write ; but I only condemn 
it for verse and pieces of eloquence, of 



Sect. V. 



RECENT. 



785 



which I thought it alike incapabk^, till I 
read Rousseau of Geneva. It is a most 
sociable language, and charming for nar- 
rative and epistles. Yet, write as well 
as you will in it, you must be liable to 
express yourself better in the speech 
natural to you ; and your own country 
has a right to understand all your works, 
and is jealous of their not being as per- 
fect as you could make them. Is it not 
more creditable to be translated into a 
foreign language than into your own ? 
and will it not vex you to hear the trans- 
lation taken for the original, and to find 
vulgarisms that you could not have com- 
mitted yourself? But I have done, and 
will release you, madam ; only observ- 
ing, that you flatter me with a vain hope 
when you tell me you shall return to 
England some time or other. Where 
will that time be for me? — and, when it 
arrives, shall not I be somewhere else ? 
1 do not pretend to send your lady- 
ship English news, nor to tell you of 
English literature. You must, before 
this time, have heard of the dismal state 
into which our chief personage is fallen ! 
That consideration absorbs all others. 
The two houses are going to settle some 
intermediate succedaneum, and tlie ob- 
vious one, no doubt, will be fixed on. 

This letter, I hope, will be more for- 
tunate than my last. 1 should be very 
unhappy to seem again ungrateful, when 
I have the honour of being, with the 
greatest respect, madam, &c. &c. 



LETTER XLVI. 

Tlie Earl of Orford to Mrs. H. More. 

Berkeley Square, Jan. \, 1792. 
My much-esteemed friend, 
I HAVE not so long delayed answering 
your letter from the pitiful revenge of 
recollecting how long your pen is fetch- 
ing breath before it replies to mine. Oh ! 
no ; you know 1 love to lieap coals of 
kindness on your head, and to draw you 
into little sins, that you may forgive 
yourself, by knowing your time Vvas em- 
ployed on big virtues. On the contrary, 
you would be revenged ; for here have 
you, according to ^owr notions, inv^eigled 
me into the fracture of a commandment ; 
for I am writing to you on a Sundaj/^ 
being the first moment of leisure that I 
have had since I received your letter. It 



does not, indeed, clash with my religious 
ideas, as I hold paying one's debts as good 
a deed as praying and reading sermons 
for a whole day in every week, when it 
is impossible to fix the attention to one 
course of thinking for so many hours for 
fifty-two days in every year. Thus, you 
see, T can preach too. But seriously — 
and indeed I am little disposed to cheer- 
fulness now — I am overwhelmed with 
troubles and with business — and busi- 
ness that I do not understand. Law, 
and the management of a ruined estate, 
are subjects ill suited to a head, that 
never studied any thing that in worldly 
language is called useful. The tran- 
quillity of my remnant of life will be 
lost, or so perpetually interrupted, that 
I expect little comfort; not that 1 am 
already intending to grow rich, but the 
moment one is supposed so, there are 
so many alert to turn one to their own 
account, that I have more letters to 
write to satisfy, or rather to dissatisfy 
them, than about my own affairs, though 
the latter are all confusion. I have such 
missives, on agriculture, pretensions to 
livings, offers of taking care of my game, 
as I am incapable of it, self-recommend- 
ations of making my robes, and round 
hints of taking out my writ, that at least 
I may name a proxy, and give my dor- 
mant conscience to somebody or other ! 
I trust you think better of my heart and 
understanding than to suppose that I 
have listened to any one of these new 
friends. Yet, though I have negatived 
all, I have been forced to answer some 
of them before yoa ; and that will con- 
vince you how cruelly ill I have passed 
my time lately, besides having been made 
ill Avith vexation and fatigue. But I am 
tolerably well again. 

For the other empty metamor})hosTS 
that has happened to the outward man*, 
you do me justice in concluding that it 
can do nothing but tease me ; it is being 
called names in one's old age. I had 
rather be my lord mayor, for then I 
should keep the nickname but a year, 
and mine I may retain a little longer; 
not that at seventy-five 1 reckon on Ije- 
coming my lord Methusalem. 

Vainer, however, I believe I am al- 
ready become ; for 1 have wasted almost 

5^ His accession to his title. This is the last 
letter but one signed Horace Walpole ; and 
that one follows it, being without date or other 
internal evidence of the time it was written. 

3E 



78a 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



two pages about myself, and said not a 
tittle about your health, which I most 
cordially rejoice to hear you are recover- 
ing) and as fervently hope you will en- 
tirely recover. I have the highest opi- 
nion of the element of water as a constant 
beverage, having so deep a conviction of 
the goodness and wisdom of Providence, 
that I am persuaded, that when it in- 
dulged us in such a luxurious variety of 
eatables, and gave us but one drinkable, 
it intended that our sole liquid should be 
both wholesome and corrective. Your 
system, I know, is different. You hold 
that mutton and water were the only cock 
and hen that were designed for our nou- 
rishment ; but I am apt to doubt whether 
draughts of water for six weeks are ca- 
pable of restoring health, though some 
are strongly impregnated with mineral 
and i)ther particles. Yet you have stag- 
gered me : the Bath water, by your ac- 
count, is like electricity, compounded of 
contradictory qualities ; the one attracts 
and repels ; the other turns a shilling 
yellow, and whitens your jaundice. I 
shall hope to see you (when is that to 
be?) without alloy. 

I must finish, wishing you three hun- 
dred and thirteen days of happiness for 
the new year that is arrived this morn- 
ing; the fifty -two that you hold in 
commendam, I have no doubt, will be 
rewarded as suet good intentions de- 
serve. 

Adieu, my too good friend ! My di- 
rection shall talk superciliously to the 
postman * : but do let me continue, un- 
changeably, your faithful and sincere, 
&c. 



LETTER XLVIL 

The Earl of Orford to the Hon, H. S. 
Conway. 

Strawberry Hill, June 13, 1793. 
I THANK you much for all your informa- 
tion — some parts made me smile : yet, 
if what you heard of **** proves true, 
I rather think it deplorable ! How can 
love of money, or the still vainer of all 
vanities, ambition of wearing a high but 
most insignificant office, which even poor 
lord **^*** could execute, tempt a very 
old man, who loves his ease and his own 

* He means franking his letter by his newly 
acquired title of earl of Orford. 



way, to stoop to wait like a footman l>e- 
hind a chair, for hours, and in a court 
whence he had been cast ignominiously ? 
1 believe I have more pride than most 
men alive : I could be flattered by ho- 
nours acquired by merit, or by some 
singular action of eclat ; but for titles, 
ribbands, offices of no business, which 
any body can fill, and must be given to 
many, I should just as soon be proud 
of being the top 'squire in a country 
village. It is only worse to have waded 
to distinction through dirt, like lord 

All this shifting of scenes may, as you 
say, be food to the Fronde — Sed defendit 
numerus. It is perfectly ridiculous to 
use any distinction of parties but the ins 
and the outs. Many years ago I thought 
that the wisest appellations for contend- 
ing factions, ever assumed, were those 
in the Roman empire, who called them- 
selves the greens and the blues : it was so 
easy, when they changed sides, to slide 
from one colour to the other — and then 
a blue might plead that he had never 
been true blue, but always a greenish 
blue ; and vice versa. 

I allow that the steadiest party man 
may be staggered by novel and unfore- 
seen circumstances. The outrageous 
proceedings of the French republicans 
have wounded the cause of liberty, and 
will, I fear, have shaken it for centuries ; 
for Condorcet, and such fiends, are worse 
than the imperial and royal dividers of 
Poland. But I do not see why detesta- 
tion of anarchy and assassination must 
immediately make one fall in love with 
garters and seals. 

I am sitting by the fire, as I have done 
ever since I came hither ; and, since I 
do not expect warm weather in June, I 
am wishing for rain, or I shall not have 
a mouthful of hay, nor a noseful of roses. 
Indeed, as I have seen several fields of 
hay cut, I wonder it has not brought 
rain, as usual. My creed is, that rain 
is good for hay, as I conclude every cli- 
mate and its productions are suited to 
each other. Providence did not trouble 
itself about its being more expensive to 
us to make our hay over and over ; it 
only took care it should not want water 
enough. Adieu ! 



Sect. V 



RECENT. 



787 



LETl^ER XLVIII. 

The Earl of Orford to Wni. Roscoe, Esq. 

Berkeley Square, April 4, 1195. 
To judge of my satisfaction and grati- 
tude, on receiving the very acceptable 
present of your book *, sir, you should 
have known my extreme impatience for 
it from the instant Mr. Edwards had 
kindly favoured me with the first chap- 
ters. You may consequently conceive 
the mortification I felt at not being able 
to thank you immediately, both for the 
volume and the obliging letter that ac- 
companied it, by my right arm and hand 
being swelled, and rendered quite im- 
moveable and useless, of which you will 
perceive the remains, if you can read 
these lines which I am forcing myself to 
write, not without pain, the first moment 
I have power to hold a pen ; and it will 
cost me some time, I believe, before I 
can finish my whole letter, earnest as I 
am, sir, to give a loose to my gratitude. 

If you ever had the pleasure of read- 
ing such a delightful book as your own, 
imagine, sir, what a comfort it must be 
to receive such an anodyne in the midst 
of a fit of the gout, that has already 
lasted above nine weeks, and which at 
first I thought might carry me to Lo- 
renzo de Medici, before he should come 
to me ! 

The complete volume has more than 
answered the expectations which the 
sample had raised. The Grecian sim- 
plicity of the style is preserved through- 
out ; the same judicious candour reigns 
in every page; and, without allowing 
yourself that liberty of indulging your 
own bias towards good or against crimi- 
nal characters, which over-rigid critics 
prohibit, your artful candour compels 
your readers to think with you, without 
seeming to take a part yourself. You 
have shown, from his own virtues, abi- 
lities, and heroic spirit, why Lorenzo 
deserved to have Mr. Roscoe for his bio- 
grapher. And since you have been so, 
sir (for he was not completely known 
before, at least not out of Italy), I shall 
be extremely mistaken if he is not hence- 
forth allowed to be, in various lights, one 
of the most excellent and greatest men 
with whom we are well acquainted, espe- 
cially if we reflect on the shortness of 

* The Life of Lorenzo de Medici. 



his life, and the narrow sphere in which 
he had to act. Perhaps 1 ought to blame 
my own ignorance, that I did not know 
Lorenzo as a beautiful poet : I confess 
I did not. Now I do, 1 own I admire 
some of his sonnets more than several — 
yes, even of Petrarch ; for Lorenzo's are 
frequently more clear, less alembiques, 
and not inharmonious, as Petrarch's 
often are, from being too crowded with 
words, for which room is made by nu- 
merous elisions, which prevent the soft- 
ening alternacy of vowels and consonants. 
That thicket of words was occasioned by 
the embarrassing nature of the sonnet — 
a form of composition I do not love, and 
which is almost intolerable in any lan- 
guage but Italian, whicli furnishes such 
a profusion of rhymes. To our tongue 
the sonnet is mortal, and the parent of 
insipidity. The imitation in some degree 
of it was extremely noxious to a true 
poet, our Spenser ; and he was the more 
injudicious, by lengthening his stanza, in 
a language so barren of rhymes as ours, 
and in which several words, whose ter- 
minations are of similar sounds, are so 
rugged, uncouth, and unmusical. The 
consequence was, that many lines which 
he forced into the service, to complete 
the quota of his stanza, are unmeaning, 
or silly, or tending to weaken the thought 
he would express. 

Well, sir, but if you have led me to 
admire the compositions of Lorenzo, you 
have made me intimate with another poet 
of whom I had never heard, nor had the 
least suspicion ; and who, though writ- 
ing in a less harmonious language than. 
Italian, outshines an able master of that 
country, as may be estimated by the fair- 
est of all comparisons, which is, when 
one of each nation versifies the same 
ideas and thoughts. 

That novel poet I boldly pronounce is 
Mr. Roscoe. Several of his translations 
of Lorenzo are superior to the originals, 
and the verses more poetic ; nor am I 
bribed to give this opinion by the pre- 
sent of your book, nor by any partiality, 
nor by the surprise of finding so pure a 
writer of history as able a poet. Some 
good judges to whom I have shewn your 
translations entirely agree with me. 

I will name one most competent judge, 
Mr. Hoole, so admirable a poet himself, 
and such a critic in Italian, as he has 
proved by a'translation'^of Ariosto. 

That I am not flattering you, sir, 1 
3E2 



788 



E L E G A N T EPISTLE S. 



Book IV. 



will demonstrate ; for I am not satisfied 
with one essential line in your version of 
the most beautiful, I think, of all Lo- 
renzo's stanzas. It is his description of 
jealousy, in page 268, equal, in my hum- 
ble opinion, to Dryden's delineations of 
the passions, and the last line of which 
is — » 

Mai dorme, ed ostinata a se sol crede. 

The thought to me is quite new, and 
your translation, I own, does not come 
up to it. Mr. Hoole and I hammered 
at it, but could not content ourselves. 
Perhaps, by altering your last couplet, 
you may enclose the whole sense, and 
make it equal to the preceding six. 

I will not ask your pardon, sir, for 
taking so much liberty with you. You 
have displayed so much candour and so 
much modesty, and are so free from pre- 
tensions, that I am confident you will 
allow, that truth is the sole ingredient 
that ought to compose deserved incense ; 
and if ever commendation was sincere, 
no praise ever flowed with purer veracity 
than all I have said in this letter does 
from the heart of, sir, your infinitely 
obliged humble servant. 



LETTER XLIX. 

The Earl of Orford to the Countess 
Qf * * * *^ 

Jan. 13, 1797. 
My dear madam. 
You distress me infinitely by shewing 
my idle notes, which I cannot conceive 
can amuse any body. My old-fashioned 
breeding impels me every now and then 
to reply to the letters you honour me 
with writing ; but in truth very unwil- 
lingly, for 1 seldom can have any thing 
particular to say ; I scarce go out of my 
own house, and then only to two or three 
very private places, where 1 see nobody 
that really knows any thing— and what 
I learn comes from newspapers, that 
collect intelligence from coffee-houses — 
consequently, what I neither believe nor 
report. At home I see only a few cha- 
ritable elders, except about fourscore 
nephews and nieces of various ages, who 
are each brought to me once a year, to 
stare at me as the Methusalem of the 
family; and they can only speak of their 
own contemporaries, which interest me 



no more than if they talked of their 
dolls, or bats and balls. Must not the 
result of all this, madam, make me a 
very entertaining correspondent? — and 
can such letters be worth shewing ? — 
or can I have any spirit, when so old 
and reduced, to dictate? Oh, my good 
madam, dispense with me from such a 
task, and think how it must add to it to 
apprehend such letters being shewn. 
Pray send me no more such laurels, 
which I desire no more than their leaves 
when decked with a scrap of tinsel, and 
stuck on twelfth-cakes, that lie on the 
shopboards of pastry-cooks at Christmas. 
I shall be quite content with a sprig of 
rosemary thrown after me, when the par- 
son of the parish commits my dust to 
dust*. Till then, pray, madam, accept 
the resignation of your ancient servant. 



FROai THE 
LETTERS OF DR. FRANKLIN. 



LETTER L. 



Dr. Franklin to George Whitfield \. 



Sir, 



Philadelphia, June 6, 1753. 



I RECEIVED your kind letter of the 2d 
instant, and am glad to hear that you 
increase in strength. I hope you will 
continue mending till you recover your 
former health and firmness. Let me 
know whether you still use the cold bath, 
and what effect it has. 

As to the kindness you mention, I 
wish it could have been of more service 
to you |. But if it had, the only thanks 
1 should desire is, that you would always 
be equally ready to serve any other per- ^ 
son that may need your assistance, and 
so let good offices go round, for mankind 
are all of a family. 

For my own part, when I am employed 
in serving others, I do not look upon 
myself as conferring favours, but as pay- 
ing debts. In my travels, and since 

* Lord Orford died in little more than six 
weeks after the date of this letter. 

-f- One of the founders of the Methodists. 

X Dr. Franklin had relieved Mr. WhitBeld 
in a paralytic case, by the application of elec- 
tricity. 



Sect. V. 



R E C E N T. 



my settlement, I liave received much 
kindness from men, to wliom I shall 
never have any opportunity of making 
the least direct return ; and numberless 
mercies from God, who is infinitely above 
being- benefited by our services. Those 
kindnesL^es from men I can therefore 
only return on their fellow-men ; and I 
can only shew my gratitude for these 
mercies from God by a readiness to help 
his other children, and my brethren. For 
I do not think that thanks and compli- 
ments, though repeated weekly, can dis- 
charge our real obligations to each other, 
and much less those to our Creator. You 
will see in this my notion of good works, 
that I am far from expecting to merit 
heaven by them. By heaven we un- 
derstand a state of happiness, infinite in 
degree and eternal in duration : I can do 
nothing to deserve such rewards. He 
that for giving a drauglit of water to a 
thirsty person should expect to be paid 
with a good plantation, would be modest 
in his demands, compared with those, 
who think they deserve heaven for the 
little good they do on earth. Even the 
mixed, imperfect pleasures we enjoy in 
this world are rather from God's good- 
ness than our merit ; how much more 
such happiness of heaven ! 

The faith you mention has certainly 
its use in the world : I do not desire to 
see it diminished, nor would I endeavour 
to lessen it in any man. But I wish it 
were more productive of good works 
than I have generally seen it : I mean 
real good works ; works of kindness, 
charity, mercy, and public spirit ; not 
holiday- keeping, sermon -reading, or 
hearing ; performing church ceremonies 
or making long prayers, filled with flat- 
teries and compliments, despised even 
by wise men, and much less capable of 
pleasing the Deity. The worship of God 
is a duty ; the hearing and reading of 
sermons are useful ; but if men rest in 
hearing and praying, as too many do, it 
is as if a tree should value itself on being 
watered and putting forth leaves, though 
it never produced any fruit. 

Your great Master thought much less 
of these outward appearances and pro- 
fessions than many of his modern dis- 
ciples. He preferred the doers of the 
word to the mere hearers; the son, that 
seemingly refused to obey his father, 
and yet performed his commands, to him 
that professed his readiness but neglected 



the work ; the Jieretical but charitable 
Samaritan, to the uncharitable though 
orthodox priest and sanctified Levite ; 
and those who gave food to the hungry, 
drink to the thirsty, raiment to the na- 
ked, entertainment to the stranger, and 
relief to the sick, though they never 
heard of his name, he declares shall in 
the last day be accepted ; when those 
who cry Lord ! Lord ! who value them- 
selves upon their faith, though great 
enough to perform miracles, but have 
neglected good works, shall be rejected. 
He professed that he came not to call the 
righteous, but sinners to repentance ; 
which implied his modest opinion, that 
there were some in his time who thought 
themselves so good, that they need not 
hear even him for improvement ; but 
now-a-days we have scarce a little par- 
son that does not tliink it the duty of 
every man witliin h-s reach to sit under 
his petty ministrations, and that who- 
ever omits them offends God. I wish 
to such more humility, and to you 
health and happiness, being your friend 
and servant. 



LETTER LL 

Dr. Franklin to Miss Stevenson at 
Wanstead. 

Craven Street, May 16, 1760. 
I SEND my good girl the books I men- 
tioned to her last night. I beg her to 
accept of them as a small mark of my 
esteem and friendship. They are writ- 
ten in the familiar, easy manner for 
w^hich the French are so remarkable ; 
and afi'ord a good deal of philosophic 
and practical knowledge, unembarrassed 
with the dry mathematics, used by more 
exact reasoners, but which is apt to dis- 
courage young beginners. 

I would advise you to read with a pen 
in your hand, and enter in a little book 
short hints of what you find that is cu- 
rious, or that may be useful ; for this 
will be the best method of imprinting 
such particulars in your memory, where 
they will be ready, either for practice 
on some future occasion, if they are 
matters of utility, or at least to adorn 
and improve your conversation, if they 
are rather points of curiosity. And as 
many of the terms of science are such 
as you cannot have met with in your 



790 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Hook IV. 



common reading, aiKl may therefore be 
unacquainted with, 1 think it would be 
well for you to have a good dictionary at 
hand, to consult immediately when you 
meet with a word you do not compre- 
hend the precise meaning of. This may 
at first seem troublesome and interrupt- 
ing ; but it is a trouble that will daily 
diminish, as you will daily find less and 
less occasion for your dictionary, as you 
become more acquainted with the terms ; 
and in the mean time you will read with 
more satisfaction, because with more 
understanding. When any point occurs, 
in which you would be glad to have far- 
ther information than your book aflfords 
you, I beg you would not in the least 
apprehend, that I should think it a 
trouble to receive and answer your ques- 
tions. Tt will be a jdeasure, and no 
trouble. For though I may not be 
able, out of my own little stock of 
knowledge, to afford you what you 
require, I can easily direct you to the 
books where it may most readily be 
found. Adieu, and believe me ever, my 
dear friend, yours affectionately. 



LETTER LIL 

Dr. franklin to John Alleyne, Esq, 

Craven Street, August 9, 1768. 
Dear Jack, 
You desire, you say, my impartial 
thoughts on the subject of an early 
marriage, by way of answer to the num- 
berless objections, that have been made 
by numerous persons to your own. You 
may remember, when you consulted me 
on the occasion, that I thought youth on 
both sides to be no objection. Indeed, 
from the marriages that have fallen 
under my observation, I am rather in- 
clined to think, that early ones stand 
the best chance of happiness. The tem- 
per and habits of the young are not yet 
become so stiff and uncomplying as when 
more advanced in life : they form more 
easily to each other, and hence many 
occasions of disgust are removed. And 
if youth has less of that prudence, which 
is necessary to manage a family, yet the 
parents and elder friends of young mar- 
ried persons are generally at hand to 
afford their advice, which amply sup- 
plies that defect ; and by early marriage 
youth is sooner formed to regular and 



useful life ; and possibly some of those 
accidents or connections, that might 
have injured the constitution, or repu- 
tation, or both, are thereby happily 
prevented. Particular circumstances of 
particular persons may possibly some- 
times make it prudent to delay entering 
into that state; but in general, when 
nature has rendered our bodies fit for it, 
the presumption is in nature's favour, 
that she has not judged amiss in making 
us desire it. Late marriages are often 
attended, too, with this farther incon- 
venience, that there is not the same 
chance that the ])arents shall live to see 
their offspriitg educated. " Late chil- 
dren," says the Spanish proverb, " are 
early orphans." A melancholy reflection 
to those whose case it may be. With 
us, in America, marriages are generally 
in the morning of life ; our children are 
therefore educated and settled in the world 
by noon ; and thus, our business being 
done, we have an afternoon and evening^ 
of cheerful leisure to ourselves ; such as 
our friend at present enjoys. By these 
early marriages we are blessed with 
more children ; and from the mode 
among us, founded by nature, of every 
mother suckling and nursing her own 
child, more of them are raised. Thence 
the swift progress of population among 
us, unparalleled in Europe. In fine, I 
am glad you are married, and congra- 
tulate you most cordially upon it. You 
are now in the way of becoming a useful 
citizen ; and you have escaped the un- 
natural state of celibacy for life — the 
fate of many here, who never intended 
it, but who, having too long postponed 
the change of their condition, find, at 
length, that it is too late to think of it, 
and so live all their lives in a situation 
that greatly lessens a man's value. An 
odd volume of a set of books bears not 
the value of its proportion to the set : 
what think you of the odd half of a pair 
of scissars ? it can't well cut any thing ; 
it may possibly serve to scrape a 
trencher. 

Pray make my compliments and best 
wishes acceptable to your bride. I am 
old and heavy, or I should ere this have 
presented them in person. I shall make 
but small use of the old man's privilege, 
that of giving advice to younger friends. 
Treat your wife always with respect ; it 
will procure respect to you, not only 
from her, but from all that observe it. 



Sect. V. 



RECENT. 



791 



Never use a slighting- expression to her, 
even in jest ; for slights in jest, after 
frequent bandyings, are apt to end in 
angry earnest. Be studious in your 
profession, and you will be learned. Be 
industrious and frugal, and you will be 
rich. Be sober and temperate, and you 
will be healthy. Be in general virtuous, 
and you will be happy. At least you 
will, by such conduct, stand the best 
chance for such consequences. I pray 
God to bless you both ; being ever your 
affectionate friend. 



LETTER LIII. 

Dr. Franklin to Governor Franklin*, 
New Jersey. 

London, August 19, 1772. 
* * * In yours of May 14, you ac- 
quaint me with your indisposition, which 
gave me great concern. The resolution 
you have taken to use more exercise is 
extremely proper ; and I hope you will 
steadily perform it. It is of the greatest 
importance to prevent diseases, since the 
cure of them by physic is so very pre- 
carious. In considering the different 
kinds of exercise, I have thought that 
the quantum of each is to be judged of, 
not by time or by distance, but by the 
degree of warmth it produces in the 
body : thus, when I observe if I am cold 
when I get into a carriage in a morning, 
I may ride all day without being warmed 
by it ; that if on horseback my feet are 
cold, 1 may ride some hours before 
they become warm ; but if I am ever so 
cold on foot, I cannot walk an hour 
briskly, without glowing from head to 
foot by the quickened circulation : I have 
been ready to say (using round numbers 
without regard to exactness, but merely 
to make a great difference), that there 
is more exercise in one mile's riding on 
horseback than in five in a coach ; and 
more in one mile's walking on foot than 
in jive on horseback ; to which I may 
add, that there is more in walking one 
mile up and down stairs, than in five on 
a level floor. The two latter exercises 
may be had within doors, when the 
weather discourages going abroad ; and 
the last maybe had when one is pinched 
for time, as containing a great quantity 

* Dr. Franklin's son, to whom the first part 
of the Memoirs of his Life is addressed. 



of exercise in a handful of minutes. The 
dumb bell is another exercise of the 
latter compendious kind ; by the use of 
it I have in forty swings quickened my 
pulse from sixty to one hundred beats 
in a minute, counted by a second watch ; 
and 1 suppose the warmth generally in- 
creases with quickness of pulse. 



LETTER LIV. 

Dr. Franklin to Dr. Priestley. 

London, September 19, 1772. 
Dear sir, 
In the affair of so much importance to 
you, wherein you ask my advice, I can- 
not, for want of sufficient premises, 
counsel you what to determine ; but if 
you please, I will tell you ftow. When 
those difficult cases occur, they are 
difficult chiefly because, while we have 
them under consideration, all the reasons 
pro and con are not present to the mind 
at the same time ; but sometimes one 
set present themselves ; and at other 
times another, the flrst being out of 
sight. Hence the various purposes or 
inclinations that alternately prevail, and 
the uncertainty that perplexes us. To 
get over this, my way is, to divide half 
a sheet of paper by a line into two co- 
lumns : writing over the one pro, and, 
over the other con ; then during three or 
four days' consideration, I put down, under 
the different heads, short hints of the 
different motives that at different times 
occur to me, for or against the measure. 
When I have thus got them all together 
in one view, I endeavour to estimate 
their respective weights, and where I 
find two (one on each side), that seem 
equal, I strike them both out. If I 
find a reason pro equal to some two 
reasons con, I strike out the three. If 
I judge some two reasons con equal to 
some three reasons pro, I strike out the 
five; and thus proceeding, I find at 
length where the balance lies; and if 
after a day or two of farther consider- 
ation, nothing new that is of import- 
ance occurs on either side, I come to a 
determination accordingly. And though 
the weight of reasons cannot be taken 
with the precision of algebraic quantities, 
yet, when each is thus considered sepa- 
rately and comparatively, and the whole 
lies before me, I thhik I caij judge 



792 



E L K G A N T i : P I S J^ L E S. 



KooK IV. 



better, and am less liable to make a 
rasb step ; find in fact I have found 
great advantage from this kind of equa- 
tion, in what may be called moral or 
prudential algebra. 

Wishing- sincerely that you may deter- 
mine for the best, 1 am ever, my dear 
friend, yours most aifectionately. 

LETTER LV. 

Dr. Franklin to Blrs. Thomas, at Lisle. 

Paris, Feb. 8, 1777. 
YoY are too early, Imssi/^ as well as too 
saucy, in calling- me rebel ; you should 
wait for the event, which will determine 
whether it is a rebellion or only a revo- 
lution. Here the ladies are more civil ; 
they call us les Insurgent-; a character 
that usually pleases them : and methinks 
all other women who smart, or have 
smarted under the tyranny of a bad hus- 
band, ought to be fixed in revolution 
principles, and act accordingly. 

In my way to Canada last spring, I 
saw dear Mrs. Barrow, at New York. 
Mr. Barrow had been from her two or 
three months to keep Governor Tryon, 
and other tories, company on board the 
Asia, one of the king's ships which lay 
in the harbour ; and in all that time 
that naughty man had not ventured once 
on shore to see her. Our troops were 
then pouring into the town, and she was 
packing up to leave it, fearing, as she had 
a large house, they would incommode 
her, by quartering officers in it. As 
she apjjeared in great perplexity, scarce 
knowing where to go, I persuaded her 
to stay ; and 1 went to the general 
officers then commanding there, and 
recommended her to their protection ; 
which they promised and performed. 
On my return from Canada, where I 
was a piece of a governor (and I think a 
very good one) for a fortnight, and might 
have been so till this time, if your 
wicked army, enemies to all good go- 
vernment, had not come and driven me 
out, I found her still in quiet possession 
of her house. I inquired how our peo- 
ple had behaved to her ; she spoke in 
high terms of the respectful attention 
they had paid her, and the quiet and 
security they had procured her. I said 
I was glad of it ; and that if they had 
used her ill, I would have turned tory. 
Then, said she (with that pleasing gaiety 



so natural to her), / ivish they had. 
VoY you must know she is a lory ess as 
well as you, and can as flippantly call 
rebel. 1 drank tea with her ; we talked 
afl'ectionately of you and our other friends 
the Wilkes's, of whom she had received 
no late intelligence : what became of her 
since, I have not heard. The street 
she lived in was some months after 
chiefly burnt down *, but as the town 
was then, and ever since has been, in 
possession of the king's troops, 1 have 
had no opportunity of knowing whether 
she suffered any loss in tbe conflagration. 
I hope she did not, as if she did, I should 
wash I had not persuaded her to stay 
tliere. I am glad to learn from you, 
that that unhappy, though deserving 
family, the W.'s, are getting into some 
business that may afl'ord them subsist- 
ence. I pray that God will bless them, 
and that they may see happier days. 
Mr. Cheap's and Dr. H.'s good fortunes 
please me. Pray learn, if you have not 
already learnt, like me, to be pleased 
with other people's pleasures, and happy 
with their happiness, when none occur 
of your own ; then perhaps you will not 
so soon be weary of the place you chance 
to be in, and so fond of rambling to get 
rid of your ennui. I fancy you have hit 
upon tbe right reason of your being 
Aveary of St. Omers, viz. that you are 
out of temper, which is the effect of full 
living and idleness. A month in Bride- 
well, beating hemp, upon bread and 
water, would give you health and spirits, 
and subsequent cheerfulness and con- 
tentment, with every other situation. 
I prescribe that regimen for you, my 
dear, in pure good-will, without a fee. 
And let me tell you, if you do not get 
into temper, neither Brussels nor Lisle 
will suit you. I know nothing of the 
price of living in either of those places ; 
but I am sure a single woman, as you 
are, might with economy upon two hun- 
dred pounds a-year maintain herself 
comfortably any where ; and me into 
the bargain. Do not invite me in ear- 
nest, however, to come and live with 
you ; for being posted here, I ought not 
to comply, and I am not sure 1 should 
be able to refuse. Present my respects 
to Mrs. Payne, and Mrs. Heathcot; for 
though I have not the honour of know- 
ing them, yet as you say they are friends 
to the American cause, I am sure they 
must be women of good understanding. 



Sect. V 



RECENT. 



703 



I know you wish you could see me, but 
as you can't, I will describe myself to 
you. Figure me in your mind as jolly 
as formerly, and as strong and hearty, 
only a few years older ; very plainly 
dressed, wearing my thin grey straight 
hair, that peeps out under my only 
coiffure, a fine fur cap ; which comes 
down my forehead almost to my specta- 
cles. Think how this must appear, 
among the powdered heads of Paris ! I 
wish every lady and gentleman in France 
would only be so obliging as to follow 
my fashion, comb their own heads as I 
do mine, dismiss their friseurs, and pay 
me half the money they pay to them. You 
see the gentry might well afford this, and 
I could then enlist these friseur,s (who are 
at least 100,000), and with the money 
1 would maintain them, make a visit 
with them to England, and dress the 
heads of your ministers and privy coun- 
sellors ; which I conceive at present to 
be un peu derangees. Adieu ! madcap ; 
and believe me ever your affectionate 
friend and humble servant. 

P. S. Don't be proud of this long 
letter. A fit of the gout, which has 
confined me five days, and made me 
refuse to see company, has given me a 
little time to trifle ; otherwise it would 
have been very short, visitors and busi- 
ness would have interrupted : and per- 
haps, with Mrs. Barrow, you wish they 
had. 

LETTER LVI. 

Dr. Franklin to Dr. Cooper, Boston. 

Paris, May 1, 1777. 
1 THANK you for your kind congratula- 
tions on my safe arrival here, and for 
your good wishes. I am, as you sup- 
posed, treated with great civility and re- 
spect by all orders of people ; but it 
gives me still greater satisfaction to find 
that our being here is of some use to 
our country. On that head 1 cannot be 
more explicit at present. 

I rejoice with you in the happy change 
of affairs in America last winter : I 
hope the same train of success will con- 
tinue through the summer. Our ene- 
mies are disappointed in the number of 
additional troops they purposed to send 
over. What they have been able to 
muster will not probably recruit their 



army to the state it was in the begin- 
ning of last campaign ; and ours I hope 
will be equally numerous, better armed, 
and better clothed, than they have been 
heretofore. 

All Europe is on our side of the ques- 
tion, as far as applause and good wishes 
can carry them. Those who live under 
arbitrary power do nevertheless approve 
of liberty, and wish for it : they almost 
despair of recovering it in Europe ; they 
read the translations of our separate 
colony constitutions with rapture ; and 
there are such numbers everywhere who 
talk of removing to America, with their 
families and fortunes, as soon as peace 
and our independence shall be esta- 
blished, that it is generally believed we 
shall have a prodigious addition of 
strength, wealth, and arts, from the 
emigrations of Europe ; and it is 
thought, that to lessen or prevent such 
emigrations, the tyrannies established 
here must relax, and allow more liberty 
to their people. Hence it is a common 
observation here, that our cause is the 
cause of all mankind ; and that we are 
fighting for their liberty in defending 
our own. It is a glorious task assigned 
us by providence ; which has, I trust, 
given us spirit and virtue equal to it, 
and will at last crown it with success. 

[ am ever, my dear friend, yours 
most affectionately. 

LETTER LVII. 

Dr. Franklin to Dr. Price, London. 

Passy, February 6, 1780. 

Dear sir, 
I RECEIVED but very lately your kind 
favour of October 14th, Dr. Ingenhausz, 
who brought it, having staid long in 
Holland. I sent that enclosed directly 
to Mr. L. It gave me great pleasure 
to understand that you continue well. 
Your writings, after all the abuse you 
and they have met with, begin to make 
serious impressions on those who at 
first rejected the counsels you gave ; 
and they will acquire new weight every 
day, and be in high esteem when the 
cavils against them are dead and for- 
gotten. Please to present my affec- 
tionate respects to that honest, sensible, 
and intelligent society^, who did me so 
long the honour of admitting me to 

* Supposed to allude to a club at the Lon- 
don coffee house. 



794 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



share in their instructive eonversations. 
I never think of the hours I so happily 
spent in that company, without regret- 
ting that they are never to be repeated ; 
for I see no prospect of an end to this 
unhappy war in my time. Dr. Priestley, 
you tell me, continues his experiments 
with success. We make daily great im- 
provements in natural — there is one I 
wish to see in 7noral philosophy ; the 
discovery of a plan that would induce 
and oblige nations to settle their dis- 
putes without first cutting one another's 
throats. When will human reason be 
sufficiently improved to see the advan- 
tage of this ? When will men be con- 
vinced, that even successful wars at 
length become misfortunes to those who 
unjustly commenced them, and who 
triumphed blindly in their success, not 
seeing all its consequences? Your 
great comfort and mine in this war is, 
that we honestly and faithfully did every 
thing in our power to prevent it. 
Adieu, and believe me ever, my dear 
friend, yours, &c. 



LETTER LVIII. 

Dr. Franklin to General Washington. 



Passv, March 5, i780. 



Sir, 



1 HAVE received but lately the letter 
your excellency did me the honour of 
writing to me in recommendation of the 
Marquis de la Fayette. His modesty 
detained it long in his own hands. We 
became acquainted, however, from the 
time of his arrival at Paris ; and his 
zeal for the honour of our country, his 
activity in our affairs here, and his firm 
attachment to our cause, and to you, 
impressed me with the same regard and 
esteem for him that your excellency's 
letter would have done had it been im- 
mediately delivered to me. 

Should peace arrive after another 
campaign or two, and afford us a little 
leisure, I should be happy to see 
your excellency in Europe, and to 
accompany you, if my age and strength 
would permit, in visiting some of its 
ancient and most famous kingdoms. 
You would, on this side the sea, enjoy 
the great reputation you have acquired, 
pure and free from those little shades 
that the jealousy and envy of a man's 



countrymen and cotemporaries are ever 
endeavouring to cast over living merit. 
Here you would know, and enjoy, what 
posterity will say of Washington. For 
a thousand leagues have nearly the same 
effect as a thousand years. The feeble 
voice of those grovelling passions can- 
not extend so far either in time or dis- 
tance. At present I enjoy that pleasure 
for you : as I frequently hear the old 
generals of this martial country (who 
study the maps of America, and mark 
upon them all your operations) speak 
with sincere approbation and great ap- 
plause of your conduct ; and join in 
giving you the character of one of the 
greatest captains of the age. 

I must soon quit the scene, but you 
may live to see our country flourish, as 
it will amazingly and rapidly after the 
war is over ; like a field of young Indian 
corn, which long fair weather and sun- 
shine had enfeebled and discoloured, 
and which, in that weak state, by a 
thunder gust of violent wind, hail, and 
rain, seemed to be threatened with 
absolute destruction ; yet the storm be- 
ing past, it recovers fresh verdure, 
shoots up with double vigour, and de- 
lights the eye not of its owner only, 
but of every observing traveller. 

The best wishes that can be formed 
for your health, honour, and happiness, 
ever attend you, from yours, &c. 



LETTER LIX. 

Dr. Franklin to Mr. Small, Paris. 

Passy, July 22, 1780. 
You see, my dear sir, that I was not 
afraid my masters would take it amiss 
if I ran to see an old friend, though in 
the service of their enemy. They are 
reasonable enough to allow, that dif- 
fering politics should not prevent the 
intercommunication of philosophers, who 
study and converse for the benefit of 
mankind. But you have doubts about 
coming to dine with me. I suppose you 
will not venture it; your refusal will 
not indeed do so much honour to your 
generosity and good-nature of your 
government, as to your sagacity. You 
know your people, and I do not expect 
you. 1 think too that in friendship I 
ought not to make you more visits, as I 



Sect. V. 



RECENT. 



795 



intended : but I send my grandson to 
pay his duty to his physician. 

You inquired about my gout, and I 
forgot to acquaint you, that 1 had treated 
it a little cavalierly in its two last ac- 
cesses. Finding one night that my foot 
gave me more pain after it was covered 
warm in bed, I put it out of bed naked ; 
and perceiving it easier, I let it remain 
longer than 1 at first designed, and at 
length fell asleep, leaving it there till 
morning. The pain did not return, 
and I grew well. Next winter, having 
a second attack, I repeated the experi- 
ment ; not with such immediate success 
in dismissing the gout, but constantly 
with the effect of rendering it less pain- 
ful, so that it permitted me to sleep 
every night. I should mention, that it 
was my son* who gave me the first in- 
timation of this practice. He being in 
the old opinion, that the gout was to be 
drawn out by transpiration. And hav- 
ing heard me say, that perspiration was 
carried on more copiously when the 
body was naked than when clothed, he 
put his foot out of bed to increase that 
discharge, and found ease by it, which 
he thought a confirmation of the doc- 
trine. But this method requires to be 
confirmed by more experiments, before 
one can conscientiously recommend it. 
I give it you, however, in exchange for 
your receipt of tartar emetic, because 
the commerce of philosophy as well as 
other commerce, is best promoted by 
taking care to make returns. I am 
ever, yours most affectionately. 



LETTER LX. 

Dr. Franklin to Miss Georgiana 
Shipleyf. 

Passy, October 8, 1780. 

It is long, very long, my dear friend, 
since I had the great pleasure of hearing 
from you, and receiving any of your 
very pleasing letters. But it is my 
fault. I have long omitted my part of 
the correspondence. Those who love to 
receive letters should write letters. I 
wish I could safely promise an amend- 
ment of that fault. But besides the 
indolence attending age, and growing 

* Governor Franklin. 

f Daughter of Dr. Shipley, bishop of St. 
Asaph. 



upon us with it, my time is engrossed 
by too much business, and I have too 
many inducements to postpone doing, 
what I feel I ought to do for my own 
sake, and what I can never resolve to 
omit entirely. 

Your translations from Horace, as 
far as I can judge of poetry and trans- 
lations, are very good. That of the 
2uo quo ruitis is so suitable to the 
times, that the conclusion (in your 
version) seems to threaten like a pro- 
phecy ; and methinks there is at least 
some appearance of danger that it may 
be fulfilled. I am unhappily an enemy, 
yet I think there has been enough of 
blood spilt, and I wish what is left in 
the veins of that once loved people, 
may be spared, by a peace solid and 
everlasting. 

It is a great while since I heard any 
thing of the good bishop. Strange, that 
so simple a character should sufficiently 
distinguish one of that sacred body ! 
Donnez-moi de ses nouvelles. I have 
been some time flattered with the ex- 
pectation of seeing the countenance of 
that most honoured and ever-beloved 
friend, delineated by your pencil. The 
portrait is said to have been long on the 
way, but is not yet arrived : nor can I 
hear where it is. 

Indolent as I have confessed myself 
to be, I could not, you see, miss this 
good and safe opportunity of sending 
you a few lines, with my best wishes 
for your happiness, and that of the 
whole dear and amiable family in whose 
sweet society I have spent so many 
happy hours. Mr. Jones % tells me he 
shall have a pleasure in being the bearer 
of my letter, of which I make no doubt : 
I learn from him, that to your drawing, 
and music, and painting, and poetry, 
and Latin, you have added a proficiency 
in chess ; so that you are, as the French 
say, re?nplie de talents. May they and 
you fall to the lot of one that shall duly 
value them, and love you as much as I 
do ! Adieu. 

X Afterwards sir William Jones, who married 
the bishop of St. Asaph's eldest daug^hter, 
Anna Maria Shipley. 



796 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV. 



LETTER LXL 
Di'. Franklin to the Rev. William Nixon. 



Passy, ?ept. 5, 1781. 



Rev. sir. 



I DULY received the letter you did me 
the honour of writing to me the 25th 
past, together with the valuable little 
book, of which you are the author. 
There can be no doubt but that a gen- 
tleman of your learning and abilities 
might make a very useful member of 
society in our new country, and meet 
with encouragement there, either as an 
instructor in one of our universities, or 
as a clergyman of the church of Ireland. 
But I am not empowered to engage any 
person to go over thither, and my abili- 
ties to assist the distressed are very 
limited. 1 suppose you will soon be 
set at liberty in England by the cartel 
for the exchange of prisoners : in the 
mean time if Jive Louis d'ors may be of 
present service to you, please to draw 
on me for that sum, and your bill shall 
be paid on sight. Some time or other 
you may have an opportunity of assisting 
with an equal sum a stranger who has 
equal need of it. Do so. By that 
means you will discharge any obligation 
you may suppose yourself under to me. 
Enjoin him to do the same on occasion. 
By pursuing such a practice, much good 
may be done with little money. Let 
kind offices go round : mankind are all 
of a family. 1 have the honour to be, 
rev. sir, &c. 



LETTER LXII. 

Dr. Franklin to Edmund Burke ^ Esq. 
M.P. 



Passy, Oct. 15, 1781, 



Sir, 



I RECEIVED but a few days since your 
very friendly letter of August last, on 
the subject of General Burgoyne. 

Since the foolish part of mankind will 
make wars from time to time with each 
other, not having sense enough other- 
wise to settle their differences, it cer- 
tainly becomes the wiser part, who can- 
not prevent those wars, to alleviate as 
much as possible the calamities attend- 
ing them. Mr. Burke always stood 
high in my esteem ; but his affectionate 



concern for his friend renders him still 
more amiable, and makes the honour he 
does me, of admitting me of the number, 
still more precious. 

I do not think the congress have any 
wish to persecute General Burgoyne. 
I never heard till I received your letter 
that they had recalled him : if they 
have made such a resolution, it must 
be, I suppose, a conditional one, to take 
place in case their offer of exchanging 
him for Mr. Laurens should not be ac- 
cepted ; a resolution intended merely 
to enforce that offer. 

I have just received an authentic copy 
of the resolve containing that offer, and 
authorizing me to make it. As I have 
no communication with your ministers, 
I send it enclosed to you*. If you can 
find any means of negociating this busi- 
ness, I am sure the restoring another 
worthy man to his family and friends, 
will be an addition to your pleasure. 
With great and invariable respect and 
affection, I am, sir, your most obedient 
and most humble servant. 



LETTER LXIII. 

Dr. Franklin to the Rev. Dr. Priestlet/. 
Passy, June 7, 1782, 

Dear sir, 
I RECEIVED your kind letter of the 7th 
of April, also one of the 3d of May. I 
have always great pleasure in hearing 
from you, in learning that you are well, 
and that you continue your experiments. 
I should rejoice much if I could once 
more recover the leisure to search with 
you into the works of nature ; I mean 
the inanimate, not the animate or moral 
part of them : the more I discovered of 
the former, the more I admired them ; 
the more I know of the latter, the more 
I am digusted with them. Men, I find 
to be a sort of beings very badly con- 
structed, as they are generally more 
easily provoked than reconciled, more 
disposed to do mischief to each other 
than to make reparation, and much more 
easily deceived than undeceived * * -^ *. 
A virtuous action it would be, and a 
vicious one the killing of them, if the 
species were really worth producing or 

* Wanting, 



Sect. V 



R E C E N T. 



757 



preserving- ; but of this I begin to 
doubt. I know you have no such doubts, 
because, in your zeal for their welfare, 
you are taking a great deal of pains to 
save their souls. Perhaps as you grow 
older, you may look upon this as a hope- 
less project, or an idle amusement, re- 
pent of having murdered in mephitic air 
so many honest, harmless mice, and 
wish that to prevent mischief you had 
used boys and girls instead of them. 
In what light we are viewed by superior 
beings, may be gathered from a piece 
of late West India news, which possibly 
has not yet reached you. A young 
angel of distinction being sent down to 
this world on some business, for the 
first time, had an old courier-spirit as- 
signed him as a guide : they arrived 
over the seas of Martinico, in the middle 
of the long day of obstinate fight be- 
tween the fleets ©f Rodney and De 
Grasse. When, through the clouds of 
smoke, he saw the fire of the guns, the 
decks covered with mangled limbs, and 
bodies dead or dying ; the ships sink- 
ing, burning, or blown into the air ; 
and the quantity of pain, misery, and 
destruction, the crews yet alive were 
thus with so much eagerness dealing 
round to one another, he turned angrily 
to his guide, and said, " You blunder- 
ing blockhead, you are ignorant of your 
business ; you undertook to conduct me 
to the earth, and you have brought me 
into hell ! " " No, sir," says the guide, 
" I have made no mistake; this is 
really the earth, and these are men. 
Devils never treat one another in 
this cruel manner; they have more 
sense, and more of what men (vainly) 
call humanity." 

But to be serious, my dear old 
friend, I love you as much as ever, 
and I love all the honest souls that 
meet at the London Coffee House. 
1 only wonder how it happened that they 
and my other friends in England came 
to be such good creatures in the midst 
of so perverse a generation. I long to 
see them and you once more, and I 
labour for peace with more earnestness, 
that I may again be happy in your sweet 
society. 

I shewed your letter to the Duke de 
la Rochefaucault, who thinks with me, 
that the new experiments you have 
made are extremely curious, and he has 
given me thereupon a note^ which I en- 



close, and I request you would furnish 
me with the answer desired. 

Yesterday the Count du Nord* was 
at the Academy of Sciences, when sun- 
dry experiments were exhibited for his 
entertainment; among them, one by 
M. Lavoisier, to shew that the strongest 
fire we yet know is made in a charcoal 
blown upon with dephlogisticated air. 
In a heat so produced, he melted platina 
presently, the fire being much more 
powerful than that of the strongest 
burning mirror. Adieu, and believe me 
ever, yours most affectionately. 



LETTER LXIV. 

Dr. Franklin to Dr. Shipley, Bishop of 
St. Asaph. 

Passy, June 10, 17&2, 

I RECEIVED and read the letter from my 
dear and much respected friend, with 
infinite pleasure. After so long a si- 
lence, and the long continuance of its 
unfortunate causes, a line from you was 
a prognostic of happier times approach- 
ing, when we may converse and com- 
municate freely, without danger from 
the malevolence of men enraged by the 
ill success of their distracted projects. 

I long with you for the return of 
peace, on the general principles of 
humanity. The hope of being able to 
pass a few more of my last days happy 
in the sweet conversations and company 
I once enjoyed atTwyfordf, is a par- 
ticular motive that adds strength to the 
general wish, and quickens my industry 
to procure that best of blessings. After 
much occasion to consider the folly and 
mischiefs of a state of warfare, and the 
little or no advantage obtained even by 
those nations who have conducted it 
with the most success, I have been apt 
to think that there has never been, nor 
ever will be, any such thing as a good 
war, or a bad peace. 

You ask if I still relish my old stu- 
dies ? I relish them, but I cannot pur- 
sue them. My time is engrossed un- 
happily with other concerns. I re- 
quested of the congress last year my 
discharge from this public station, that 
I might enjoy a little leisure in the 

* The Grand Duke of Russia, afterwards 
Emperor Paul I. 
f The country residence of the bishop. 



f^s 



ELEGANT EPISTLES- 



Book IV. 



evening of a long life of business ; but 
it was refused me, and I have been ob- 
liged to drudge on a little longer. 

You are happy as your years come 
on, in having that dear and most ami- 
able family about you. Four daughters ! 
how rich ! I have but one, and she 
necessarily detained from me at a thou- 
sand leagues distance. I feel the want 
of that tender care of me which might 
be expected from a daughter, and would 
give the world for one. Your shades 
are all placed in a row over my fire 
place, so that I not only have you al- 
ways in my mind, but constantly before 
my eyes. 

The cause of liberty and America has 
been greatly obliged to you. I hope 
you will live long to see that country 
flourish under its new constitution, 
which I am sure will give you great 
pleasure. Will you permit me to ex- 
press another hope, that now your 
friends are in power, they will take the 
first opportunity of shewing the sense 
they ought to have of your virtues and 
your merit ! 

Please to make my best respects ac- 
ceptable to Mrs. Shipley, and embrace 
for me tenderly all our dear children. 
With the utmost esteem, respect, and 
veneration, I am ever, my dear friend, 
yours most aflfectionately. 



LETTER LXV. 

Dr, Franklin to Miss Alexander. 

Passy, June 24, 1782. 

I AM not at all displeased that the 
thesis and dedication with which we 
were threatened are blown over, for I 
dislike much all sorts of mummery. 
The republic of letters has gained no 
reputation, whatever else it may have 
gained, by the commerce of dedications ; 
I never made one, and I never desired 
that one should be made to me. When 
I submitted to receive this, it was from 
the bad habit I have long had of doing 
every thing that ladies desire me to do : 
there is no refusing any thing to Ma- 
dame la Marck, nor to you. I have 
been to pay my respects to that amiable 
lady, not merely because it was a com- 
pliment due to her, but because I love 
her, which induces me to excuse her 
not letting me in ; the same reason I 



should have for excusing your faults, if 
you had any. I have not seen your 
papa since the receipt of your pleasing 
letter, so could arrange nothing with 
him respecting the carriage. During 
seven or eight days I shall be very 
busy : after that you shall hear from me, 
and the carriage shall be at you service. 
How could you think of writing to me 
about chimneys and fires, in such wea- 
ther as this ! Now is the time for the 
frugal lady you mention to save her 
wood, obtain p/ys de chaleur, and lay 
it up against winter, as people do ice 
against summer. Frugality is an en- 
riching virtue ; a virtue I never could 
acquire in myself : but I was once lucky 
enough to find it in a wife, who thereby 
became a fortune to me. Do you pos- 
sess it ? If you do, and 1 were twenty 
years younger, I would give your father 
one thousand guineas for you. I know 
you would be worth more to me as a 
menagere; but I am covetous and love 
good bargains. Adieu, my dear friend, 
and believe me ever yours most affec- 
tionately. 



LETTER LXVI. 

Dr. Franklin to Mrs. HevosoV' 

Passy, January 27, 1783, 
The departure of my dearest friend*, 
which 1 learn from your last letter, 
greatly affects me. To meet with her 
once more in this life was one of the 
principal motives of my proposing to 
visit England again before my return 
to America. The last year carried off 
my friends Dr. Pringle and Dr. Fother- 
gill, and Lord Kaimes and Lord Le 
Despencer ; this has begun to take 
away the rest, and strikes the hardest. 
Thus the ties I had to that country, 
and indeed to the world in general, are 
loosened one by one ; and I shall soon 
have no attachment left to make me un- 
willing to follow. 

I intended writing when I sent the 
eleven books, but lost the time in look- 
ing for the first. I wrote with that ; 
and hope it came to hand. I therein 
asked your counsel about my coming to 
England ; on reflection, I think I can, 
from my knowledge of your prudence, 

* Refers to Mrs. Hewson's mother. 



Sect. V. 



RECENT. 



799 



foresee what it will be ; vh. not to come 
too soon, lest It should seem braving 
and insulting some who ought to be re- 
spected. I shall therefore omit that 
journey till 1 am near going to America, 
and then just step over to take leave of 
my friends, and spend a few days with 
you. I purpose bringing Ben* with 
me, and perhaps may leave him under 
your care. 

At length we are in peace, God be 
praised; and long, very long may it 
continue. All wars are follies, very 
expensive and very mischievous ones : 
when will mankind be convinced of this, 
and agree to settle their differences by 
arbitration ? Were they to do it even by 
the cast of a dye, it would be better 
than by fighting and destroying each 
other. 

Spring is coming on, when travelling 
will be delightful. Can you not, when 
your children are all at school, make a 
little party and take a trip hither ? I 
have now a large house, delightfully 
situated, in which I could accommodate 
you and two or three friends ; and I am. 
but half an hour's drive from Paris. 

In looking forward, twenty-five years 
seem a long period; but in looking 
back, how short I Could you imagine 
that it is now fiill a quarter of a century ^ 
since we were first acquainted ? it was 
in 1757« During the greatest part of 
the time I lived in the same house with 
my dear deceased friend your mother ; 
of course you and I saw and conversed 
with each other much and often. It is 
to all our honours, that in all that time 
we never had among us the smallest 
misunderstanding. Our friendship has 
been all clear sunshine, without any the 
least clouds in its hemisphere. Let me 
conclude by saying to you, what I have 
had too frequent occasions to say to my 
other remaining old friends, the fewer 
we become, the more let us love one 
another. Adieu, &c. 



LETTER LXVII. 

Dr. Franklin to the Bishop of St. Asaph 
{Dr. Shipley.) 

Passy, March 17, 1783. 
I RECEIVED with great pleasure my dear 
and respected friend's letter of the 

* Benjamin Franklin Bache, a grandson of 
Dr, Franklin, by his daughter. 



5th instant, as it informed me of the 
welfare of a family I so much esteem 
and love. 

The clamour against the peace in your 
parliament would alarm me for its dura- 
tion, if I were not of opinion with you, 
that the attack is rather against the 
minister. I am confident none of the 
opposition would have made a better 
peace for England if they had been in 
his place ; at least I am sure that Lord 
Stormont, who seems loudest in railing 
at it, is not the man that could have 
mended it. My reasons I will give you 
when I have what I hope to have, the 
great happiness of seeing you once more, 
and conversing with you. They talk 
much of their being no reciprocity in 
our treaty ; they think nothing then of 
our passing over in silence the atrocities 
committed by their troops, and de- 
manding no satisfaction for their wanton 
burnings and devastation of our fair 
towns and countries. They have here- 
tofore confessed the war to be unjust, 
and nothing is plainer in reasoning than 
that the mischiefs done in an unjust war 
should be repaired. Can Englishmen 
be so partial to themselves, as to ima- 
gine they have a right to plunder and 
destroy as much as they please ; and 
then, without satisfying for the injuries 
they have done, to have peace on equal 
terms ? We were favourable, and did 
not demand what justice entitled us to. 
We shall probably be blamed for it by 
our constituents ; and I still think it 
would be the interest of England volun- 
tarily to offer reparation of those inju- 
ries, and effect it as much as may be in 
her power. But this is an interest she 
will never see. 

Let us now forgive and forget. Let 
each country seek its advancement in 
its own internal advantages of arts and 
agriculture, not in retarding or pre- 
venting the prosperity of the other. 
America will, with God's blessing, be- 
come a great and happy country : and 
England, if she has at length gained 
wisdom, will have gained something 
more valuable, and more essential to 
her prosperity, than all she has lost ; 
and will still be a great and respectable 
nation. Her great disease at present 
is the number and enormous salaries 
and emoluments of office. Avarice and 
ambition are strong passions, and sepa- 
rately act with great force on the human 



800 



ELEGANT E P 1 S T Ji E S. 



Book IV 



mind ; but when both are united, and 
may be gratified in the same object, 
their violence is almost irresistible, and 
they hurry men headlong into factions 
and contentions destructive of all good 
government. As long therefore as these 
great emoluments subsist, your parlia- 
ment will be a stormy sea, and your 
public councils confounded by private 
interests. But it requires much public 
spirit and virtue to abolish them ; more 
perhaps than can now be found in a 
nation so long corrupted. 

LETTER LXVIH. 

Dr. Franklin to Sir Joseph Banks. 

Passy, July 27, 1783. 

Dear sir, 
1 RECEIVED your very kind letter by 
Dr. Blagden, and esteem myself much 
honoured by your friendly remembrance. 
I have been too much and too closely 
engaged in public affairs since his being 
here, to enjoy all the benefit of his con- 
versation you were so good as to intend 
me. I hope soon to have more leisure, 
and to spend a part of it in those stu- 
dies that are much more agreeable to 
me than political operations. 

I join with you most cordially in 
rejoicing at the return of peace. I 
hope it will be lasting, and that man- 
kind will at length, as they call them- 
selves reasonable creatures, have rea- 
son and sense enough to settle their 
differences without cutting throats : for, 
in my opinion, there never ivas a good 
wcir, or a had 'peace. What vast addi- 
tions to the conveniences and com- 
forts of living might mankind have ac- 
quired, if the money spent in wars had 
been employed in works of public utility ! 
What an extension of agriculture, even 
to the tops of our mountains ; what 
rivers rendered navigable, or joined by 
canals ; what bridges, aqueducts, new 
roads, and other public works, edifices, 
and improvements, rendering England 
a complete paradise, might not have 
been obtained by spending those mil- 
lions in doing good, which in the last 
war have been spent in doing mischief ; 
in bringing misery into thousands of 
families, and desticying the lives of so 
many thousands of working people, who 
might have performed the useful la- 
bour ! 



I am pleased with the late astrono- 
mical discoveries made by our society. 
Furnished as all Europe now is with 
academies of science, with nice instru- 
ments and the spirit of experiment, the 
progress of human knowledge will be 
rapid, and discoveries made, of which 
Ave have at present no conception. I 
begin to be almost sorry I was born so 
soon, since I cannot have the happiness 
of knowing what will be known one 
hundred years hence. 

I wish continued success to the la- 
bours of the Royal Society, and that 
you may long adorn their chair ; being 
with the highest esteem, dear, sir, &c. 

Dr. Blagden will acqnaint you with 
the experiment of a vast globe sent up 
into the air, much talked of here, and 
which, if prosecuted, may furnish means 
of new knowledge. 



LETTER LXTX. 

Dr. Franklin to Mrs. Bache. 

Passy, Jan. 2(5, 1784. 

My dear child. 
Your care in sending me the news- 
papers is very agreeable to me. I re- 
ceived by Captain Barney those relating 
to the Cincinnati. My opinion of the 
institution cannot be of much import- 
ance : I only wonder, that, when the 
united wisdom of our nation had, in the 
articles of confederation, manifested 
their dislike of establishing ranks of 
nobility, by authority either of the con- 
gress or of any particular state, a num- 
ber of private persons should think 
proper to distinguish themselves and 
their posterity from their fellow-citi- 
zens, and form an order of hereditaria 
knights, in direct opposition to the 
solemnly declared sense of their coun- 
try ! I imagine it must be likewise 
contrary to the good sense of most of 
those drawn into it, by the persuasion 
of its projectors, who have been too 
much struck with the ribbands and 
crosses they have seen hanging to the 
buttonholes of foreign officers. And I 
suppose those who disapprove of it have 
not hitherto given it much opposition, 
from a principle somewhat like that of 
your good mother, relating to puncti- 
lious persons, who are always exacting 



Sect. V. 



R E C E N V 



801 



little observances of respect ; that " if 
people can be pleased with small matters, 
it is a pitjj hut tkei/ should have thejn." 
In this view, perhaps, I should not my- 
self, if my advice had been asked, have 
objected to their wearing* their ribband 
and badge themselves according- to their 
fancy, though I certainly should to the 
entailing it as an honour on their poste- 
rity. For honour, worthily obtained 
(as that for example of our oflficers), is 
in its nature a personal thing, and in- 
communicable to any but those who had 
some share in obtaining it. Thus among 
the Chinese, the most ancient, and from 
long experience the wisest of nations, 
honour does not descend, but ascends. 
If a man from his learning, his wisdom, 
or his valour, is promoted by the em- 
peror to the rank of mandarin, his pa- 
rents are immediately entitled to all the 
same ceremonies of respect from the 
people, that are established as due to 
the mandarin himself; on the suppo- 
sition that it must have been owing to 
the education, instruction, and good 
example aflforded him by his parents, 
that he was rendered capable of serving 
the public. This ascending honour is 
therefore useful to the state, as it en- 
courages parents to give their children 
a good and virtuous education. But 
the descending honour, to a posterity 
who could have no share in obtaining 
it, is not only groundless and absurd, 
but often hurtful to that posterity, since 
it is apt to make them proud, disdaining 
to be employed in useful arts, and thence 
falling into poverty, and all the mean- 
nesses, servility, and wretchedness at- 
tending it ; which is the present case 
with much of what is called the noblesse 
in Europe. Or if, to keep up the dig- 
nity of the family, estates are entailed 
entire on the eldest male heir, another 
pest to industry and improvement of the 
country is introduced, which will be 
followed by all the odious mixture of 
pride, and beggary, and idleness, thathave 
half depopulated and decultivated Spain ; 
occasioning continual extinction of fami- 
lies by the discouragements of marriage, 
and neglect in the improvement of es- 
tates. I wish therefore that the Cin- 
cinnati, if they must go on with their 
project, would direct the badges of their^ 
order to be worn by their fathers ^ and' 
mothers, instead of handing them down 
t<> their children. It would be a good 



precedent, and might liave good eflFects. 
It would also be a kind of obedience to 
the fifth commandment, in v/hich God 
enjoins us to honour our father and mo- 
ther, but has nowhere directed us to 
honour our children. And certainly 
no mode of honouring those immediate 
authors of our being can be more effec- 
tual than that of doing praiseworthy 
actions, which reflect honour on those 
who gave us our education ; or more 
becoming than that of manifesting, by 
some public expression or token, that it 
is to their instruction and example we t 
ascribe the merit of those actions. 

But the absurdity of descending honours 
is not a mere matter of philosophical 
opinion, it is capable of mathematical 
demonstration. A man's son, for in-^ 
stance, is but half of his family, the 
other half belonging to the family of his 
wife. His son, too, marrying into an- 
other family, his share in the grandson 
is but a fourth ; in the great grandson, 
by the same process, it is but an eighth. 
In the next generation a sixteenth ; the 
next a thirty-second ; the next a sixty- 
fourth ; the next an hundred and twenty- 
eighth ; the next a two hundred and 
fifty-sixth ; and the next a five hundred 
and twelfth : thus in nine generations, 
which will not require more than three 
hundred years (no very great antiquity 
for a family) our present Chevalier of 
the Order of Cincinnatus's share in the 
then existing knight will be but a five 
hundred and twelfth part; which, al- 
lowing the present certain fidelity of 
American wives to be insured down 
through all those nine generations, is 
So small a consideration, that methinks 
no reasonable man would hazard, for the 
sake of it, the disagreeable consequences 
of the jealously, envy, and ill-will of his 
countrymen. 

Let lis go back with our calculation 
from this young noble, the five hundred 
and twelfth part of the present knight, 
through his nine generations, till we 
return to the year of the institution. 
He must have had a father and mother, 
they are two ; each of them had a father 
and mother, they are four. Those of 
the next preceding generation will be 
eight, the next sixteen, the next thirty- 
two, the next sixty-four, the next one 
hundred and twenty eight, the next two 
hundred and fifty-six, and the ninth in 
this retrocession five hundred p.nd twelve, 
3F 



802 



E L E G A NT E P I S T h E S. 



Book IV. 



who must be now existing', and all con- 
tribute their proportion of this future 
Clievalier de Cincinnatus. These, with 
the rest, mxike together as follows : — 

2 

4 

8 
16 
32 
64 

128 
256 
512 



Total 1022 



One thousand and twenty-two men and 
women, contributors to the formation of 
one knifi^ht. And if we are to have a 
thousand of these future knights, there 
must be now and hereafter existing one 
million and twenty-two thousand fathers 
and mothers, who are to contribute to 
their production, unless a part of the 
number are employed in making more 
knights than one. Let us strike off 
then the twenty-two thousand on the 
supposition of this double employ, and 
then consider, whether, after a reasonable 
estimation of the number of rogues, and 
fools, and scoundrels, and prostitutes, 
that are mixed with, and make up ne- 
cessarily their million of predecessors, 
posterity will have much reason to boast 
of the noble blood of the then existing 
set of chevaliers of Cincinnatus. The 
future genealogists too of these cheva- 
liers, in proving the lineal descent of 
their honour through so many genera- 
tions (even supposing honour capable 
in its nature of descending), will only 
prove the small share of this honour 
which can be justly claimed by any one 
of them, since the above simple process 
in arithmetic makes it quite plain and 
clear, that, in proportion as the antiquity 
of the family shall augment, the right to 
the honour of the ancestor will diminish ; 
and a few generations more would reduce 
it to something so small as to be very 
nsear an absolute nullity. J hope, there- 
fore, that the order will drop this part 
of their project, and content themselves 
as the knights of the garter, bath, thistle, 
St. Louis, and other orders of Europe 
do, with a life enjoyment of their little 
hubdge and ribband, ajid kt the distinction 



die with those who have merited it. 
This I imagine will give no offence. 
For my own part, I shall think it a con- 
venience, when I go into a company 
where there may be faces unknown to 
me, if I discover, by this badge, the 
persons who merit some particular ex- 
pression of my respect ; and it will save 
modest virtue the trouble of calling for 
our regard, by awkward round-about 
intimations of having been heretofore 
employed as officers in the continental 
service. 

The gentleman, who made the voyage 
to France to provide the ribbands and 
medals, has executed his commission. 
To me they seem tolerably done ; but 
all such things are criticised. Some 
find fault with the Latin, as wanting 
classical elegance and correctness ; and 
since our nine universities were not 
able to furnish better Latin, it was pity, 
they say, that the mottos had not been 
in English. Others object to the title, 
as not properly assumable by any but 
General Washington, and a few others, 
who served without pay. Others object 
to the bald eagle ^, as looking too much 
like a dindon or turkey. For my own 
part, I wish the bald eagle had not been 
chosen as the representative of our 
country ; he is a bird of bad moral cha- 
racter : he does not get his living ho- 
nestly ; you may have seen him perched 
on some dead tree, where, too lazy to 
fish for himself, he watches the labour 
of the fishing hawk ; and when that dili- 
gent bird has at length taken a fish, and 
is bearing it to his nest for the support 
of his mate and young ones, the bald 
eagle pursues him, and takes it from 
him. With all this injustice he is never 
in good case, but like those among men, 
who live by sharping and robbing, he is 
generally poor, and often very lousy. 
Besides, he is a rank coward : the little 
king bird, not bigger than a sparrow, 
attacks him boldly, and drives him out of 
the district. He is therefore by no 
means a proper emblem for the brave 
and honest Cincinnati of America, who 
have driven all the king-birds from our 
country ; though exactly fit for that 
order of knights which the French call 
chevaliers d^industrie. 1 am on this 

* The white-headed erne, or ba'.d eagle 
(falco leucocepkalus. Linn.), peculiar to North 
America; and the emblem adopted by the 
.society of Cincinnati. 



Sect, V 



ii E C E N T. 



803 



account not displeased, tliat the figure is 
not known as a bald eagle, but looks more 
like a turkey. For in truth, the turkey 
is in comparison a much more respect- 
able bird, and withal a true original 
native of America. Eagles have been 
found in all countries, but the turkey 
was peculiar to ours ; the first of the 
vspecies seen in Europe being brought 
to France by the Jesuisls from Canada, 
and served up at the wedding table of 
Charles the Ninth. He is besides 
(though a little vain and silly 'tis true, 
but not the worse emblem for that) a 
bird of courage, and would not hesitate 
to attack a grenadier of the British 
guards, who should presume to invade 
liis farm yard with a red coat on. 

I shall not enter into the criticisms 
made upon their Latin. The gallant 
officers of America may not have the 
merit of being great scholars, but they 
undoubtedly merit much as brave sol- 
diers from their country, v/hich should 
therefore not leave them merely to /(wie 
for their " virtutis premium/' which is 
one of their Latin mottos. Their " esto 
perpetual'' another, is an excellent wish, 
if they meant it for their country ; bad, 
if intended for their order. The states 
should not only restore to them the 
omnia of their first motto, which many 
of them have left and lost, but pay them 
justly, and reward them generously. 
They should not be suffered to remain 
with all their new-created chivalry en- 
tirely in the situation of the gentleman 
in the story, which their omnia retiquit 
reminds me of. You know every thing 
makes me recollect some story. He 
had built a very fine house, and there- 
by much impaired his fortune. He 
had a pride however in showing it to 
his acquaintance. One of them, after 
viewing it all, remarked a motto over 
the door, uja VANITas. What, says he, 
is the meaning of o[A ? 'tis a word I 
don't understand. I will tell you, said 
the gentleman : I had a mind to have 
the motto cut on a piece of smooth 
marble, but there was not room for it 
between the ornaments, to be put in 
characters large enougli to be read. I 
therefore made use of a contraction 
anciently very common in Latin manu- 
scripts, whereby the mh and n''s in words 
are omitted, and the omission noted by 
a little dash above, which you may see 
there, so that the word is omniu, omnia 



VANITAS. O, said his friend, I now 
comprehend the meaning of your motto, 
it relates to your edifice ; and signifies, 
that if you have abridged your omnia, 
you have nevertheless left your vanitas 
legible at full length. 

I am, as ever, your affectionate fa- 
ther. 

LETTER LXX. 

Dr. Franklin to B. Foughan, Esq. 

Passy, July 26, 1784. 

Dear friend, 
I HAVE received several letters from you 
lately, dated June 16, June 30, and July 13. 
I thank you for the information respect- 
ing the proceedings of your West India 
merchants, or rather planters. The re- 
straints, whatever they may be upon 
our commerce with your islands, will 
prejudice their inhabitants, I apprehend, 
more than us. it is wonderful how 
preposterously the affairs of this world 
are managed. Naturally one would 
imagine, that the interests of a few parti- 
culars should give way to general inte- 
rest. But particulars manage their 
affairs with so much more application, 
industry, and address, than the public 
do theirs, that general interest most 
commonly gives way to particular. We 
assemble parliaments and councils to 
have the benefit of their collected wis- 
dom, but we necessarily have at the 
same time the inconvenience of their 
collected passions, prejudices, and pri- 
vate interests. By the help of these, 
artful men overpower the wisdom, and 
dupe its possessors ; and if we may 
judge by the acts, decrees, and edicts 
all the world over for regulating com- 
merce, an assembly of wise men is the 
greatest fool upon earth. I have re- 
ceived Cook's Voyages, which you put 
Mr. Oswald in the way of sending to 
me. By some mistake the first volume 
was omitted, and instead of it a duplicate 
sent of the third. If there is a good 
print of Cook 1 should be glad to have 
it, being personally acquainted with 
him. I thank you for the pamphlets by 
Mr. Estlin. Every thing you send me 
gives me pleasure ; to receive your ac- 
count would give me more than all. 

I am told that the little pamphlet of 
Advice to such as ivoui'd remove to Ami- 
3F2 



804 



E i. E G A N r K P 1 S T L E S. 



Book IV. 



rica*, is reprinted in London, with my 
name to it, which I would rather had 
been omitted ; but Avish to see a copy 
when you have an opportunity of send- 
ing it. 

Mr. Hartley has long continued here 
in expectation of instructions for making 
a treaty of commerce, but they do not 
come, and ' I begin to suspect none are 
intended ; though perhaps the delay is 
only occasioned by the over-great bur- 
then of business at present on the 
shoulders of your ministers. We do 
not ]()ress the matter, -but are content to 
wait till they can see their interest re- 
specting America more clearly, being 
certain that we can shift as well as you 
without a treaty. 

The coiyectures I sent you concerning 
the cold of last winter still appear to me 
probable : the moderate season in Russia 
and Canada does not weaken them. I 
think our frost here began about the 
24th of December, in America the 1 2th 
of January. I thank you for recom- 
mending to me Mr. Arbuthnot ; I have 
had pleasure in his conversation. I 
wish much to see the new pieces you 
had in hand. I congratulate you on 
the return of your w^edding-day, and 
wish for your sake and Mrs. Vaughan's, 
that you may see a great many of them, 
all as happy as the first. 

I like the young stranger very much : 
he seems sensible, ingenious, and mo- 
dest, has a good deal of instruction, and 
makes judicious remarks. He will 
probably distinguish himself advantage- 
ously. 

I have not yet heard from Mr. 
Nairne. 

Dr. Price's pamphlet of Advice to 
America is a good one, and will do 
good. You ask " what remedy I have 
for the growing luxury of my country, 
which gives so much offence to all Eng- 
lish travellers without exception?" I 
answer, that 1 think it exaggerated, and 
that travellers are no good judges, whe- 
ther our luxury is growing or diminish- 
ing. Our people are hospitable, and 
have indeed too much. pride in display- 
ing upon their tables before strangers 
the plenty and variety that our country 
affords. They have the vanity too of 
sometimes borrowing one another's plate, 
to entertain more spendidly. Strangers 

* See Writings, part iii. Miscellanies, 
seot. ij. 



being invited from house to house, and 
meeting every day with a feast, imagine 
what they see is the ordinary way of 
living of all the families where they dine ; 
when perhaps each family lives a week 
after upon the remains of the dinner 
given. It is, I own, a folly in our peo- 
ple to give such offence to English tra- 
vellers. The first part of the proverb is 
thereby verified, that fools make feasts. 
1 wish in this case the other were as 
true, and wise men eat them. These 
travellers might, one would think, find 
some fault they could more decently 
reproach us with, than that of our ex- 
cessive civility to them as strangers. 

I have not indeed yet thought of a 
remedy for luxury : I am not sure that 
in a great state it is capable of a remedy ; 
nor that the evil is in itself always so 
great as it is represented. Suppose we 
include in the definition of luxury all 
unnecessary expense, and then let us 
consider, whether laws to prevent such 
expense are possible to be executed in 
a great country ; and whether, if they 
could be executed, our people generally 
would be happier, or even richer. Is 
not the hope of one day being able to 
purchase and enjoy luxuries a great 
spur to labour and industry ? May not 
luxury, therefore, produce more than it 
consumes, if, without such a spur, people 
would be, as they are naturally enough 
inclined to be, lazy and indolent ? To 
this purpose I remember a circumstance. 
The skipper of a shallop, employed be- 
tween Cape May and Philadelphia, had 
done us some small service, for which 
he refused pay. My wife understanding 
that he had a daughter, sent her as a 
present a new-fashioned cap. Three 
years after, this skipper being at my 
house vidth an old farmer of Cape May, 
his passenger, he mentioned the cap, 
and hoAv much his daughter had been 
pleased with it ; but, said he, it proved 
a dear cap to our congregation. How 
so ? When my daughter appeared in it 
at meeting, it was so much admired, 
that all the girls resolved to get such 
caps from Philadelphia ; and my wife 
and I computed that the whole could 
not have cost less than one hundred 
pounds. True, said the farmer, but 
you do not tell all the story ; I think the 
cap was nevertheless an advantage to 
us ; for it was the first thing that set 
our girls upon knitting Avorsted mittens 



Sect. V, 



RECENT. 



805 



for sale at Philadelphia, that they might 
have wherewithal to buy caps and rib- 
bands there ; and you know that that 
industry has continued, and is likely to 
continue and increase to a much greater 
value, and answer better purposes. 
Upon the whole, 1 was more reconciled 
to this little piece of luxury, since not 
only the girls were made happier by 
having fine caps, but the Philadelphians 
by the supply of warm mittens. 

In our commercial towns upon the 
sea coast, fortunes will occasionally be 
made. Some of those who grow rich 
will be prudent, live within bounds, and 
preserve what they have gained for their 
posterity. Others, fond of showing 
their wealth, will be extravagant and 
ruin themselves. LaAvs cannot prevent 
this, and perhaps it is not always an 
evil to the public. A shilling spent idly 
by a fool may be picked up by a wiser 
person, who knows better what to do 
with it : it is therefore not lost. A vain 
silly fellow builds a fine house, furnishes 
it richly, lives in it expensively, and in 
a few years ruins himself; but the 
masons, carpenters, smiths, and other 
honest tradesmen, have been by his 
employ assisted in maintaining and rais- 
ing their families ; the farmer has been 
paid for his labour and encouraged, and 
the estate is now in better hands. In 
some cases, indeed, certain modes of 
luxury may be a public evil, in the same 
manner as it is a private one. If there 
be a nation, for instance, that exports 
its beef and linen to pay for its impor- 
tations of claret and porter, while a 
great part of its people live upon pota- 
toes, and wear no shirts, wherein does 
it diflfer from the sot, who lets his family 
starve, and sells his clothes to buy 
drink ? Our American commerce is, I 
confess, a little in this way. We sell 
our victuals to your islands for rum and 
sugar ; the substantial necessaries of 
life for its superfluities. But we have 
plenty and live well nevertheless ; though 
by being soberer we might be richer, 
by the bye, here is just issued an arret 
of council taking off all the duties upon 
the exportation of brandies, which, it 
is said, will render them cheaper in 
America than your rum : in which case 
there is no doubt but they will be pre- 
ferred, and we shall be better able to 
bear your restrictions on our commerce. 
There are views here, by augmenting 



their settlements, of being able to supply 
the growing people of America with the 
sugar that may be wanted there. On 
the whole, I believe England will get as 
little by the commercial war she has 
begun with us as she did by the mili- 
tary. But to return to luxury. 

The vast quantity of forest lands 
we have yet to clear and put in 
order for cultivation, will for a long 
time keep the body of our nation labo- 
rious and frugal. Forming an opinion 
of our people and their manners, by 
what is seen among the inhabitants of 
the sea ports, is judging from an im- 
proper sample. The people of the trad- 
ing towns may be rich and luxurious, 
while the country possesses all the vir- 
tues that tend to private happiness and 
public prosperity. Those towns are 
not much regarded by the country; they 
are hardly considered as an essential 
part of the states. And the experience 
of the last war has shewn, that their 
being in possession of the enemy did 
not necessarily draw on the subjection 
of the country, which bravely continued 
to maintain its freedom and independence 
notwithstanding. 

It has been computed by some poli- 
tical arithmetician, that if every man 
and woman would work four hours each 
day in something useful, that labour 
would produce sufficient to procure all 
the necessaries and comforts of life ; 
want and misery would be banished out 
of the world, and the rest of the twenty- 
four hours might be leisure and pleasure. 
What then occasions so much want 
and misery ? It is the employment of 
men and women in works that produce 
neither the necessaries nor conveniences 
of life ; who, with those who do nothing, 
consume the necessaries raised by the 
laborious. To explain this, — 

The first elements of wealth are ob- 
tained by labour from the earth and 
waters. I have land, and raise corn ; 
with this I feed a family that does no- 
thing : my corn will be consumed ; and 
at the end of the year I shall be no 
richer than I was at the beginning. But 
if, while I feed them, I employ them, some 
in spinning, others in hewing timber and 
sawing boards, others in making bricks, 
&c. for building, the value of my corn 
will be arrested, and remain with me, 
and at the end of the year we may all 
be better clothed and better lodged. 



806 



E L E G A N r E P I S T J. E S. 



Book IV 



And if, instead of employing a man I 
/ feed in making bricks, 1 employ him in 
fiddling for me, the corn he eats is gone, 
and no part of his manufacture remains 
to augment the wealth and the conveni- 
ences of the family. I shall therefore be 
the poorer for this fiddling man, urdess 
the rest of my family work more or eat 
less to make up the deficiency he occa- 
sions. 

Look round the world and see the 
millions employed in doing nothing, or 
in something that amounts to nothing, 
when the necessaries and conveniences 
of life are in question. What is the 
bulk of commerce, for which we fight 
and destroy each other, but the toil of 
millions for superfluities, to the great 
hazard and loss of many lives by the 
constant dangers of the sea? How 
much labour spent in building and fit- 
ting great ships to go to China and 
Arabia for tea and for coffee, to the 
West Indies for sugar, to America for 
tobacco ! These things cannot be 
called the necessaries of life, for our 
ancestors lived very comfortably without 
them. 

A question may be asked ; could all 
these people now employed in raising, 
making, or carrying superfluities, be 
subsisted by raising necessaries ? I 
think they might. The world is large, 
and a great part of it still uncultivated. 
Many hundred millions of acres in Asia, 
Africa, and America, are still forest, 
and a great deal even in Europe. On 
one hundred acres of this forest a man 
might become a substantial farmer, and 
one hundred thousand men employed in 
clearing each his one hundred acres 
(instead of being, as they are, French 
hair dressers), would hardly brighten a 
spot big enough to be visible from the 
moon (unless with Herschell's teles- 
cope), so vast are the regions still in 
the world unimproved. 

'Tis however some comfort to reflect, 
that upon the whole the quantity of in- 
dustry and prudence among mankind 
exceeds the quantity of idleness and 
folly. Hence the increase of good 
buildings, farms cultivated, and popu- 
lous cities filled with wealth all over 
Europe, v/hich a few ages since were 
only to be found on the coasts of the 
Mediterranean. And this notwithstand- 
ing the mad wars continually raging, 
by which are often destroyed in one 



year the works of many years' peace. 
So that we may hope the luxury of a 
few merchants on the sea coast will noj; 
be the ruin of America. 

One reflection more, and I Avill end 
this long rambling letter. Almost all 
parts of our bodies require some ex- 
pense. The feet demand shoes, the 
legs stockings, the rest of the body 
clothing, and the belly a good deal of 
victuals. Our eyes, though exceedingly 
useful, ask, when reasonable, only the 
cheap assistance of spectacles, which 
could not much impair our finances. 
But THE EYES OF OTHER PEOPLE are the 
eyes that ruin us. If all but myself 
were blind, I should want neither fine 
clothes, fine houses, nor fine furniture. 
Adieu, my dear friend. I am yours 
ever. 

P. S. This will be delivered to you 
by my grandson. I am persuaded you 
will afl*ord him your civilities and coun- 
sels. Please to accept a little present 
of books I send by him, curious for the 
beauty of the impression. 

LETTER LXXI. 

Dr. Franklin to David Hartley, Esq. 
MP. 

Passv, July 5, 1785. 
I CANNOT quit the coasts of Europe 
without taking leave of my ever dear friend 
Mr. Hartley. We were long fellow 
labourers in the best of all works, the 
work of peace. I leave you still in the 
field ; but having finished my day's 
task, } am going home to go to bed f 
Wish me a good night's rest, as I do you 
a pleasant evening. Adieu ! And believe 
me ever yours most affectionately*. 

LETTER hX±U. 

Dr. Franklin to Dr. Shipley, Bishop of 
St. Asaph. 

Philadelphia, Feb. i^-i, 178G. 

Dear friend, 
I RECEIVED lately your kind letter of 
November 27. My reception here was, 
as you have heard, very honourable in- 
deed ; but I v;as betrayed by it and by 
some remains of ambition, from which 

* Written in his 80th year. 



Sect. y. 



RECENT. 



807 



I had imagined myself free, to accept of 
the chair of government for the state of 
Pennsylvania, when the proper thing 
for me was repose and a private life. I 
hope however to be able to bear the 
fatigue for one year, and then to retire. 
I have much regretted our having so 
little opportunity for conversation when 
we last met. You could have given 
me informations and counsels that I 
wanted; but we were scarce a mi- 
nute together without being broken 
in upon. I am to thank you however 
for the pleasure I had after our parting, 
in reading the new book you gave me, 
which I think generally well written 
and likely to do good ; though the read- 
ing time of most people is of late so taken 
up with newspapers and little periodical 
pamphlets, that few now-a-days venture 
to attempt reading a quarto volume. I 
have admired to see, that in the last 
century a folio. Burton on Melancholy, 
went through six editions in about forty 
years. We have, I believe, more readers 
now, but not of such large books. 

You seem desirous of knowing what 
progress we make here in improving 
our governments. We are I think in 
the right road of improvement, for we 
are making experiments. I do not op- 
pose all that seem wrong, for the multi- 
tude are more effectually set right by 
experience, than kept from going wrong 
by reasoning with them : and I think 
we are daily more and more enlightened ; 
so that I have no doubt of our obtain- 
ing in a few years as much public feli- 
city as good government is capable of 
affording. Your newspapers are filled 
with fictitious accounts of anarchy, con- 
fusion, distresses and miseries we are 
supposed to be involved in, as conse- 
quences of the revolution ; and the few 
remaining friends of the old government 
among us take pains to magnify every 
little inconvenience a change in the 
course of commerce may have occa- 
sioned. To obviate the complaints they 
endeavour to excite, was written the 
enclosed little piece*, from which you 
may form a truer idea of our situation 
than your own public prints would give 
you : and 1 can assure you, that the 
great body of our nation find themselves 
happy in the change, and have not the 
smallest inclination to return to the 

* Uncertain what piece is alluded to. 



domination of Britain. There could not 
be a stronger proof of the general appro- 
bation of the measures that promoted 
the change, and of the change itself, 
than has been given by the assembly and 
council of this state, in the nearly una- 
nimous choice for their governor, of one, 
who had been so much concerned in 
those measures ; the assembly being 
themselves the unbribed choice of the 
people, and therefore may be truly sup- 
posed of the same sentiments. I say 
nearly unanimous, because of between 
seventy and eighty votes, there were 
only my own and one other in the 
negative. 

As to my domestic circumstances, 
of which you kindly desire to hear some- 
thing, they are at present as happy as I 
could wish them. I am surrounded by 
my offspring, a dutiful and affectionate 
daughter in my house, with six grand- 
children, the eldest of which you have 
seen, who is now at college in the next 
street, finishing the learned part of his 
education ; the others promising both 
for parts and good dispositions. What 
their conduct may be when they grow 
up, and enter the important scenes of 
life, I shall not live to see, and I cannot 
foresee. I therefore enjoy among them 
the present hour, and leave the future 
to Providence. 

He that raises a large family does 
indeed, while he lives to observe them, 
stand, as Watts says, a broader mark for 
sorrow; but then he stands a broader 
mark for pleasure too. When we launch 
our little fleet of barks into the ocean, 
bound to different ports, we hope for 
each a prosperous voyage ; but contrary 
winds, hidden shoals, storms and ene- 
mies, come in for a share in the dispo- 
sition of events ; and though these occa- 
sion a mixture of disappointment, yet 
considering the risk where we can make 
no insurance, we should think ourselves 
happy if some return with success. 
My son's son (Temple Franklin), whom 
you have also seen, having had a fine 
farm of six hundred acres conveyed to 
him by his father when we were at 
Southampton, has dropped for the pre- 
sent his views of acting in the political 
line, and applies himself ardently to the 
study and practice of agriculture. This 
is much more agreeable to me, who 
esteem it the most useful, the most in- 
dependent, and therefore the noblest of 



808 



ELEGANT EPISTLES. 



Book IV 



employments. His lands are on navi- 
gable water, communicating with the 
Delaware, and but about sixteen miles 
from this city. He has associated to 
himself a very skilful English farmer 
lately arrived here, who is to instruct 
him in the business, and partakes for a 
term of the profits ; so that there is a 
great apparent probability of their suc- 
cess. You will kindly expect a word 
or two concerning ipyself. My health 
and spirits continue, thanks to God, as 
when you saw me. The only complaint 
I then had does not grow worse, and 
is tolerable. I still have enjoyment in 
the company of my friends ; and being 
easy in my circumstances, have many 
reasons to like living. But the course 
of nature must soon put a period to my 
present mode of existence. This I 
shall submit to with less regret, as, 
having seen during a long life a good deal 
of this world, I feel a growing curiosity to 
be acquainted with some other ; and 
can cheerfully with filial confidence re- 
sign my spirit to the conduct of that 
great and good Parent of mankind who 
created it, and who has so graciously 
protected and prospered me from my 
birth to the present hour. Wherever 
I am, I hope always to retain the 
pleasing remembrance of your friend- 
ship ; being with sincere and great 
esteem, my dear friend, yours most 
aflfectionately. 

We all join in respects to Mrs. Ship- 
ley, and best wishes for the whole 
amiable family. 



LETTER LXXIIL 

Vr. Tranklin to Mrs. Hewson, London. 

Philadelphia, May 6, 1786. 
My dear friend, 
A LONG winter has passed, and I have 
not had the pleasure of a line from you, 
acquainting me with your and your 
children's welfare, since I left England. 
I suppose you have been in Yorkshire 
out of the way and knowledge of oppor- 
tunities ; for I will not think you have 
forgotten me. To make me some 
amends, I received a few days past a 
large packet from Mr. Williams, dated 
September, 1776, near ten years since, 
containing three letters from you, one 



of December 12, 1775. This packet 
had been received by Mr. Bache after 
my departure for France, lay dormant 
among his papers during all my absence, 
and has just now broke out upon me 
like words, that had been, as somebody 
said, " concealed in ?i or them air." 
Therein I find all the pleasing little family 
history of your children ; how William 
had begun to spell, overcoming by 
strength of memory all the. difficulty 
occasioned by the common wretched 
alphabet ; while you were convinced of 
the utility of our new one. How Tom, 
genius-like, struck out new paths, and 
relinquishing the old names of the let- 
ters, called U Bell and P Bottle. How 
Eliza began to grow jolly, that is fat 
and handsome, resembling Aunt Rook, 
whom I used to call mi/ loveli/ : together 
with all the then news of Lady Blunt's 
having produced at length a boy ; of 
Dolly's being well, and of poor good 
Catherine's decease. Of your affairs 
with Muir and Atkinson, and of their 
contract for feeding the fish in the 
channel. Of the Vinys, and their jaunt 
to Cambridge in the long carriage. Of 
Dolly's journey to Wales with Mr. Scot. 
Of the Wilkes's, the Pearces, Elphin- 
ston, &c. &c. Concluding with a kind 
of promise, that as soon as the ministry 
and Congress agreed to make peace, I 
should have you with me in America. 
That peace has been some time made, 
but alas ! the promise is not yet ful- 
filled. And why is it not fulfilled ? 

I have found my family here in 
health, good circumstances, and well 
respected by their fellow citizens. The 
companions of my youth are indeed al- 
most all departed, but 1 find an agree- 
able society among their children and 
grandchildren. I have public business 
enough to preserve m« from ennui, and 
private amusement besides, in con- 
versation, books, my garden, and 
cribbage. Considering our well-fur- 
nished plentiful market as the best 
of gardens, I am turning mine, in the 
midst of which my house stands, 
into grass plats, and gravel walks, with 
trees and flowering shrubs. Cards we 
sometimes play here in long winter even- 
ings ; but it is as they play at chess, not 
for money, but for honour, or the plea- 
sure of beating one another. This will 
not be quite a novelty to you, as you 
may remember we played together in 



Sect. V. 



RECENT. 



that manner during the winter you 
helped me to pass so agreeably at Passy. 
I have indeed now and then a little com- 
punction in reflecting that I spend time 
so idly ; but another reflection comes to 
relieve me, whispering, " You know 
the soul is immortal ; why then should 
you be such a niggard of a little time, 
when you have a whole eternity before 
you?" So being easily convinced, and, 
like other reasonable creatures, satis- 
lied with a small reason, when it is 
in favour of doing what I have a mind 
to do, I shuffle the cards again and be- 
gin another game. 

As to public amusements, we have 
neither plays nor operas, but we had 
yesterday a kind of oratorio, as you will 
see by the enclosed paper ; and we have 
assemblies, balls, and concerts, besides 
little parties at one another's houses, in 
which there is sometimes dancing, and 
frequently good music ; so that we jog 
on in life as pleasantly as you do in 
England, any where but in London ; for 
there you have plays performed by good 
actors. That however is, I think, the 
only advantage London has over Phila- 
delphia. 

Temple has turned his thoughts to 
agriculture, which he pursues ardently, 
being in possession of a fine farm that 
his father lately conveyed to him. Ben 
is finishing his studies at college, and 
continues to behave as well as when you 
knew him, so that I still think he will 
make you a good son. His younger 
brothers and sisters are also all pro- 
mising, appearing to have good tempers 
and dispositions, as well as good consti- 
tutions. As to myself, I think my gene- 
ral health and spirits rather better than 
when you saw me, and the particular 
malady I then complained of continues 
tolerable. With sincere and very great 
esteem, 1 am ever, my dear friend, 
yours most affectionately. 

P. S. My children and grandchildren 
join with me in best wishes for you and 
yours. My love to my godson, to Eliza, 
and to honest Tom. They will all find 
agreeable companions here. Love to 
Dolly*, and tell her she will do well to 
come with you. 

* Mrs. Dorothy Blunt. 



LETTER LXXIV. 

Dr. Franklin to M. le Marquis de la 
Fayette. 

Philadelphia, April 17, 1787. 

Dear friend, 
1 RECEIVED the kind letter you did me 
the honour of writing in February, 1786. 
The indolence of old age, and the per- 
petual teasing of too much business, 
have made me so bad a correspondent, 
that I have hardly written a letter to 
any friend in Europe during the last 
twelvemonth; but as I have always a 
pleasure in hearing from them, which I 
cannot expect will be continued if I do 
not write to them, I again take up my 
pen, and begin with those whose cor- 
respondence is of the greatest value ; 
among which I reckon that of the Mar- 
quis de la Fayette. 

I was glad to hear of your safe return 
to Paris, after so long and fatiguing a 
journey. That is the place where your 
enlightened zeal for the welfare of our 
country can employ itself most to our 
advantage, and I know it is always at 
work, and indefatigable. Our enemies 
are, as you observe, very industrious in 
depreciating our national character. 
Their abuse sometimes provokes me, 
and 1 am almost ready to retaliate 4 but 
I have held my hand, though there is 
abundant room for recrimination j be- 
cause I would do nothing that might 
hasten another quarrel by exasperating 
those who are still sore from their late 
disgraces. Perhaps it may be best that 
they should please themselves with fan- 
cying us weak, and poor, and divided, 
and friendless ; they may then not be 
jealous of our growing strength (which, 
since the peace, does really make rapid 
progress), and may be less intent on 
interrupting it. 

I do not wonder that the Germans, 
who know little of free constitutions, 
should be ready to suppose that such 
cannot support themselves. We think 
they may, and we hope to prove it. 
That there should be faults in our first 
sketches or plans of government is not 
surprising; rather, considering the 
times and the circumstances under 
which they were formed, it is surprising 
that the faults are so few. Those in 



810 



E L E G A N T E tM S T L E 8. 



Book IV. 



the general confederating articles are 
now about to be considered in a conven- 
tion called for that express purpose ; 
these will indeed be the most difficult 
to rectify. Those of particular states 
will undoubtedly be rectified, as their 
inconveniences shall by experience be 
made manifest. And whatever differ- 
ence of sentiment there may be among 
us respecting particular regulations, the 
enthusiastic rejoicings with which the 
day of declared independence is annually 
celebrated, demonstrate the universal 
satisfaction of the people with the revo- 
lution and its grand principles. 

I enclose the vocabulary you sent me, 
with the words of the Shawanese and 
Delaware languages, which Colonel Har- 
mar has procured for me. He is promised 
one more complete, which I shall send 
you as soon as it comes to my hands. 

My grandson, whom you so kindly 
inquire after, is at his estate in the 
Jerseys, and amuses himself with culti- 
vating his lands. I wish he would 
seriously make a business of it, and 
renounce all thoughts of public em- 
ployment ; for I think agriculture the 
most honourable, because the most in- 
dependent of all professions. But I 
believe he hankers a little after Paris, 
or some other of the polished cities of 
Europe, thinking the society there pre- 
ferable to what he meets with in the 
woo3s of Ancocas ; as it certainly is. 
If he was now here, he would un- 
doubtedly join with me and the rest of 
my family (who are much flattered by 
your remembrance of them) in best 
wishes for your health and prosperity, 
and that of your whole amiable fireside. 
You will allow an old friend of fourscore 
to say he loves your wife, when he adds, 
and children, and prays God to bless 
them all. Adieu ! and believe me ever, 
yours most affectionately. 



LETTER LXXV. 

Dr. Franklin to Count de Bvffon, Paris. 

Philadelphia, Nov. 19, 1787. 
Dear sir, 
I AM honoured by your letter desiring 
to know by what means I am relieved 



in a disorder, with which you are also 
unfortunately afflicted. 1 have tried all 
the noted prescriptions for diminishing 
the stone, without perceiving any good 
effect. But observing temperance in 
eating, avoiding wine and cyder, and 
using daily the dumb beli, which exer- 
cises the upper part of the body without 
much moving the parts in contact with 
the stone, I think I have prevented its 
increase. As the roughness of the stone 
lacerates a little the neck of the bladder, 
I find, that when the urine happens to 
be sharp, 1 have much pain in making 
water and frequent urgencies. For re- 
lief under this circumstance I take, 
going to bed, the bigness of a pigeon's 
egg of jelly of blackberries : the receipt 
for making it is enclosed. While I 
continue to do this every night I am 
generally easy the day following, making 
water pretty freely, and with long in- 
tervals. I wish most sincerely that this 
simple remedy may have the same happy 
effect with you. Perhaps currant jelly, 
or the jelly of apples, or of raspberries, 
may be equally serviceable ; for 1 sus- 
pect the virtue of the jelly may lie prin- 
cipally in the boiled sugar, which is in 
some degree candied by the boiling of 
the jelly. Wishing you for your own 
sake much more ease, and for the sake 
of mankind many more years, I remain 
with the greatest esteem and respect, 
dear sir, your most obedient and affec- 
tionate servant. 



LETTER LXXVI. 

Dr. Franklin to Dr. Rush. 

Philadelphia (without date, but 
supposed to be in 1789). 

My dear friend. 
During our long acquaintance you have 
shewn many instances of your regard 
for me, yet I must now desire you to 
add one more to the number, which is, 
that if you publish your ingenious dis- 
course on the moral sense, you will to- 
tally omit and suppress that most ex- 
travagant encomium on your friend 
Franklin, which hurt me exceedingly 
in the unexpected hearing, and will 
mortify me beyond conception, if it 
should appear from the press. Con- 



Sect. ¥. 



RECENT. 



811 



fidiug in your compliance with this ear- 
nest request, I am ever, my dear friend, 
yours most affectionately. 



LETTER LXXVIl. 

Dr. Franklin to David Hartley, Esq. 

Philadelphia, Dec. 4, 1789. 

My very dear friend, 
1 RECEIVED your favour of August last. 
Your kind condolences, on the painful 
state of my health, are very ohliging. I am 
thankful to God, however, that, among 
the numerous ills human life is subject 
to, one only of any importance is fallen 
to my lot ; and that so late as almost to 
insure that it can he but of short dura- 
tion. 

The convulsions in France are at- 
tended with some disagreeable circum- 
stances ; but if by the struggle she ob- 
tains and secures for the nation its future 
liberty, and a good constitution, a few 
years' enjoyment of those blessings will 
amply repair all the damages their ac- 
quisition may have occasioned. Ood 
grant that not only the love of liberty, 
but a thorough knowledge of the rights 
of man, may pervade all the nations of 
the earth, so that a philosopher may set 
his foot anywhere on its surface, and 
say. This is my country ! Your wishes 
for a cordial and perpetual friendship 
between Britain and her ancient colo- 
nies, are manifested continually in every 
one of your letters to me ; something of 
ray disposition on the same subject may 
appear to you in casting your eye over 
the enclosed paper*. I do not by this 
opportunity send you any of our gazettes ; 
because the postage from Liverpool 
would be more than they are worth. I 
can now only add my best wishes of 
every kind of felicity for the three ami- 
able Hartleys, to whom I have the ho- 
nour of being an affectionate friend and 
most obedient humble servant. 

* Uncertain what paper. 



LETTER LXXVIH. 

fo *^'^**, 

(Without date.) 
Dear sir, 
I HAVE read your manuscript with some 
attention. By the argument it contains 
against a particular Providence, though 
you allow a general Providence, you 
strike at the foundations of all religion. 
For without the belief of a Providence 
that takes cognizance of, guards and 
guides, and may favour particular per- 
sons, there is no motive to worship a 
Deity, to fear its displeasure, or to pray 
for its protection. I will not enter into 
any discussion of your principles, though 
you seem to desire it. At present I 
shall only give you my opinion, that 
though your reasonings are subtle, and 
may prevail with some readers, you will 
not succeed so as to change the general 
sentiments of mankind on that subject ; 
and the consequence of printing this 
piece will be, a great deal of odium 
drawn upon yourself, mischief to you, 
and no benefit to others. He that spits 
against the wind, spits in his own face. 
But were you to succeed, do you ima- 
gine any good would be done by it? 
You yourself may find it easy to live a 
virtuous life without the assistance af- 
forded by religion ; you having a clear 
perception of the advantages of virtue, 
and the disadvantages of vice, and pos- 
sessing a strength of resolution sufl&cient 
to enable you to resist common temp- 
tations. But think how great a por- 
tion of mankind consists of weak and 
ignorant men and women, and of 
inexperienced, inconsiderate youth of 
both sexes, who have need of the mo- 
tives of religion to restrain them from 
vice, to support their virtue, and retain 
them in the practice of it till it becomes 
habitual, which is the great point for 
its security. And perhaps you are in- 
debted to her originally, that is to your 
religious education, for the habits of 
virtue upon which you now justly value 
yourself. You might easily display your 
excellent talents of reasoning upon a 
less hazardous subject, and thereby ob- 
tain a rank with our most distinguished 
authors. For among us it is not neces- 
sary, as among the Hottentots, that a 
youth, to be raised into the company of 



812 



E L E O A NT E P 1 S T L E S. 



men, sbould prove his manhood by 
beating- his mother. I would advise 
you therefore not to attempt unchaining- 
the tiger, but to burn this piece before 
it is seen by any other person, whereby 
you will save yourself a great deal of 
mortification from the enemies it may 
raise against you, and perhaps a good 
deal of regret and repentance. If men 



'.'....'^•'?"):Book1V. 

are so wicked with religion. What would 
they be if without it* ? I intend this 
letter itself as a proof oi my friendship, 
and therefore add no professions to it ; 
but subscribe simply yours. 

* Montesquieu says, " La religion, meme 
fausse, est le meilleur garant que les hommes 
puissent avoir de la probite des hommes." 
(Esprit des Loix, chap. 25, liv. 8.) 



"K-. 



THE END. 



CHARLES WOOD, Printer, 
Poppin's Court, Fleet Street, London/ 



^ 



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